Dear Rolly,
Peter Hathaway Capstick was a great writer. I knew him although I cannot personally attest to the truth of what he wrote from personal experience. I did not know him that well. However, I knew Bob Langeveldt pretty well and we had several long conversations about Peter's writings. For those with a copy of Death in the Long Grass, Bob is mentioned often in the chapter on elephant.
Bob was a control officer for many years and had well over 1000 elephants to his credit. Peter did do at least some elephant cropping as Bob told me that the young Capstick was sent to him to learn "the ropes" of culling jumbo. He also told me several interesting stories about the experience.
Bob also told me, and I fully believe what I was told, that everything in Peter's books actually happened. However, he also told me that it didn't necessarily happen exactly the way it was recorded in his books.
Whatever the real truth might be, he was a truly gifted writer and left us much too young.
Tom
