Round the Bend is a 1951 novel by Nevil Shute. It tells the story of Constantine "Connie" Shaklin, an aircraft engineer who founds a new religion transcending existing religions based on the merit of good work. It deals with racism, including the White Australia policy, and also with the importance of private enterprise. It was one of the first novels Shute wrote after emigrating from Britain to Australia in 1950.
The novel, written in the first person, adopts the voice and eyes of Tom Cutter, an aircraft pilot, engineer, and entrepreneur.
The novel starts with Cutter's boyhood—he gets a job with the Alan Cobham "National Aviation Day" flying circus, of barnstorming aircraft which take customers up for short joyrides, with other entertainment provided. Cutter meets Connie Shaklin, a boy a little older than himself, half Chinese and half Russian but a British subject, and who even then has a deep interest in religion, taking days off to visit houses of worship. When the air circus folds, the two drift apart.
Cutter apprentices in aviation engineering, and also learns to fly. He marries a co-worker named Beryl, and soon afterwards is posted overseas as a civilian to do military-related aviation work during World War II. While overseas, he learns his wife has been unfaithful. He is stern, but forgiving, in letters to her, but when she learns that he is soon to return, she commits suicide. Cutter blames himself. He cannot stand to return to his old job or remain in England, so he buys and rebuilds a small aircraft and flies it to Bahrain, then a British protectorate, to start a freight business.
His service fills a need in the Persian Gulf, and he gradually expands, acquiring more aircraft but never incorporating his business. He keeps his business costs down by hiring no European staff, only what he calls Asiatics. Hired to take a load to Indonesia, he is surprised to find Shaklin there, working for a gunrunner who has been arrested by the Dutch, then in control of much of the country. Shaklin has maintained his interest in spirituality, but is also a very experienced engineer. Cutter is able to hire him and to purchase the gunrunner's plane. Both prove major assets to his business. As Cutter retrieves the plane from a small village in Cambodia, he notes that Shaklin has become a religious leader of sorts there.
Shaklin proves a major influence both on Cutter's staff, impressing on them the need for good and honest work, and on the local Arab community in Bahrain. Putting his teachings in terms of Islam and the Koran, he soon gains influence over the local sheikh, who offers Cutter a substantial interest-free loan for a large aircraft he needs. He accepts, and when he returns from Britain with the aircraft, finds that the authorities are very much upset about the transaction, decrying Shaklin's influence over the sheikh. Cutter does his best to soothe matters, but the British order Shaklin out of the area.
In the interim, Connie's sister, Nadezna, has arrived from California to become Cutter's secretary. She and Cutter rapidly find themselves attracted to each other.
Since one of Cutter's customers needs repeated trips to Australia, and since his Asian staff are not welcome in White Australia, Cutter sets up a forward base in the idyllic island of Bali, and assigns Shaklin to head the operations there, more as a sinecure than anything. One of the local girls is soon in unrequited love with him, while Shaklin busies himself learning about the local religion.
Back in the Persian Gulf, Shaklin's expulsion has indirectly occasioned a more reasonable attitude on the part of the British. The Arabs now hold Shaklin in almost divine regard. The Sheikh's health has started failing, and he expresses a desire to see Shaklin before he dies. He and his entourage travel to Bali to visit Shaklin. This pilgrimage both inspires others to similar travel — and stirs up the Dutch colonial administrators, who expel Shaklin from Indonesia. The Sheikh's doctor has expressed concerns about Shaklin's health, and he is soon diagnosed with leukemia — at that time a death sentence.
Shaklin expresses the desire to travel about and meet with the aircraft technicians he has influenced, for by this time his fame has spread throughout Asia. He does so until he becomes too weak to continue, and then he is taken back to the Cambodian village where his teaching started, and where he dies. Given his following, and the fact that so many believe Shaklin divine, Nadezna feels it would be letting them down to marry and live an ordinary life. She goes back to the convent where she went to school, and works with the children, although she is not a Catholic. Cutter resolves to run his air service as a credit to Connie. Cutter is set by Fahad (the Sheik's son) the task of being one of six people who will write a set of Gospels about Shaklin's life — Cutter's volume of these new Scriptures is the book that has just been read. He still believes Shaklin merely human, but is willing to consider the possibility of him being divine.
Airspeed Limited was established in 1931 to build aeroplanes in York, England, by A. H. Tiltman and Nevil Shute Norway. The other directors were A. E. Hewitt, Lord Grimthorpe and Alan Cobham. Amy Johnson was also one of the initial subscribers for shares.
