June calendar

[John Powell]

Now this is provenance: the kothimora shown was presented in 1951 to Miss Phyllis Makepeace by the officer's, men and families of the 1/6th Gurkha Rifles after joining them as a welfare worker with the Women's Volunteer Service.

Her story appeared in a 1988 article in "The Kukri" which is the journal for The Brigade of Gurkhas. Along with the knife I got letters, photos and her own description of the experience and adventure. One of her interesting quotes is about the wives: "...the wives had a kukri each, and used them in the kitchen and their rooms. Many kept them under their pillows during the night...".

Her affection for these families is very heartfelt and she labored for years after to improve the lot of retired Gurkhas through the Gurkha Welfare Trust. She passed away in the mid 90s and recently I received this knife through her family. Granted it's not the weapon of a VC winner or a high ranking officer, but it signifies the kothimoras use as a gift for someone of great value who was truly loved.

According to her notes there are 210 wives and 240 children in the group picture and described as "My Large Family".

 

[mPisi]

Great picture, great story. Thanks!

 

[VML]

Yes, much more than a pretty picture - a very human slice of life.

 

[Ferrous Wheel]

Thanks as always, JP!

Keith

 

[Berkley]

Wow! Wonderful story of a great person, and terrific provenance for a beautiful knife.

 

[spiraltwista]

Excelant JP! both kuk & provinance! & after all much rarer history than the standard post war officers kothi as well!

Another goody for your collection!

Thanks for sharing!

Spiral

 

[btice]

John, I have not mentioned this before, but you really write well. I appreciate you taking the time for us.

Ben

 

[Daniel Koster]

great story and beautiful kothimora, JP!

 

[ddean]

John, I have not mentioned this before, but you really write well. I appreciate you taking the time for us.

How comes the book?

 

[Rod Allen]

As usual brilliant!

 

[John Powell]

It is a good story and I met a docent at the Gurkha Museum who knew Miss Makepeace. I got a chance to show her the photos, letters and then we found the right copy of The Kukri which let her go on about just what these women accomplished. Great stuff.

Thanks for the compliment concerning my stringing of words together. You see I wrote this book, but can't find anyone to privately fund the damned thing...

 

[ddean]

I wrote this book, but can't find anyone to privately fund the damned thing...

Heard that before.............

Have you checked into small-run / on-demand self-publishing?

Distribution & marketing may be more important than the actual printing.

This is a book I heard about long before it was
self-published:
www.sevenstarstrading.com/chineseswordsmanship
Same long story of backers come & gone.
Google on:
amazon|stars chinese-swordsmanship rodell
www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en...f&q=amazon|stars+chinese-swordsmanship+rodell
to see the current distribution.

The Seven Stars publishing company is his own for his own products.

Might be a good contact to follow up.
His posts in Swordforum seem mostly personable.

------------add

For all interested.........

Seemingly good summary comments re Print-On-Demand publishing:
www.fonerbooks.com/pod.htm

 

[mohd]

Lots of thanks JP .. Kedah is a state at the northen part of Malaysia (i.e Malaya) .. recently I found out a small Nepalese community in KL Malaysia .. mostly specialized as security officers either to individuals or private companies .. security staff of Australian Embassy in KL are Nepalese. Gorkhas played important role in keeping peace in Malaysia during the emergency period fr 1957 to 1963.

 

[Kismet]

John?

Have you made enquiries of British publishers?

Also, a large number of U.S. publishers are getting their books printed in China and shipped Stateside, resulting in enormous cost savings. Might be worth investigating.

All I've ever heard of self-publishing leads me to believe that is expensive to the author, and very hard to recoup the investment. In addition, the keys to success for a publishing company are their distribution networks and marketing techiques.

It would be very hard for an individual to fight for shelf-space and show either a profit, or even a break-even bottom line.

I wish you the best however it goes.

You give to us each time you post.


Kis

 

[John Powell]

The interest in the book is evident and believe me I have looked at more options than I knew were out there. The biggest problem is me. I have designed, written and want to produce a book in a large format (can't do that in "on-demand") and many, many colour photos (goodbye small publishers) and insist on what I've actually designed (goodbye ANY publisher).

Of course there are lots of publishers/printers who'd be glad to do anything as long as I paid $$$$, etc. and eventually I might see a profit. This also was never my intention. I just want production costs covered and the profit would go to The Gurkha Welfare Trust.

At this time the Colonel of The Brigade of Gurkhas, The GWT, the government of Nepal nor any museum is willing to produce/back a volume of "such limited interest and niche market". I may have to produce a little paperback with a few b&w drawings and photos. Not the reference book I have worked so hard for, but as someone pointed out the Rawson book is very limited visually, but is refered to continually. It also raises many questions because of the limited b&w pictures. FYI: almost all the items in that book are stored at the V&A and I have had the privelege of handling all of them and they are vastly different from what the book has shown.