# The Coup, the Poet and the Secret to Winning Wimbledon

An episode of [Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1484511465), 7 Jul 2023, 36 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdrl.fm/18db03/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c0ae8c6e-22f0-4e9b-ac1c-ae390037ac53/4eaa4065-1089-4352-8a34-b0360124f26c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f5a4714-6b10-4ccf-a424-ae390037ac70

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss..." Those words - from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" - were based on charismatic nineteenth century doctor, Leander Starr Jameson. In Britain, Jameson was worshipped as a plucky hero: a bastion of courage and mental fortitude. Ironically, he was also responsible for the Jameson Raid, a South African coup that was an unmitigated disaster. Kipling's champion might have spearheaded a fiasco - but could the poem "If" hold clues for triumph in another arena? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:15] Speaker 1: Pushkin. Rudyard Kipling is perhaps best known as the author
[0:26] Speaker 1: of The Jungle Book, the story of the man cub
[0:29] Speaker 1: Mowgli raised by animals such as Blue the Bear and
[0:33] Speaker 1: Bagheera the Black Panther. Kipling wrote poems two. When surveys
[0:39] Speaker 1: ask the British public for their all time favorite poem,
[0:43] Speaker 1: Kipling's If is routinely at the top of the list.
[0:47] Speaker 1: If you can keep your head when all about you
[0:50] Speaker 1: are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you
[0:53] Speaker 1: can walk with crowds and keep your virtue. If you
[0:57] Speaker 1: can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of
[1:01] Speaker 1: distance run. If is written in the form of paternal
[1:06] Speaker 1: life advice from Kipling to his son, and what will
[1:10] Speaker 1: happen if you do all the things Kipling recommends in
[1:13] Speaker 1: the poem? Well then you'll be a man, my son.
[1:18] Speaker 1: But when Kipling wrote this poem, he had a particular
[1:21] Speaker 1: man in mind as his role model. That man was
[1:24] Speaker 1: doctor Leander Starr Jameson. Dr Jameson is known today for
[1:30] Speaker 1: two things. The first is inspiring Kipling to write If.
[1:36] Speaker 1: The second is the utter fiasco that became known as
[1:41] Speaker 1: the Jameson Raid. The year is eighteen ninety five, and
[1:48] Speaker 1: doctor Leander Starr Jameson is all set to invade the
[1:51] Speaker 1: South African Republic. He has a private army of fewer
[1:56] Speaker 1: than five hundred men at his command, but he reckons
[1:59] Speaker 1: that will be more than enough to overthrow the country's government.
[2:03] Speaker 1: Anyone could take it with half a dozen revolvers. I
[2:06] Speaker 1: shall get through as easily as a knife cut through.
[2:09] Speaker 1: Butter RODGERD Kipling wasn't alone in his admiration for Dr Jameson.
[2:18] Speaker 1: By all accounts, the short and balding Scotsman had remarkable charisma.
[2:23] Speaker 1: I suppose he must have done. A couple of decades earlier.
[2:27] Speaker 1: Fresh out of medical school and working as a surgeon
[2:29] Speaker 1: at a London hospital, Jameson saw an advert for a
[2:33] Speaker 1: doctor to join a practice in a fast growing mining
[2:36] Speaker 1: town in Cape Colony, then a part of the British
[2:39] Speaker 1: Empire in what today is South Africa. And now here
[2:44] Speaker 1: he is no longer practicing medicine, but leading a small
[2:49] Speaker 1: army and casually plotting to topple the government of the
[2:52] Speaker 1: next country over. You don't have that kind of career
[2:55] Speaker 1: path unless you've got something about you. It had been
[3:00] Speaker 1: so far a life filled with triumphs. But triumph isn't everything.
[3:06] Speaker 1: As Kipling reminds us in perhaps his poems most famous line,
[3:10] Speaker 1: if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat
[3:14] Speaker 1: those two impostors just the same. Dr Jameson was about
[3:19] Speaker 1: to meet with disaster. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening
[3:25] Speaker 1: to cautionary tales. If you can meet with triumph and
[3:50] Speaker 1: disaster and treat those two impostors just the same. Those
[3:55] Speaker 1: words are written above the entrance to Centre Court Wimbledon.
[3:59] Speaker 1: They seem to resonate with tennis players. Before one classic
[4:03] Speaker 1: men's final, the BBC asked Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal
[4:08] Speaker 1: to recite the poem for them. Serena Williams likes the
[4:12] Speaker 1: poem too. She recorded a version for International Women's Day,
[4:16] Speaker 1: and she brought Kipling's embarrassingly dated closing line into the
[4:20] Speaker 1: twenty first century. You will be a woman's sister. It's
[4:25] Speaker 1: not hard to imagine why the All England Lawn Tennis
[4:29] Speaker 1: Club might have inscribed that line about triumph and disaster
[4:33] Speaker 1: above the entrance to center court. It reminds the players
[4:37] Speaker 1: that it's bad form to gloat when you win or
[4:40] Speaker 1: sulk when you lose and yet treat them just the same.
