Wilde sons’Irish rich lives
QUESTION What became of Oscar Wilde’s sons Cyril and Vyvyan?
IRISH poet and playwright Oscar Wilde had two sons by his wife Constance Lloyd, Cyril, who was killed in action during the First World War, and Vyvyan, who had a long career as an author, translator and editor.
The first of Oscar Wilde’s sons, Cyril, was born in June 1885, while Vyvyan was born nearly 18 months later, in November, 1886. Wilde was actually a devoted father to his two sons, whose childhoods were relatively happy.
But after Wilde was jailed in 1895, his wife adopted the surname Holland for herself and the two boys. She took the two boys to Switzerland, then enrolled them at an English-speaking school in Germany and Oscar Wilde never saw his sons again.
The oldest son, Cyril, after he left school, became a cadet at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, London. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery at the end of 1905, when he was 20. Until the start of the First World War in 1914, he spent several years in the British Army in India before returning to Europe to serve on the Western Front.
He was killed by a German sniper on May 9, 1915, at Neuve Chapelle in France and was buried in the nearby military cemetery at Richbourg- l’Avoué.
Vyvyan also fought in the First World War, but survived and had a long literary life.
He studied law at Cambridge University between 1905 and 1907, but left because he was so bored with his studies. The following year, 1908, he resumed his law studies and was called to the Bar in England and Wales in 1912.
In July, 1909, he travelled to Paris to see the reburial of his father at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, where the memorial to him remains one of the most celebrated in the cemetery.
Vyvyan served in the Royal Field Artillery, as did his brother, Cyril, but Vyvyan survived the war. However, he lost his first wife, Violet Craigie, during that conflict, when she died from injuries received in a fire.
At the time he qualified in law, Vyvyan started to write poems and stories, and he soon abandoned any idea of making a legal career for himself. After the war, he began to make a name for himWhen self as a writer, translator and editor and throughout the second world war, he worked for the BBC as a scriptwriter and translator. In September, 1943, he married his second wife, Thelma Besant.
In 1947, they left for Australia and lived in Melbourne between 1948 and 1952, before returning to England.
Vyvyan wrote several books, including three concerning his famous father, Oscar. This tradition was continued by the son of Vyvyan and Thelma, Merlin Holland, who has also written several books about his grandfather.
Vyvyan Holland, the youngest of Oscar Wilde’s two sons, died in London in 1967, aged 80. Mena Cullen, Co. Wexford.
QUESTION Why do some people say ‘white rabbits’ on the first day of each month?
WHITE rabbits is something of a mystery. The phrase is thought to be a euphemism used instead of an expletive, and is perhaps a survival of the ancient belief in swearing as a means of avoiding evil.
The use of just the word rabbits predates this. The earliest known reference is in 1909 Notes & Queries: ‘My two daughters are in the habit of saying “Rabbits!” on the first day of each month. The word must be spoken aloud, and be the first word said in the month. It brings luck for that month. Other children, I find, use the same formula.’
Just why this superstition arose is uncertain, but rabbits have long been a symbol of fertility and prosperity. George Smith, Haywards Heath, W Sussex.
QUESTION During the rapper Kanye West’s meeting with Donald Trump, he mentioned hydrogen-powered aircraft. Do they exist?
THERE are several experimental hydrogen-powered aircraft, but they are not in commercial use. The object is to reduce pollution. Conventionally fuelled aircraft engines emit pollutants including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, unburnt fuel and soot particles.
If hydrogen is used in place of kerosene in a conventional jet engine, the only pollutant emitted is nitrous oxide. The exhaust is mainly water vapour.
A better way is to supply the hydrogen to a fuel cell, where the hydrogen is combined with oxygen from the atmosphere to produce electricity.
The direct current produced by the fuel cell is converted to alternating current electronically and used to power one or more brushless electric motors to drive a propeller or ducted fan.
The output of the fuel cell may be supplemented by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery to provide additional power when needed, for example, during take-off.
There are problems. Hydrogen is a gas at everyday temperatures, so to carry enough for a reasonable range you have to compress it and store it in heavy pressure vessels or cool it to below minus 253c to convert it into a liquid.
liquefied, hydrogen is only a third of the weight of conventional fuel, but it occupies four times the volume.
The fuel tanks for liquefied hydrogen have to be slightly pressurised, which makes them spherical or cylindrical. These can’t be carried in the wings and must be stored in the fuselage or external streamlined tanks.
A liquid hydrogen fuel tank has to be well insulated to slow the rate at which the hydrogen boils off and to prevent ice forming on the tank.
Hydrogen as a gas is not available in significant quantities so has to be manufactured. Most of it is made by a chemical process from natural gas or charcoal.
The first produces carbon dioxide as a by-product and the second results in carbon monoxide, so neither can be considered green. Hydrogen can also be produced by running an electric current through water, but this is much more expensive than other methods.
Researchers are working on nonpolluting methods of producing low-cost hydrogen, together with a means of storage that does not involve low temperatures or high pressures. Denis Sharp, Hailsham, E. Sussex.
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