Michael Asher follows some of the route John Hillaby took in 1962 before writing about his trip in the book Journey to the Jade Sea
A band of high school students from Nairobi gets a gig playing at the hotels and clubs in Malindi in the 1960s.
A look at how the Kenyatta succession war affected JM Kariuki and the politics of Kenya.
Kenya’s first black lawyer comes to Mombasa from the Caribbean after qualifying for the bar in England.
Gustav Fischer’s caravan passes Mt Kilimanjaro and encounters Maasai groups on their way to what is now central Kenya.
A small plane is stranded in Sudan as the Entebbe rescue planes fly overhead.
Intrepid hikers climb Mt Forole on the Ethiopian border and then hike back through the Huri Hills.
Cover photo: Our cover photo shows a young Gabra woman in the Chalbi Desert of northern Kenya, taken during a recent trek to follow John Hillaby’s journey to the Jade Sea. Photo by Mariantonietta Peru.
EDITORIAL RETURN TO SENDER
One of many envelopes we have received at our Naivasha post box with Old Africa magazine inside marked RTS, Return to Sender, in this case from the post office of a reader in Australia who is now deceased.
This is issue 120. It marks 20 years of publishing Old Africa magazine, with issues coming out every two months. We launched the magazine at the Lake Hotel in Naivasha in October 2005. We’ve enjoyed every minute of producing this magazine and have developed some very avid readers worldwide. However, changes need to be made. I’m writing this editorial from a room in the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. I had surgery to remove a cancerous tumour on my thyroid gland that was blocking my trachea. Surgeons had to remove my voice box along with the thyroid gland and the cancer. They have restored my airway through a stoma in my neck. I may be able to get a voice prosthesis in the near future, but for now my voice flows out of my fingers as I type on my computer. We’re still waiting for the surgery wound to heal completely so that I can start taking in food from my mouth instead of a tube. It’s been a long haul and we’re not done yet. But I praise God who has answered the prayers of many of you for my surgery and recovery. We hope to be back in Kenya in time to mail this magazine, but if it’s a bit late, we ask for your patience. Even then, my strength will be greatly reduced.
And as we mentioned in the last issue, with declining numbers of subscribers, largely because of the passing on of many of our older readers, we are facing a financial shortfall. So because of the editor’s health and a dwindling subscription list, we are looking at dropping the print version and producing a digital magazine which can be read on your computer or tablet. As we move this direction, we will make Old Africa subscription-free and we will produce the magazine in the same two-month cycle at least through August-September 2026. All current subscribers will be invited to access the magazine online for free. We hope we will also gain some new subscribers from the younger generation, and if so we will endeavour to continue publishing Old Africa online. Our sincere apologies to those who have just paid their subscription dues for the coming year.
We will share the details with you on how to access the new online Old Africa online by email, so please contact blake@oldafricamagazine.com with a valid email so we can send you details on how to access Old Africa online. We don’t want you to miss an issue.
-Shel Arensen, Editor
OLD AFRICA MAGAZINE
P.O. Box 2338 Naivasha, Kenya 20117 www.oldafricamagazine.com
Editor: Shel Arensen 0736-896294 or 0717-636659
Design and Layout: Mike Adkins, Blake Arensen
Proofreader: Janet Adkins
Printers: English Press, Enterprise Road, Nairobi, Kenya
Old Africa magazine is published bimonthly. It publishes stories and photos from East Africa’s past. Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available. In Kenya the cost is Ksh. 3000/- for a one-year subscription (six issues) mailed to your postal address. You can pay by cheque or postal money order made out in favour of: Kifaru Educational and Editorial. Send your subscription order and payment to: Old Africa, Box 2338 Naivasha 20117 Kenya. For outside of Kenya subscriptions see our advert in this magazine. Advertising: To advertise in Old Africa, contact the editor at editorial@oldafricamagazine.com for a rate sheet or visit the website: www.oldafricamagazine.com
Contributions: Old Africa magazine welcomes articles on East Africa’s past. See our writer’s guidelines on the web at: www.oldafricamagazine.com or write to: Old Africa magazine, Box 2338, Naivasha 20117 Email
Address: editorial@oldafricamagazine.com. After reading our guidelines and editing your work, send it to us for review either by post or email. (To ensure return of your manuscript, send it with a self-addressed envelope and stamps to cover return postage)
As always, I have much enjoyed Old Africa which we have recently received much more regularly. One of the disadvantages of magazines in our household is that they are ‘loo lit,’ and it may be several weeks or even months before they get read. I have only just looked at Issues 117 and 118 (February-March and April-May 2025) and have much enjoyed the articles on the Driftwood Club and Irving Maclean.