[4:45] Speaker 1: We want to see both winners and losers behave with
[4:48] Speaker 1: grace and magnanimity, of course, but we don't expect their
[4:52] Speaker 1: reactions to be emotionally indistinguishable. But there is another sporting
[4:57] Speaker 1: sense in which those words fit better. Tennis matches are
[5:01] Speaker 1: made up of sets and games and points. There's plenty
[5:04] Speaker 1: of scope for mini disasters and triumphs as the match unfolds.
[5:09] Speaker 1: High level sport is at least as much about mental
[5:12] Speaker 1: fortitude as physical skill. Let's visit Wimbledon in nineteen ninety
[5:18] Speaker 1: three for the women's final. Yarna Novotna is facing off
[5:22] Speaker 1: against stephie Graff. There's no doubt who's expected to win.
[5:27] Speaker 1: Stephie Graff has established herself as one of the all
[5:30] Speaker 1: time greats. She's won twelve Grand Slams already, including four
[5:35] Speaker 1: of the last five Wimbledon's. She's the top seed. Jarna
[5:39] Speaker 1: Novotna is seeded eighth. She's never been past the quarter
[5:43] Speaker 1: finals before. She might never get another shot at a
[5:46] Speaker 1: Grand Slam title. The first set is closely fought. The
[5:51] Speaker 1: underdog Novotna takes it all the way to a tie
[5:55] Speaker 1: break which Graf only narrowly wins. This puts Graf in
[5:59] Speaker 1: a strong position. She needs to win just one of
[6:02] Speaker 1: the two remaining sets, while Novotna must win both. It
[6:06] Speaker 1: would be all too natural for Novotna to get disheartened
[6:10] Speaker 1: at this setback. She's played hard for over an hour
[6:13] Speaker 1: and now faces a more difficult task than when she started.
[6:17] Speaker 1: But there's a risk for Graph as well. She might
[6:20] Speaker 1: react to the mini triumph of winning the first set
[6:23] Speaker 1: by getting lulled into a sense of complacency. Maybe that's
[6:27] Speaker 1: what happens, because Graf proceeds to lose the next five games.
[6:32] Speaker 1: Novotna easily takes the second set to level the match.
[6:37] Speaker 1: In the final set, Novotna's brilliant play continues. Miss Nevotna
[6:42] Speaker 1: leads by four games to one final set. There's nothing
[6:47] Speaker 1: stephie Graff can do. Novotna is inspired. She's cruising to
[6:51] Speaker 1: victory for thirty. If she wins the next point, Novotna
[6:57] Speaker 1: will be just one game away from the championship. Novotna's
[7:01] Speaker 1: first serve goes into the net. No matter that happens,
[7:06] Speaker 1: generally a player will be more careful on their second
[7:08] Speaker 1: set to try to make sure they don't lose the
[7:11] Speaker 1: point with a double fault. But this second serve is terrible.
[7:15] Speaker 1: It goes both long and wide, missing not by a
[7:18] Speaker 1: few inches, but by a good three feet deuce. It's
[7:23] Speaker 1: a double fault in itself. It doesn't matter too much.
[7:27] Speaker 1: It's just one point lost, plenty more chances to come.
[7:31] Speaker 1: But this will later be called the most iconic double
[7:35] Speaker 1: fault in the history of tennis because of what happens next.
[7:41] Speaker 1: Sometimes a sportsperson just can't put it out of their
[7:44] Speaker 1: mind when something's just gone wrong. Disaster compounds upon disaster.
