Nevil Shute Trivia

1. "An Old Captivity" is a tale about flying, but its opening scene is centred around which form of transport?

From Quiz An Old Captivity

Answer: Train

As with some of Nevil Shute's other novels, the story is told in hindsight. The hero, Donald Ross, was travelling by train to collect a flying boat from Brindisi for Imperial Airways. His train was stranded in the Jura when a goods train was derailed ahead of them. He fell into conversation with a psychiatrist, who was travelling to Rome for a consultation.

From Quiz Nevil Shute - Great Author!

Answer: Slide Rule

Daresay Nevil used a slide rule rather often! His work in the new field (at the time) of commercial aviation and that of airship engineering involved many thousands of hours of calculating work.

From Quiz A Town Like Alice

Answer: The Legacy

The other three choices are also titles of novels by Nevil Shute. The book has been filmed twice - the first version starred Peter Finch and Virginia McKenna, and the second starred Brian Brown and Helen Morse. Both screenplays were very faithful to the original novel.

From Quiz Nevil Shutes` "On The Beach"

Answer: Scorpion

Commander Towers was the Captain of the Scorpion,the last nuclear powered warship.The ship was on patrol near Midway when the war started.As Scorpion was a submarine the crew were able to avoid the nuclear strikes and escape the effects of the radiation, for a time.

From Quiz An Old Captivity

Answer: An Oxford don

Ross assumed that it would be a well organised expedition of young men, and expected that he might be the oldest participant. He was somewhat taken aback to meet an Oxford don in his fifties, who knew nothing about what would be required to produce an aerial survey of a possible Viking settlement.

From Quiz Nevil Shute - Great Author!

Answer: Marazan

Published in 1926, "Marazan" was Shute's third literary effort. Interestingly, his first two fictional projects, rejected by publishers in 1923/24, were published as one volume, "Stephen Morris", after Shute's death in 1960. "Landfall" and "Pied Piper" are two more titles written by Shute.

From Quiz A Town Like Alice

Answer: Jean Paget

Mrs. Frith, Eileen Holland and Ellen Forbes are also characters in the novel. Jean is an English girl who spent her early childhood in Malaya, where her father was a rubber planter. After leaving school in England, she goes back to Malaya to work for the firm that employed her father and brother, and is there when the Japanese invade South East Asia in 1941. She is taken prisoner, but because there are no internment camps for women and children, she and the other women and children are sent (on foot and under guard) hither and yon, all over Malaya. Many of the women and children die on this forced march.

From Quiz Nevil Shutes` "On The Beach"

Answer: Ferrari

As there was seemingly no point to many of the drivers surviving the race only to die days later of radiation sickness they drove hell for leather.The result being that only three drivers finished the race and most of the others were either dead or in hospital.

From Quiz Nevil Shute - Great Author!

Answer: "So Disdained" and "Lonely Road"

These books were written in the time that Shute was heavily involved in his firm's (Vickers Ltd) competition with the British Government's Air Ministry over building a commercially viable airship and flying a cargo overseas. Vicker's airship, named R100, flew off to Canada on July 29, 1930 (with Shute on board as part of 50-strong crew) and returned on August 16, spending about 130 hours actually flying. The Air Ministry airship, R101, beset with political interference, embarked for India on October 4 and crashed near Beauvais, France some seven hours after takeoff. Of fifty four persons on board, there were just six survivors. One wonders, with reading Shute's autobiography, just how he ever found the time to write! The other titles in the question are all written by Shute.

From Quiz A Town Like Alice

Answer: Joe Harman

Pete, Sam and Tommy are three other male characters in 'A Town Like Alice'. Joe is an Australian prisoner-of-war who helps the women by providing such things as soap and Glauber's salts (which appear to be some sort of medicine) when they arrive in Kuantan.

From Quiz Nevil Shutes` "On The Beach"

Answer: Cyanide Pills

The cyanide pills came in a small red box with two pills to a box,they were handed out about a week before the radiation hit the locale.

From Quiz An Old Captivity

Answer: Southampton

The Lockwoods joined Ross in Southampton ready for the departure of the expedition. Alix was horrified by the aircraft's colour, vivid orange, but was silenced by the explanation that it would be much easier to spot if something happened and a search party was sent out to look for them.

From Quiz Nevil Shute - Great Author!

Answer: Lonely Road

The film was released in the U.S. as "Scotland Yard Commands" in 1936. Film rights to "Ruined City" were sold in 1937. The other two titles were also written by Shute.

From Quiz A Town Like Alice

Answer: Malaya

Joe and Jean met in Kuantan, Malaya during World War II. Joe eventually steals some prized chickens to provide the women with something to eat. The chickens belonged to the local Japanese commandant and Joe is punished for the theft.

From Quiz Nevil Shutes` "On The Beach"

Answer: Tasmania

Many people had come down the coastline to try and escape death for a few days,but few chose to cross Bass Strait and spend their last days in Tasmania.

From Quiz A Town Like Alice

Answer: Mrs. Boong

Jean has, by necessity, assumed the role of leader and spokeswoman for the women, and Joe assumes that she is married because she is caring for the baby of one of the women who has died. She doesn't tell him her name, so he calls her Mrs. Boong.

