Gordon Stables' 'The Cruise of the Rover Caravan' 1896

James Nesbit first edition - 1896

What a fascinating man Gordon Stables must have been. A born raconteur, he wrote over 130 books, mainly for boys - adventure fiction often with a nautical or historical setting. He was born in Aberchirder, Banffshire in 1837, and as a child loved to wander free in the countryside and developed a deep love of nature. He described himself as a born wanderer and, whilst still a student, travelled twice to the Arctic. He joined the Navy as an Assistant Ship Surgeon in February 1863 to the 39-gun frigate Narcissus. His naval experiences led him to write his first book Medical Life in the Navy. He saw service in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and off the West African coast. He later served in the Merchant Service, gaining first-hand experience of South America and Australia. In 1874, he married and settled down at Twyford in Berkshire. To supplement his income he turned to his writing, which often appeared in serial form before publication as novels. He contributed to Chambers Journal, Cassell's Magazine and, for more than 30 years, to the Boy's Own Paper.  What a life!

William Gordon Stables (1837-1910)

I first came across his work when I was given a copy of The Gentleman Gipsy, published by The Kylin Press in 1984. This had been originally printed in the Leisure Hour in 1885 and 1886 and then, in book form, as The Cruise of the Land Yacht Wanderer: Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan. With his coachman John and Foley, the 20-year-old valet, cum cook, who rode ahead on a Ranelagh club tricycle to warn other road users and seek out the least hilly routes, he passed through Ashby de la Zouch - hence my particular interest. They were accompanied by Hurricane Bob, a Newfoundland dog, and Polly, a snowy white parrot who could play the guitar with her beak. No wonder, they regularly attracted locals as they passed through the towns and villages.

The Cruise of the Rover Caravan was a fictionalised version of the author's travels round Britain. Young Carleton Radcliffe, a thorough English boy, with a face that gave promise of healthful and robust manhood yet to come (but confined to his chair or a wheel-bed for some months, due to a weak spine), and his muscular Christian Canadian cousin, Douglas Stuart, very handsome...square-shouldered,...nearly six feet high are persuaded by their Uncle Ben, with a life-time at sea behind him, to have a caravan built and go off to explore England and Scotland. They are accompanied by Lady Bute the St. Bernard, Kammy the chameleon and Linten Lowerin, the cat, who get into all sorts of scrapes on the journey. 

Gordon Stables and his caravan The Wanderer

It's a good yarn. The boys meet up with adventures, involving gipsies (one of whom, a young girl Neeta, who had masses of jetty hair, ends up marrying Carleton) and some diabolical weather - particularly in Scotland. They appear to do exactly as they want, staying for days in the New Forest, the Norfolk Broads and the Scottish highlands. Like good Victorian boys, they say their prayers at night, go to church on a Sunday and are honest (Douglas thrashes a deceitful ostler at one inn), thoughtful and brave. No wonder the author came top in a poll of readers of The Boy's Own Paper in the issue of 25th March 1899, ahead of competition that included Jules Verne.

After an eventful journey of many hundreds of miles - through Merrie England and Bonnie Scotland, the boys return home, the caravan pulled by the ever-faithful Dick Swiveller and a light canvas-covered cart, pulled by Hans a Shetland Pony, controlled by fourteen-year-old 'Major' Buffles, page and kitchen-boy at Carelton's home for over a year, who had become the general factotum to the two boys. Stables rounds off his  tale with an 'epilogue' six long years later. Carelton is now master of his home, Pine Lodge, living there with Neeta, his mother and bluff old sailor Uncle Ben. Douglas is a wealthy farmer in Canada; Dick is still alive; so is Hans the daft wee Shetland pony; dear Lady Bute is eight and is good-looking as ever; Linten Lowerin means to live until he is nineteen; Polly Gordon is as saucy as ever - she may live till she is ninety; Major Buffles is not quite so fat now; poor Kammy died in reality one cold frosty night. So all's well that ends well (apart from Kammy) for two upright Victorian young men, their family and animals, and the little gipsy girl, whose father actually turned out to be an Italian count!