[7:49] Speaker 1: Every bad shot makes the next shot worse, until they've
[7:53] Speaker 1: somehow contrived to let the whole match slip away. There's
[7:58] Speaker 1: a word for this, several phrases, in fact, getting the yips,
[8:03] Speaker 1: bottling it choking. When you get within sight of the
[8:06] Speaker 1: winning line, then you inexplicate fall apart. Jarna Novotna walks
[8:12] Speaker 1: back to the baseline, looking faintly puzzled, wiping sweat from
[8:17] Speaker 1: her cheek on the shoulder of her shirt. She is
[8:21] Speaker 1: about to endure one of the most mortifying chokes in
[8:26] Speaker 1: sporting history. Rodgyard Kipling was a tennis fan when he
[8:34] Speaker 1: lived in Vermont with his American wife. He built the
[8:37] Speaker 1: state's first tennis court at his house. But he wasn't
[8:41] Speaker 1: thinking about tennis when he wrote his poem if he
[8:45] Speaker 1: was thinking about Doctor Leander Star Jameson. Although Jameson didn't
[8:51] Speaker 1: always live up to the values the poem espoused. If
[8:55] Speaker 1: you can wait and not be tired of waiting, Dr
[8:59] Speaker 1: Jameson was very much tired of waiting for the green
[9:02] Speaker 1: light to mobilize his army and ride into the South
[9:05] Speaker 1: African Republic. But what exactly was he invading for Bear
[9:10] Speaker 1: with me for a bit of colonial history. The South
[9:13] Speaker 1: African Republic was run by Bors, descendants of Dutch people
[9:18] Speaker 1: who had come to Southern Africa centuries before, and it
[9:22] Speaker 1: was rich. In the last few years, vast deposits of
[9:26] Speaker 1: gold had been found. A new town called Johannesburg had
[9:30] Speaker 1: sprung up as fortune seekers rushed in. Many of those
[9:33] Speaker 1: fortune seekers weren't bore. The Utlanders, as the Boors called them,
[9:39] Speaker 1: came from all around the world, from Britain and Australia,
[9:43] Speaker 1: Ireland and America. This motley crew of gold hunters soon
[9:47] Speaker 1: came to outnumber the Boors. But the Boors wouldn't give
[9:50] Speaker 1: them a vote in how the republic was run. The
[9:53] Speaker 1: Utlanders began to grumble in their discontent. Another man spied
[10:00] Speaker 1: an opportunity, Cecil Roads in Southern Africa. The British Empire
[10:06] Speaker 1: and Cecil Rhodes's business empire were much the s same thing.
[10:10] Speaker 1: Rhodes ran a company that controlled vast swathes of territory
[10:14] Speaker 1: under license from the British government. His company employed police
[10:19] Speaker 1: in effect kind of private army, and in charge of
[10:22] Speaker 1: a chunk of that army, Rhodes had put his great
[10:25] Speaker 1: friend Dr Jameson. Rhodes and Jameson hatched a plan. They'd
[10:32] Speaker 1: quietly encouraged the Utlanders to stage an uprising. The Utlanders
[10:37] Speaker 1: would make a plea for help. They'd say that the
[10:39] Speaker 1: dastardly Bores were threatening their women and children. Dr Jameson
[10:43] Speaker 1: would just happen to be right on the border with
[10:46] Speaker 1: five hundred armed men. He'd ride to Johannesburg to rescue
[10:50] Speaker 1: the Utlanders, topple the Boer government and get Cecil Roads
[10:54] Speaker 1: in on the gold mining action. You may have noticed
[10:59] Speaker 1: who's missing from this cast of characters. The African inhabitants
[11:03] Speaker 1: of this resource rich land. And if you're wondering when
[11:07] Speaker 1: they're going to get a say in all this. I'm
[11:09] Speaker 1: afraid they aren't. Neither the Boors nor the British cared
[11:12] Speaker 1: much what the Africans thought. The uprising was scheduled for
[11:17] Speaker 1: December eighteen ninety five, but as the date grew near,
[11:21] Speaker 1: the Utlander conspirators began to get cold feet. Cecil Rhodes
[11:26] Speaker 1: was asking them to risk their lives in a fight
[11:29] Speaker 1: against the Boors. But what exactly was he suggesting would
[11:33] Speaker 1: happen if they won? Would the Utlanders run a new
[11:36] Speaker 1: republic or would it end up as another British colony.
[11:40] Speaker 1: Why would the American Utlanders in particular want to risk
[11:44] Speaker 1: their lives for the British Empire at the border? Jameson
[11:50] Speaker 1: was getting more and more itchy. Delay came the message
[11:55] Speaker 1: again and again. Damn those dithering Utlanders, thought Jameson. And
[12:00] Speaker 1: then he had another thought. Perhaps I could spur them
[12:05] Speaker 1: into action if I invaded anyway. Will hear how that
[12:09] Speaker 1: worked out? After the break, Cecil Rhodes and Leander Starr
[12:25] Speaker 1: Jameson had carefully laid the ground for their invasion of
[12:29] Speaker 1: the South African Republic. They had persuaded some leading Utlanders
[12:33] Speaker 1: to put their names to a letter addressed to Dr Jameson.
[12:38] Speaker 1: The letter was a plaintive appeal. Our women and children
[12:41] Speaker 1: are at the mercy of armed boars. The circumstances are
[12:45] Speaker 1: so extreme that we cannot but believe that you and
[12:48] Speaker 1: the men under you will not fail to come to
[12:50] Speaker 1: the rescue. They left the letter undated. Jameson would fill
[12:56] Speaker 1: in the date on the day he crossed the border,
[13:00] Speaker 1: but when was that going to be? In early December,
[13:04] Speaker 1: Jameson received a coded telegram from the conspirators in Johannesburg.
