Thursday, June 02, 2016

RAFAEL SABATINI AT PLAY

Rafael Sabatini enjoyed many sports and pastimes, of which fishing was the favourite - to the extent that he said it was his "business" and writing was only an "amusement".

Indoors, he played card games, games of chance, and chess as well as billiards. He fenced, too. 
Outdoors, he enjoyed boating on a river (mostly in a canoe) when he was young, later on it was mainly tennis; in winter it was skiing and skating that filled his holidays.
There are no photographs of Rafael playing tennis or fencing, nor of him playing cards. But other photographs, besides those readily found online, are these:


Rafael and Ruth Sabatini in a canoe on the Thames, soon after their marriage


Rafael fishing at Cockermouth
Rafael and Ruth skating

unknown; Rafael, Rafael-Angelo and Ruth



 A staged game of chess between estranged husband and wife.


Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.

2 comments:

fishtronics said...

Wonderful pix Ruth, you are a great researcher! Thanks for sharing! Jason

Ruth said...

My pleasure. But most of the photographs are courtesy of Dollie's generosity in giving me such negatives and prints as Jesse himself obtained through the generosity of Anthony Dixon-Green, Ruth Dixon Sabatini's nephew. You will have seen all that in READING RAFAEL. Rafael Sabatini was not only generous himself, it appears that he has been, and continues to be, the cause of generosity in others! That is a very fine legacy, and rare.