Nevil Shute Norway was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia. He used his full name in his engineering career and Nevil Shute as his pen name to protect his engineering career from inferences by his employers (Vickers) or fellow engineers that he was '"not a serious person" or from potentially adverse publicity in connection with his novels, which included On the Beach and A Town Like Alice.
On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic novel published in 1957, written by British author Nevil Shute after he emigrated to Australia. The novel details the experiences of a mixed group of people in Melbourne as they await the arrival of deadly radiation spreading towards them from the Northern Hemisphere, following a nuclear war the previous year. As the radiation approaches, each person deals with impending death differently.
A Town Like Alice is a romance novel by Nevil Shute, published in 1950 when Shute had newly settled in Australia. Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman, becomes romantically interested in a fellow prisoner of World War II in Malaya, and after liberation emigrates to Australia to be with him, where she attempts, by investing her substantial financial inheritance, to generate economic prosperity in a small outback community—to turn it into "a town like Alice" i.e. Alice Springs.
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was the founding father and the principal driving force behind the formation of the United Arab Emirates, uniting seven emirates, and becoming the Union's first Raʾīs (president), a position which he held for a period of almost 33 years. He was also the ruler of Abu Dhabi for more than 30 years. He is commonly referred to in the UAE as the Father of the Nation.
No Highway is a 1948 novel by Nevil Shute. It formed the basis of the 1951 film No Highway in the Sky.
Sir Alan John Cobham, KBE, AFC was an English aviation pioneer.
Ahmad Hokmabadi Tabrizi, later known as Ahmad Kasravi, was a pre-eminent Iranian linguist, nationalist, religious reformer, historian and former Shia cleric.
Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer is the partial autobiography of the British novelist Nevil Shute. It was first published in 1954. Slide Rule concentrates on Nevil Shute's work in aviation, ending in 1938 when he left the industry.
No Highway in the Sky is a 1951 British black-and-white aviation film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Louis D. Lighton, directed by Henry Koster, that stars James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Niall MacGinnis, Janette Scott and Jack Hawkins. The screenplay was written by Oscar Millard, with additional material provided by Alec Coppel.
The Chequer Board is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in the United Kingdom in 1947 by William Heinemann Ltd. The novel deals with the question of racism within the US forces during World War II and portrays black characters with sympathy and support.
In the Wet is a novel by Nevil Shute that was first published in the United Kingdom in 1953. It contains many of the typical elements of a hearty and adventurous Shute yarn such as flying, the future, mystic states, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 269 (HMLA-269) is a United States Marine Corps helicopter squadron consisting of AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters and UH-1Y Venom utility helicopters. Also known as "The Gunrunners", the squadron is based at Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina and falls under the command of Marine Aircraft Group 29 (MAG-29) and the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing.
Thieves' Picnic is a mystery novel by Leslie Charteris featuring his Robin Hood-inspired crime fighter, Simon Templar, alias "The Saint". The book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1937 by Hodder and Stoughton, and in the United States by The Crime Club the same year. Later editions of the book were retitled The Saint Bids Diamonds; another alternate title is The Saint at the Thieves' Picnic.
What Dreams May Come is a 1978 novel by Richard Matheson. The plot centers on Chris, a man who dies then goes to Heaven, but descends into Hell to rescue his wife. It was adapted in 1998 into the Academy Award-winning film What Dreams May Come starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Annabella Sciorra.
So Disdained is the second published novel by British author, Nevil Shute. It was first published in 1928 by Cassell & Co., reissued in 1951 by William Heinemann, and issued in paperback by Pan Books in 1966. In the United States it was first published in 1928 by Houghton Mifflin in Boston, with the title The Mysterious Aviator.
Nerina Shute was an English writer and journalist, described by the Sunday Times as "the amazingly colourful, brilliant and bisexual film critic".
Waterfront is a 1950 British black and white drama film directed by Michael Anderson and starring Robert Newton, Kathleen Harrison and Avis Scott. The screenplay concerns a sailor who abandons his family in the Liverpool slums. He returns years later causing family frictions. Adapted from the 1934 novel by Liverpool-born writer John Brophy, it was released in the U.S. as Waterfront Women.
Stephen Morris and Pilotage are two short novels by Nevil Shute; the first novels he wrote after writing poetry and short stories. Stephen Morris was finished in 1923 while Shute was working at Stag Lane for de Havilland, and Pilotage was written in 1924. Unpublished during his lifetime, but published by his estate in one volume as many of the characters are common to both novels. They are set in the budding post-war aviation industry in Britain, and also on yachts (Pilotage).
Haji Muhammad Ali Khan, Rais al-Tujjar, CIE was the Prime Minister of Arabistan and chief of its traders. He was also the Sheikh of Mohammerah's advisor on Persian affairs.