[13:10] Speaker 1: The polo tournament here postponed for one week. The British
[13:15] Speaker 1: government wanted to give the impression that they knew nothing
[13:19] Speaker 1: about the conspiracy. That would have looked terrible because officially
[13:23] Speaker 1: they were on friendly terms with the Boors. In reality,
[13:27] Speaker 1: the British governor of neighboring Cape Colony knew exactly what
[13:31] Speaker 1: Cecil Roads was thinking, and so did his ministerial boss.
[13:35] Speaker 1: Back in London. The British government was surreptitiously trying to
[13:40] Speaker 1: sound out the Utlanders about just how much empire they
[13:44] Speaker 1: might accept. What if you fly the Union flag but
[13:48] Speaker 1: elect your own governor Once again, a date for the
[13:52] Speaker 1: uprising was set. Once again, the Utlanders backed out. In desperation,
[13:59] Speaker 1: Cecil Roads turned to the local reporter from the London Times.
[14:04] Speaker 1: Won't you lead them? The journalist politely demurred, we must
[14:09] Speaker 1: stop Jameson. At last, Rhodes bowed to reality. The uprising
[14:16] Speaker 1: simply wasn't going to happen. The conspirators sent Jameson a
[14:21] Speaker 1: message the invasions off. As Chris Ash vividly describes in
[14:27] Speaker 1: The If Man, they hastily dispatched one of Jameson's friends
[14:31] Speaker 1: to explain the situation. The friend doesn't seem to have
[14:35] Speaker 1: tried too hard to change Jameson's mind. He dutifully passed
[14:40] Speaker 1: on the message to Jameson not to go, and then asked,
[14:44] Speaker 1: so what are you going to do? I'm going, replied Jameson,
[14:49] Speaker 1: thought you would. What are you going to do going with?
[14:53] Speaker 1: You thought you would? What on earth is Jameson thinking?
[15:00] Speaker 1: Perhaps there's a clue in his love of high stakes poker.
[15:04] Speaker 1: One evening, when he still worked as a doctor, he
[15:07] Speaker 1: lost all his cat, then his house, his carriage, horses,
[15:12] Speaker 1: and finally his medical practice. He asked a friend to
[15:16] Speaker 1: lend him some money and played on by dawn. He'd
[15:20] Speaker 1: want it all back and made a healthy profit. I
[15:24] Speaker 1: knew I would be able to rely on my luck.
[15:28] Speaker 1: Jameson was a gambler. He'd gathered his men and dramatically
[15:33] Speaker 1: produced the letter from the leading Utlanders. It filled in
[15:36] Speaker 1: the date. Women and children needed them, who would ride
[15:39] Speaker 1: with him to Johannesburg. They'd get through without any fighting
[15:43] Speaker 1: at all. Probably the invasion had been carefully planned out.
[15:49] Speaker 1: Step one cut the telegraph lines to Pretoria, the seat
[15:52] Speaker 1: of the Boer government. It would take Jameson's men several
[15:56] Speaker 1: days to ride the one hundred and seventy miles to Johannesburg.
[16:00] Speaker 1: He wanted the Boar leaders to hear the news of
[16:02] Speaker 1: his attack as late as possible, but there were two
[16:07] Speaker 1: telegraph lines, and Jameson's men cut only one of them.
[16:11] Speaker 1: A rumor later went round that they had mistakenly snipped
[16:15] Speaker 1: a farmer's wire fence instead. In Pretoria, the Boors quickly
[16:20] Speaker 1: heard what was happening. They mobilized their army, helped by
[16:24] Speaker 1: another Jameson blunder. He had invaded at Christmas, when men
[16:29] Speaker 1: of fighting age who usually lived on far flung farms,
[16:33] Speaker 1: had gathered in towns to celebrate. The plan for the
[16:37] Speaker 1: uprising called on the conspirators to make a surprise attack
[16:41] Speaker 1: on the Boar's store of weapons, which was usually lightly guarded.
[16:46] Speaker 1: But by the time the conspirators heard that Jameson was coming,
[16:49] Speaker 1: so had the Boors, and then beefed up security. The
[16:54] Speaker 1: Boar leader reached out to the Utlanders. Let's talk about
[16:57] Speaker 1: your grievances. He made some promises. The Utlander leaders agreed
[17:02] Speaker 1: to a deal. Jameson meanwhile, marched on towards Johannesburg, blithely,
[17:08] Speaker 1: confident that an uprising must soon be underway. Cecil Rhodes
[17:14] Speaker 1: was in despair. Twenty years we've been friends, and now
[17:18] Speaker 1: he goes in and ruins me. The British governor of
[17:22] Speaker 1: Cape Colony was equally horrified. Sir Hercules Robinson best name ever,
[17:28] Speaker 1: worried that his own foreknowledge of the plan might come
[17:32] Speaker 1: to light. Sir Hercules sent a messenger to ride through
[17:35] Speaker 1: the night and catch up with Jameson's march, tell Jameson
[17:40] Speaker 1: and the officers with him that her Majesty's government repudiate
[17:43] Speaker 1: their violation of the territory of a friendly state, and
[17:46] Speaker 1: that they are rendering themselves liable to severe penalties. Jameson
[17:52] Speaker 1: debated with his senior officers what to do about this message.
