Two brothers will carry out a nine day rowing trip from Richmond to Oxford in a fundraising bid to re-build Rudyard Kipling’s paddle boat.

Gary Enstone, 27, premises manager at the author’s home in East Sussex, will take to the water in a 1870s skiff with his brother David, 23, ticket office manager at Brentford Football Club, and their friend Keith Holland, 28, in a recreation of the Jerome K Jerome novel “Three Men in a Boat”.

Kipling’s boat lived on the pond at his house Bateman’s, in Etchingham, but was lost after his death in 1936.

David, of St Mary’s Drive, Bedfont, and his brother, who also lived in Bedfont before moving to Sussex to look after the National Trust property, will set off from Richmond with their teacher pal on July 13.

Gary said: “Lots of people know the famous stuff about Rudyard Kipling, like the Jungle Book and his poem If, but one thing that is not always known very well is he was terribly much a family man, that was the most important thing.

“When he got money from winning the Nobel Prize, without thinking about anything else he immediately thought how he could transfer this to his children and so he built a pond and bought the paddle boat for them.”

The three rowers hope to raise £2,000 so Bateman’s can re-create the boat to tell this story, and give children the same experience and pleasure that Kipling did more than a century ago.

Gary added: “We’ve got a bit of reference material as to what it was like, we will re-create it so it’s the same as the one he had all those years ago.”

The trio will live on the rowing skiff for around nine days, and plan to arrive in Oxford on July 22.

They were inspired to re-create the “Three Men in a Boat” novel as Jerome and Kipling’s families were close friends after meeting on holiday in Switzerland in 1910.

Gary said: “Like the original book, we will set sail from west London and the banks of Richmond-Upon-Thames and travel in an original 1870's rowing skiff up the Thames to Oxford.

“Passing through the towns of Hampton, Kingston, Staines, Runneymede, Maidenhead, Marlow, Henley, Wallingford and Reading, a total of 97 miles.”

To make a donation, visit justgiving.com/RowYards4Kipling.