The Driftwood Club was certainly a great favourite hang-out of mine in my youth. In 1965, when I was at uni in England, I came out to Kenya for the summer vacation. Together with a good mate from Kitale, the late Paddy Lloyd, I travelled out overland. To give me something useful to do when I arrived, my dad had arranged with Dick Soames for me to work for him down at the Driftwood Club – I think I was just getting board and lodging, in return for which I would run his little boat-hire business and do any other unskilled menial chores around the Club. Unfortunately, by the time I got down there, it became apparent that my journey out had had an unwelcome consequence. Paddy and I had travelled at the cheapest possible level, including sailing south on the Nile from near Khartoum to Juba, just north of Uganda on a fairly primitive barge, which discharged the contents of its loos into the river on one side and refilled
its drinking water tank from the other. Unsurprisingly, we all suffered from diarrhoea but, in addition, it turned out that I had contracted jaundice (Hepatitis A) which meant that, apart from turning yellow, I had absolutely no energy and was quite unable to do the work I had been hired for. Dick was very generous and kept me on for a while doing less physicallydemanding tasks. One of these was to drive in to Malindi and collect stuff that was needed from there. The first time I did this, in Dick’s VW beetle, I realised quite soon that I had forgotten something for which I would need to return to the Driftwood. I began a threepoint turn in the road. My driving experience was very limited and I had never driven a Beetle before. I had no idea how to engage reverse (pull the gearstick up before you move it!) and had to enlist the support of a couple of passersby to push me backwards so that I could return to the Club and get the necessary driving instruction from Dick!
and gentle, on the pitch he was a tiger! This did not fit him for a lengthy career as a referee which he did briefly try once he had hung his playing boots up. Apparently, on one occasion when some player had the gall to query his decision, the miscreant was grabbed by the throat by the ref and asked whether he wanted to finish the game in one piece!
Ah, happy days!
Chris Durrant, Western Australia
Irving Maclean was an accountant at the CDC Regional Office in Nairobi which I joined as a Management Trainee in 1967. I also played for a couple of years for his rugby club, Nondescripts, although my playing career did not cross with his which was, of course, far more distinguished. A lovely man, whom I remember with great affection, as well as his beautiful wife Mary. Off the playing field, mild
Dear Editor, I have two wonderful memories associated with the Driftwood Club. There was a large tabby cat in residence when we visited some years ago.His name was Sharkbate! He quickly identified me as a soft touch and would join me on the porch of our chalet when early morning tea was delivered. He enjoyed a saucer of milk whilst I had a cup of tea and watched the world wake up. His activities must have been severely restricted when Roger’s big black dog came to live at the Driftwood. On subsequent visits I did catch occasional glimpses of him round the kitchen and car park. I wonder what has happened to him?
The second memory is of a magical Christmas Eve. Mulled wine and mince pies were served at the bar near the swimming pool and song sheets were handed round. A vocalist accompanied by two musicians playing traditional African instruments led the singing of carols. Whilst we
sang, a full moon rose out of the sea, visible through the palm trees. The warm air, the moon, the music and the wine came together that evening to create a very special and enduring Christmas memory.
Christine Hart, UK
Dear Editor,
I was interested to read Meriel Buxton’s story of the Ramsden family, (Issue 119). Tobina Cole (nee Cartwright) was a Buxton and my much-loved aunt. Her mother was Geoff Buxton’s sister Rose and her husband, my uncle Arthur Cole. When I was about 15 he took me to stay at Ardverikie where Chops Ramsden was in residence a year or so before he died. Whilst there I shot my first ‘Royal’ – a 12-pointer red deer stag. My memories of the visit prompted by Meriel’s writing are clear, principally Chops’s hospitality and the huge number of antlers that adorned their enormous hallway. This is among the many special occasions in my life that I should have mentioned in my own story. Also, a reason to be circumspect when writing about those days is the way in which attitudes have changed since. Ardverikie was principally some 30,000 acres of wild and mountainous Perthshire run as a sporting estate. Control of ‘game’ was a major part of management and source of income. To write about the killing of wild animals for sport upsets many today. Then it was routine, ethical and humane. Chops’s Marula Estate on Lake Naivasha, of similar acreage to Ardverikie, was also covered with wildlife and a producer
of high quality beef. It was eventually acquired by the Natta family and when I lived in Naivasha during the last days before hunting was stopped in Kenya, Francesco Natta used to control the overpopulation of zebra on my small acreage. He was a crack shot, took out only carefully selected animals without other members of the herd even noticing, and employed considerable numbers of Kenyans running a licenced abattoir. High quality hides and skins were sold at good prices to the Italian leather goods market. I believe Chops would have approved.