[17:56] Speaker 1: By now they were more than half way to Johannesburg.
[17:59] Speaker 1: They knew the boors would have mobilized behind them in
[18:02] Speaker 1: the areas they had passed, so they couldn't turn back
[18:05] Speaker 1: without a fight. May as well keep going, then, Jameson
[18:09] Speaker 1: wasn't afraid of a high stakes gamble. He later shrugged.
[18:13] Speaker 1: If I'd succeeded, I would have been forgiven. A little
[18:18] Speaker 1: further towards Johannesburg, another messenger arrived from an increasingly shrill
[18:23] Speaker 1: Sir Hercules. Her Majesty's government entirely disapprove of your conduct.
[18:28] Speaker 1: You are ordered to retire at once from the country
[18:31] Speaker 1: and will be held personally responsible for the consequences of
[18:34] Speaker 1: your unauthorized and most improper proceeding. It must have seemed
[18:39] Speaker 1: to Jameson that all around him were losing their heads
[18:42] Speaker 1: and blaming it on him. He sent a reply, of course,
[18:47] Speaker 1: I'd like to obey, Sir Hercules, but if we turned
[18:50] Speaker 1: around now, we won't have enough supplies to last us
[18:52] Speaker 1: through the journey back. We have to press on to Johannesburg.
[18:56] Speaker 1: Youcy if only to get the men and horses a
[18:59] Speaker 1: bite to eat. With thirty miles to go, Jameson received
[19:04] Speaker 1: his next set of messengers, two men on bone shaker bicycles,
[19:08] Speaker 1: which they'd ridden from Johannesburg. They were carrying three messages.
[19:15] Speaker 1: The messages don't survive, but their overall effect seems to
[19:18] Speaker 1: have been confusing. One message correctly informed Jameson that there
[19:22] Speaker 1: had been no uprising and Utlander leaders had agreed a
[19:26] Speaker 1: peace deal, But another message apparently suggested that the Utlanders
[19:31] Speaker 1: might nonetheless send reinforcements to meet Jameson at Krugersdorp, a
[19:36] Speaker 1: village that have to pass on the way to Johannesburg.
[19:39] Speaker 1: The men on bicycles, though, had just passed through Krugersdorp
[19:43] Speaker 1: themselves and seen hundreds of boar fighters, apparently lying in
[19:48] Speaker 1: wait for Jameson to arrive. What to do, Charge straight
[19:53] Speaker 1: into Krugersdorp in the hope of encountering the reinforcements, or
[19:57] Speaker 1: skirt around the side of Krugersdorp in the hope of
[20:00] Speaker 1: avoiding the bores. Skirt around the outside, said Jameson's second
[20:05] Speaker 1: in command, an experienced military man was kipling said about
[20:10] Speaker 1: taking advice if all men count with you, but not
[20:15] Speaker 1: too much. No, no, said Jameson, charged straight into Krugersdorp.
[20:20] Speaker 1: So that's what they did. After losing sixty men, Jameson
[20:27] Speaker 1: decided that perhaps they'd better skirt around the outside after all.
[20:32] Speaker 1: As night began to fall, they suddenly heard gunfire in
[20:36] Speaker 1: the distance. It was coming from Krugersdorp, the reinforcements, said Jameson,
[20:42] Speaker 1: we'll have to turn back and help them fight. But
[20:46] Speaker 1: the gunfire hadn't been reinforcements at all. It had been
[20:49] Speaker 1: yet more bore fighters arriving to join the party and
[20:53] Speaker 1: firing their guns in the air in celebration. By the
[20:56] Speaker 1: time Jameson realized there were no reinforcements, he had no
[21:01] Speaker 1: option but to stop where he was and camp for
[21:04] Speaker 1: the night. Morning brought yet another messenger from Sir Hercules.
[21:12] Speaker 1: I do command Doctor Jameson and all persons accompanying him
[21:15] Speaker 1: to immediately retire from the territory of the South African
[21:19] Speaker 1: Republic on pain of penalties attached to their illegal proceedings.
[21:25] Speaker 1: You can probably imagine how Jameson reacted to this one
[21:28] Speaker 1: last push to Johannesburg. It's only twelve more miles. Come on,
[21:32] Speaker 1: we can do this if you can force your heart
[21:36] Speaker 1: to nerve and sinew to serve your turn. Long after
[21:40] Speaker 1: they are gone, Jameson's men weren't just using their hearts
[21:44] Speaker 1: and nerves and sinews, but also their eyes and brains.