From Quiz Nevil Shutes` "On The Beach"

Answer: Davidson

From Quiz An Old Captivity

Answer: The man broke his leg during the journey

Jameson had fallen and broken his thigh during a storm a week earlier. The governor had arranged for all the equipment to be placed in a house which they could use, but he would not allow Jameson to land at Julianehaab, as he would need to stay in the hospital all winter till another ship could take him away again, and the hospital was for Greenlanders. Ross and the Lockwoods understood the reasoning, and also realised that Jameson couldn't help them while he was laid up. They decided that they could manage the photography by themselves, although Ross would have an even heavier workload without Jameson's help with the aircraft. Alix learned how to operate the camera, and they took some test strips. The governor had a well-equipped darkroom, so they were able to show the results to Jameson, as the boat passed through again on its return to Copenhagen. The photographer gave them some advice on how to improve the pictures.

From Quiz A Town Like Alice

Answer: He is crucified

Captain Sugamo has Joe whipped and then nailed to a tree in the centre of Kuantan. He enquires of Joe if he has any dying wishes, and Joe asks for one of his black chickens and a bottle of beer, Sugamo attempts to comply with the request. However, while the chicken is readily available, Sugamo is unable to lay his hands on any beer. Because he cannot fulfill Joe's dying wish, he is honour bound under the code of Bushido not to let Joe die, so he orders him to be taken down from the tree and sent to hospital.

From Quiz Nevil Shutes` "On The Beach"

Answer: Pogo Stick

Whilst it was totally beyond the realms of possibility that anyone was alive in the United States the Commander went about his life as if his wife and children were still alive.

From Quiz An Old Captivity

Answer: Because of the old people

Ajago and Mayark insisted that they would sleep in the next valley instead of the sandy cove chosen by Ross and the Lockwoods. The only running water was the stream in the sandy cove. There was plenty of thin scrub that would burn, although there was only one stunted tree. The next cove had a rocky bottom, and so could have damaged the floats of the seaplane. Despite the pilot's insistence that the old people could have no power over men who could fly in the sky, the Eskimos were adamant. Lockwood thought they were frightened by tradition surrounding the fate of the Norwegian colony which had lasted around four hundred years, but had died out when the boats stopped arriving in the fifteenth century. After that the Norsemen intermarried with the Eskimos, and the settlement at Brattalid was abandoned.

From Quiz A Town Like Alice

Answer: Gunso

We are never told the sergeant's name, and the women address him as Gunso, which is Japanese for sergeant.

From Quiz Nevil Shutes` "On The Beach"

Answer: Cobalt

The "dirty bombs" used were so deadly that every living creature on the face of the earth was wiped out.

From Quiz An Old Captivity

Answer: The pilot was taken ill

Ross was unable to sleep for regular hours while they were at Brattalid, because he needed to keep an eye on the seaplane as it settled on the beach with the falling tide. He took more of his tablets, and finally fell into a deep sleep for thirty-six hours. The Eskimos said it proved their point about the bad campsite, and Mayark went home. Ajago stayed. He helped Lockwood tie the seaplane down above the high water mark. Then they all moved the camp to the Eskimos' preferred rocky cove, Ross being transported on a stretcher manufactured by Ajago. Ajago told Lockwood that Ross had gone on a journey with the people who used to live there. After Ross woke up again, the whole party went back to Julianehaab. Ross was told by the doctor to rest for several days. The photographic survey was completed in a couple of flights from Julianehaab. To try and get it out of his mind, Ross told Lockwood what he had dreamt about while he was asleep for so long. He was a young Scot, Haki, who had been kidnapped by the Norsemen, when he met another Scot, a girl called Hekja. They were chosen to go to Greenland to help set up Leif's colony there. Later they were sent on a voyage of discovery to the west, and discovered a milder and more fertile place. Haki determined to ask Leif if he and Hekja could stay there and raise a family.

From Quiz A Town Like Alice

Answer: He dies of fever

Gunso falls ill with a fever, and the women take care of him. When he dies, they bury him in the Moslem cemetery in Kuala Talang and Jean makes arrangements with the village headman, Mat Amin, to stay in the village. The Japanese authorities give their assent to this and the women remain there for the remainder of the war. To earn their keep, the women work in the rice paddies with the village women, much to the amazement of the locals who have never seen white women do manual labour!

From Quiz Nevil Shutes` "On The Beach"

Answer: Nausea

There was no cure all that lived were to die,though some may have slightly recovered from the major effects it was only for a short time.

From Quiz An Old Captivity

Answer: The camera

The camera would be shipped back to England on the next available boat. The sleeping bags were put into the aircraft along with all the films of the survey and the emergency rations. Most of the contents of the medicine chest were given to the doctor. Ajago, the Eskimo, was delighted to receive the tinned food. The governor was given all the surplus photographic supplies. Surprisingly, there is no mention of what happened to the camping equipment; presumably it was shipped to England with the camera.

From Quiz A Town Like Alice

Answer: Pack and Levy

Jean has no relatives left living, except for an aunt who lives in Wales. She gets a job in London with Pack and Levy, a firm that makes expensive leather goods - shoes, handbags, luggage and dressing cases.

From Quiz Nevil Shutes` "On The Beach"

Answer: Jennifer

It was decided by most parents that to avoid prolonged suffering of their children in the event that the babies get sick after their parents that the babies should be given their cyanide pills first.

From Quiz An Old Captivity

Answer: A carved stone

Ross remembered the hill from his dream, and was not surprised to find the stone there. It was basalt, so must have been brought from elsewhere; it could have come from Brattalid. Removing the soil from the stone revealed the inscription (as close as I can get to the Runic symbols):- *+YI *MYI+ It was the stone carved by Tyrker and Leif, with Haki's and Hekja's names, just as Ross had described it to Lockwood when telling him about the dream.

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