I feel it is a matter of regret that, bowing to misplaced public opinion and unable to control abuse of the system, legalised game cropping is no longer allowed in Kenya. Instead, we resort to darting and translocating problem animals often to inappropriate destinations, putting overload on the authority, and great cost to the taxpayer. Although I acknowledge the good work donor-funded private organisations do as well, nevertheless, considerable suffering and death of the animals concerned still occur while we endlessly search for the solution to human/wildlife conflict.
Andrew Enniskillen, Sangare, Kenya
Dear Editor,
Thank you very much for answering in Issue 118 a question I have long had regarding the whereabouts of the portrait of HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother that used to hang over the
Cor Roest points to where the Queen Mother’s photograph used to hang on the wall at the nowderelict Endebess Club.
fireplace in the main lounge of Endebess Club. I have many memories of the Club from my youth in the 1970s and recall the last remaining paid up members (including my parents) deciding to sell the Club some time in the early 1980s. I also recall a debate regarding the precise position of that portrait. Jomo Kenyatta’s portrait hung behind the bar and there was some discussion as to whether it should be above the fireplace instead of the Queen Mother as her position was more prominent. I have attached a photo of me pointing to where the Queen Mother’s portrait used to hang in the skeletal remains of the Endebess Club, taken on 29 February 2020. Some ex-members may prefer to look away.
As to where the portrait should hang today together with the letter from the Queen Mother, how about asking the Heritage Committee of Muthaiga Country Club if they can’t find a home for it in one of their meeting rooms or along a corridor at the Club? They stepped in and did a wonderful job rescuing the war memorial from the new Thika Highway twenty years ago.
Cor Roest, Timau Dear Editor, Yesterday I received the
Old Africa Magazine here in Njoro and as usual I’m always looking forward to receiving it and reading it. It’s been a great part of my life to receive your magazine. Out of the total of 118 magazines I have 114 of them. Hopefully they will become collectors’ items. Reading your editorial, first and foremost, I pray that you have a successful trip to England and treat your complex thyroid issues. My prayers are with you. Like you, I am also an avid stamp collector, since 1956. I specialize in East Africa from 1890s and also Great Britain from 1840 up to 1992. Kenya is one of my favourite collections, having most of the mint and used stamps and a lot of First Day Issues.
George Vrontamitis, Njoro
Dear Editor,
I was delighted to read Peter Goodwin’s article “My Jalopy.” I wonder if Mr Ghai of Ghai Stores in Thika still has Peter Goodwin’s old 1929 Chev or if he knows what happened to it.
If any Old Africa readers know anything further about this car registration T786 I would be most obliged.
I was very interested in reading the article about the Ramsden Family and Kipipiri by Meriel Buxton. In particular I would love to have more information on the two cars shown on page 48 in Old Africa issue 119. There is a photo entitled Chops’ Rolls Royce stuck in the sand while on safari in 1928. I am writing a book on Rolls Royce in Kenya and I have not come up with a Rolls being owned by Chops or Sir John Ramsden. The
other observation I have made is this particular Rolls looks very much like the Rolls Royce owned by Capt Archie Richie. His car was a 1924 Silver Ghost with a large Hippo tooth as his mascot in place of the flying lady. Could this photo be the Richie Rolls? If not, please could I have more photos and details to confirm that this Rolls did in fact belong to Sir John Ramsden please. The photo below the Rolls shows a car that could be a Buick, but I’m not sure what make and year. Are any other photos available of that car, especially any showing the registration number? Who owned it and any history of the car would be greatly appreciated. Send any information on these vehicles through editorial@ oldafricmagazine.com
John Wroe, Nairobi
Dear Editor,
As a seasoned NFD lover who spent two tours of duty in Marsabit in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I just couldn’t put Bizzie Frost’s article in your Issue 119 down.
Dear Editor,
The latest copy of Old Africa arrived in my rural post office box yesterday, and it wasn’t until last night that I read the editorial. Your diffidence in only mentioning your cancer at the very end speaks volumes about you and your character. I am so sorry about the situation and hope that the tests will show that it’s definitely treatable. I think you know how much pleasure and knowledge Old Africa has brought to many people from all walks of life, and how valuable it is as a growing repository of East African history. I’m not too great at praying, but I am sending many positive thoughts your way and wishing you all the best.