[21:49] Speaker 1: They could see that they were surrounded now by bores
[21:52] Speaker 1: and heavily outnumbered. Jameson stopped by a stream and got
[21:57] Speaker 1: off his horse to take a drink of water. Standing
[22:00] Speaker 1: nearby was an old African woman wearing a white apron.
[22:04] Speaker 1: When Jameson looked up from the stream, he was horrified
[22:08] Speaker 1: to see his soul surrendering by waving that white apron
[22:12] Speaker 1: urgently in the direction of the nearest bors. It was over.
[22:19] Speaker 1: The Boer commander sent a message to Jameson, lay down
[22:22] Speaker 1: your flag and your arms. I fight under no flag
[22:27] Speaker 1: my arms. I am prepared to surrender, but as I
[22:31] Speaker 1: have never done so before, I don't know how to
[22:33] Speaker 1: proceed about it. Jameson had demonstrated many of the qualities
[22:39] Speaker 1: that Kipling's poem extoles, but those virtues weren't the ones
[22:43] Speaker 1: that the situation demanded. The Jameson raid had been an
[22:48] Speaker 1: unmitigated disaster. Portionary tales will return after the break. Yarna
[23:14] Speaker 1: Novotna has just served a double fault to miss the
[23:17] Speaker 1: chance of getting within one game of winning the nineteen
[23:20] Speaker 1: ninety three Wimbledon Championship, but she's still in a great position,
[23:25] Speaker 1: well ahead in the deciding set. She serves again. Stephie
[23:29] Speaker 1: Graff's return is weak, giving Navotna plenty of time to
[23:33] Speaker 1: choose where to smash what should be a routine winner,
[23:36] Speaker 1: but instead she smacks the ball along way past the
[23:40] Speaker 1: baseline advantage Miss Graff. That's two bizarre errors in two points.
[23:48] Speaker 1: Graf wins the next point and the game gay Miss Graff.
[23:53] Speaker 1: Mister Vatner leads by four games to two. Final seven
[23:58] Speaker 1: should have been five to one, instead it's four to two.
[24:02] Speaker 1: At this point, any sports psychologist would tell Novotna to
[24:06] Speaker 1: forget what just happened. She's played a few bats shots,
[24:09] Speaker 1: but she hasn't suddenly become a bad player. But Novotna
[24:13] Speaker 1: seems to be struggling to refocus. Graf wins the next
[24:17] Speaker 1: game four to three, and the next and the next
[24:23] Speaker 1: ms Graff leans by five games to four. Final set.
[24:28] Speaker 1: Novotna now has to win the next game just to
[24:30] Speaker 1: keep the match going fifteen thirty, But it's not going well.
[24:36] Speaker 1: She whiffs a backhand into the net fifteen forteen, a
[24:41] Speaker 1: weak lob, and it's all too easy for stephie Graff
[24:45] Speaker 1: to smash the championship, winning point game set and mat
[24:51] Speaker 1: mis rap. It's only when Novotna is receiving the runners
[24:55] Speaker 1: up trophy that the enormity of her choke sinks in
[25:00] Speaker 1: how on earth did she lose? That? She takes the
[25:03] Speaker 1: silver plate from the Duchess of Kent, a minor British royal. Don't,
[25:09] Speaker 1: says the Duchess, you'll win it one day. Novotna starts
[25:14] Speaker 1: to well up. The Duchess reaches out a comforting arm.
[25:18] Speaker 1: Novotna puts her head on the Duchess's shoulder and sobs.
[25:25] Speaker 1: What happens when a sportsperson chokes like Yanna Novotna. Psychologists
[25:31] Speaker 1: have a few theories. One is that playing high level
[25:35] Speaker 1: sport demands all your attention, and if you start attending
[25:39] Speaker 1: to other thoughts instead, I'm so close to winning, or
[25:43] Speaker 1: it's all going wrong you can no longer perform at
[25:46] Speaker 1: your peak. Another theory is almost the reverse. It holds
[25:50] Speaker 1: that high level sport depends on skills that are so
[25:54] Speaker 1: well honed you don't have to think about them, and
[25:57] Speaker 1: when you choke, you trip yourself up by consciously analyzing
[26:01] Speaker 1: the kind of split second decisions that are usually automatic.
[26:05] Speaker 1: Whichever theory is right, Kipling told us how to avoid it.
[26:10] Speaker 1: If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat
[26:14] Speaker 1: those two impostors just the same, it's great advice for
[26:18] Speaker 1: the heat of a battle on center court. You win
[26:21] Speaker 1: a point, you lose a point, you should play the
[26:24] Speaker 1: next point in just the same way. That's not easy,
[26:29] Speaker 1: But as soon as we step out of the sporting arena,
[26:32] Speaker 1: I don't think it's great advice for life. Far from it. Generally,
[26:37] Speaker 1: when you have a disaster, you don't want to shrug
[26:40] Speaker 1: it off and plug on doing the exact same things.
[26:44] Speaker 1: You want to ask why the disaster happened and what
[26:48] Speaker 1: you might learn from it. We'll hand you over to
[26:55] Speaker 1: the government in Pretoria, said the Boar fighters to doctor Jameson.
[26:59] Speaker 1: They can decide what to do with you. They confiscated
[27:02] Speaker 1: a bag of documents that Jameson was carrying. It contained
[27:06] Speaker 1: not only the coded messages from the conspirators in johanna Burg,
[27:09] Speaker 1: but also the codebook to decipher them. The conspirators were
[27:13] Speaker 1: not happy to find themselves being rounded up and joining
[27:17] Speaker 1: Jameson under lock and key back in Britain, though the
[27:21] Speaker 1: nationalistic public didn't see Jameson as a blundering incompetent. They
[27:25] Speaker 1: thought he was a plucky hero. The Doctor had Aird
[27:30] Speaker 1: said the times of London only through excess of zeal
[27:34] Speaker 1: for empire. The poet laureate rushed out some verses, there
[27:39] Speaker 1: are girls in the gold Reef city. There are mothers
[27:42] Speaker 1: and children too, and they cry hurry up for pity.
[27:46] Speaker 1: So what can a brave man do? In Pretoria, the
[27:50] Speaker 1: boar leader resisted demands to make Jameson face a firing squad.
[27:55] Speaker 1: There was no point creating a martyr. Instead, he passed
[27:59] Speaker 1: Jameson on to the British authorities in the nearest colony,
[28:02] Speaker 1: and they put him on the first boat back to London,
[28:05] Speaker 1: where he was lionized. He received many offers of marriage,
[28:09] Speaker 1: including one from an attractive and wealthy widow who explained
[28:13] Speaker 1: that she had two marriageable daughters, and the gallant doctor
[28:18] Speaker 1: might make his choice of the three veterans of Jameson's
[28:23] Speaker 1: raid would work the pubs of London, collecting money and
[28:26] Speaker 1: the odd glass of whiskey in exchange for vivid tales
[28:30] Speaker 1: of their adventures. Not just veterans either. One newspaper archly
[28:35] Speaker 1: noted that South African dress was easily obtained from theatrical suppliers,
[28:41] Speaker 1: adding that there are more felt hatted, high booted individuals
[28:45] Speaker 1: now working the public houses of London than ever saw Krugersdorp.
[28:51] Speaker 1: The hero worship of Jameson and his raiders gave Britain's
[28:55] Speaker 1: government a headache. He might be popular, but Jameson had
[29:00] Speaker 1: invaded an ostensibly friendly state. They had to put him
[29:04] Speaker 1: on trial. But they also knew Jameson had incriminating messages
[29:09] Speaker 1: from Sir Hercules Robinson, showing that the government had been
[29:13] Speaker 1: well aware of the plan to ferment an uprising. Sir
[29:16] Speaker 1: Hercules sent his deputy to talk to Jameson. Well, said Jameson,
[29:22] Speaker 1: I have made a nice mess of it. I suppose
[29:25] Speaker 1: you've come to reproach me. Certainly, not came the reply,
[29:30] Speaker 1: but I want you to help your country out of
[29:33] Speaker 1: the mess. How could Jameson do that? Go to prison
[29:38] Speaker 1: with your mouth shut? He was told Jameson did stoically
[29:43] Speaker 1: taking all the blame, despite some skeptical questioning, Sir Hercules
[29:48] Speaker 1: must have known of your planned invasion, wouldn't it have
[29:51] Speaker 1: been the proper thing for you to have told him?
[29:54] Speaker 1: Indeed it would, said Jameson. But if I was concerned
[29:58] Speaker 1: about doing the proper thing, I wouldn't have been planning
[30:01] Speaker 1: the invasion in the first place. For Rudyard Kipling, Jameson's
[30:05] Speaker 1: cheerful willingness to trash his own reputation with deeply impressive.
[30:11] Speaker 1: If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
[30:14] Speaker 1: twisted by Knaves to make a trap for fools. Jameson
[30:19] Speaker 1: served his time in prison, then went back to Southern Africa.
[30:24] Speaker 1: He stood for parliament in Cape Colony and soon worked
[30:27] Speaker 1: his way up to be Prime Minister. A demonstration of
[30:30] Speaker 1: astonishing incompetence, it seemed, was no impediment to success in
[30:35] Speaker 1: British politics. Some might wonder how much has changed? But
[30:40] Speaker 1: what had Jameson learned from the disaster of the Jameson Raid.
[30:45] Speaker 1: If there's an answer to that question, we don't know it.
[30:48] Speaker 1: Jameson never talked about it. When his friends asked, he'd
[30:53] Speaker 1: simply laughed. That he'd made a bloody fool of himself.
[30:58] Speaker 1: It's hard for us today to see doctor Jameson through
[31:01] Speaker 1: the admiring eyes of Rudyard Kipling. What, after all, was
[31:06] Speaker 1: the Jameson raid about? Not right or wrong, not some
[31:10] Speaker 1: deep point of principle. No, it was about which set
[31:15] Speaker 1: of white men would get to exploit the minerals of
[31:17] Speaker 1: Black Africans, Which very rich man, the British businessman Cecil Roads,
[31:23] Speaker 1: or the boor leader Paul Krueger would get richer. Still,
[31:27] Speaker 1: it's clear to us that this is all beside the point.
[31:30] Speaker 1: What matters is the inequality the exploitation. But for Jameson,
[31:35] Speaker 1: it seems gaining territory was little more than a game.
[31:39] Speaker 1: So perhaps it's no coincidence that the famous line about
[31:43] Speaker 1: triumph and disaster feels so well suited to playing games.
[31:49] Speaker 1: And I don't think that's the only line from Kipling's
[31:51] Speaker 1: poem that's brilliant advice for sports, but terrible advice for life.
[31:57] Speaker 1: If you can make one heap of all your winnings
[32:00] Speaker 1: and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss
[32:04] Speaker 1: and lose and start again at your beginnings and toss
[32:10] Speaker 1: is a simple, silly gambling game. Jameson would probably have
[32:14] Speaker 1: loved it, but I can't help feeling that it's generally
[32:18] Speaker 1: a good idea not to risk everything you own on
[32:21] Speaker 1: one turn of pitch and toss if you can help it.
[32:25] Speaker 1: In sport, you can't help it, And if the risk
[32:27] Speaker 1: doesn't pay off, then exactly the right response is to
[32:31] Speaker 1: start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word
[32:34] Speaker 1: about your loss. Or how about that line about knaves
[32:39] Speaker 1: twisting the truth to make a trap for fools. It's
[32:42] Speaker 1: a common enough problem nowadays, But is the right response
[32:46] Speaker 1: really to bear it? I'm not so sure. Again, except
[32:50] Speaker 1: for sport, you'll often see a cunning player fooler referee
[32:54] Speaker 1: into giving an unfair decision. The best response for the
[32:57] Speaker 1: opposing player is generally to suck it up and stay
[33:01] Speaker 1: coolly focused on winning the match. You can complain about
[33:04] Speaker 1: the refereeing standards when the match is over, and when
[33:08] Speaker 1: the match is over then you can ask what you
[33:11] Speaker 1: can learn from it to stand you in better stead
[33:14] Speaker 1: for next time. That's what Yarna Novotna tried to do
[33:19] Speaker 1: after her defeat in the Wimbledon final of nineteen ninety three.
[33:23] Speaker 1: Novotna said later I'm always trying to take only the
[33:28] Speaker 1: positive things from that final and put it in a
[33:31] Speaker 1: good way for the future. Novotna got to the final
[33:35] Speaker 1: of Wimbledon again five years later. Once again she walked
[33:40] Speaker 1: on to center court under the words about treating those
[33:44] Speaker 1: two impostors just the same. This time she won. There
[33:50] Speaker 1: again to present the trophy was the Duchess of Kent.
[33:55] Speaker 1: Before she handed over the big gold plate, not the
[33:58] Speaker 1: little silver one, she warmly clasped both of Novotna's hands
[34:03] Speaker 1: in hers and said, I'm so proud of you. Treat
[34:08] Speaker 1: those two in Posta's just the same while playing. Yes,
[34:13] Speaker 1: but Novotna had learned from her disaster, you couldn't begrudge
[34:17] Speaker 1: her enjoying the triumph. The key source on the Jameson
[34:27] Speaker 1: raid is Chris Ash's book The If Man. For a
[34:31] Speaker 1: full list of our sources, please see the show notes
[34:34] Speaker 1: at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me
[34:41] Speaker 1: Tim Harford with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Alice Fines
[34:45] Speaker 1: with support from Edith Huslow. The sound design and original
[34:49] Speaker 1: music is the work of Pascal Wise. Julia Barton edited
[34:53] Speaker 1: the scripts. It features the voice talents of Ben Crowe,
[34:57] Speaker 1: Melanie Guttridge, Jemma Saunders and rufus Wright. The show wouldn't
[35:02] Speaker 1: have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly,
[35:06] Speaker 1: Greta cohne Let, Al Mallard, Carlie mcgliori and Eric Sandler.
[35:15] Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It was
[35:19] Speaker 1: recorded in Wardall Studios in London by Tom Berry. If
[35:22] Speaker 1: you like the show, please remember to share, rate and
[35:25] Speaker 1: review go on you know it helps us and if
[35:28] Speaker 1: you want to hear the show ad free, sign up
[35:31] Speaker 1: for Pushkin Plus on the show page in Apple Podcasts
[35:35] Speaker 1: or at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus

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