Karen Rothmyer, Cornwallville, NY
For a moment it felt like I was back on familiar territory even though I never got as far as the Huri Hills or Mt Forole. The nearest I got to was Kalacha, North Horr and Loiyangalani. But reading this interesting account, I felt like I was on safari myself passing trails of camels with their Gabbra owners and feeling that heat and at times, dusty atmosphere. What really made me homesick was to hear familiar names like Wario and Galgallo all over again – names I used to hear often during my time in Marsabit!
Since I have a great love for the Gabbra people, and as my one-time assistant (Kenya’s martyr - Daudi Dabasso Wabera after whom Wabera Street in Nairobi is named) was a Gabbra, I just can’t wait to read Bizzie’s Part 2.
Meanwhile, I would like to thank the entire Safari team for the great pleasure they’ve given me with an almost FREE trip to my favourite spot –Kenya’s wild Northern Frontier District.
Mervyn Maciel, Sutton, Surrey, UK
Dear Editor,
On reading your editorial in
Mervyn Maciel on a camel safari in the NFD in the 1950s.
issue 118 regarding the drop in subscriptions, I immediately sent out an email to my East African friends encouraging them to subscribe to the physical magazine. The Old Africa magazine has been a wonderful publication, and has done tremendous work in archiving and preserving East African History all thanks to you.
Learning about the challenges you are facing to your health in your editorial in issue 119, I pray and wish you the best outcome. God bless.
Pritpal Sandhu, Canada
Dear Editor,
I write in response to Lars Asker’s query in Old Africa issue 119 about the aircraft part up in the Mount Meru forest, Arusha National Park. I believe it may have been wreckage from an RAF Twin Pioneer, registration XL966, which flew into rising ground whilst on a supply drop on 2 March 1961. There were four on board. The aircraft’s commander, Flight Lieutenant Robert Albert NortonCraig (3044087) aged 34 is recorded in official RAF logs as the sole fatality. Elsewhere he is documented as the navigator. The aircraft was from 21 Squadron based at Eastleigh and the rescuers were from 2 Para.
The aircraft part still visible until around 2019 was not easy to see, as it was downstream from the Maio Waterfall and up on the other bank in dense forest. It has since disappeared. No one we asked over many years knew anything about its origin and I am grateful to Lars for prompting me into some determined research as we’ve always been curious.
near the main track which goes past the Maio Waterfall, which is easy to miss, as it’s off to the left down a steep incline. It continues up to Miriakamba Hut where climbers usually spend their first night.
The wreckage we and others have seen was curved and pod-like and in a slightly different very well-hidden location, on the other side of the stream and up a bank, about 300 meters down from the main track. Perhaps Lars’s piece was used by rescuers to carry casualties up to the track to a rescue vehicle and was later appropriated by an opportunist.
Read this record and see the wreckage map location for yourself at https://asn.flightsafety.org/ wikibase/333614. Zoom in and you will see the waterfall. The main track is above it.
Digging further I found another report: “The pilot overflew the drop zone (supplies for a mountain rescue team) on Mount Kilimanjaro, Kenya and struck rising ground. The aircraft then crashed inverted into a ravine killing the navigator. The pilot and two dispatchers were injured” https://www. ukserials.com/losses-1961. htm.
the back of his hand has never seen the wreckage and knew no stories of other crashes apart from one on the other side of the mountain in 1999. I therefore think it’s reasonable to suppose that the aircraft parts seen were from that 1961 Twin Pioneer crash, but if we discover anything further, we’ll get back to you!
Sarah Henderson and Tor Allan, Usa River, Tanzania
Dear Editor,
Lars remembers a flat piece
This conflicting information mentions Mt Kilimanjaro rather than Mt Meru – I suspect a clerical error as there are other records which definitively link XL966 with Meru. Every other reference I found speaks of Mt Meru, Tanganyika. There are no other records online that I can find. We are currently hoping for a friend’s old photo to surface, to see if we can get the part identified.
A respected local mountain guide who knows Meru like
I’m very much enjoying the history of the Driftwood Club, the tales and characters, reviving so many memories! In the 1960s and 1970s, the Sinbad Hotel gave a discount to airline staff staying there, and I met my future husband on an outing to the Club! Over the years, we spent many days there on holiday with our small children, fond memories also of Steve’s cuisine (that crab!), and the Umande restaurant, and our teenagers used to visit the Club while congregating for New Year at Watamu! The articles triggered memories also of evening visits to the Halwa shop in Malindi and the halwa - warm, tasty and aromatic. I think there was a T- shirt reading “if found wandering the streets of Malindi, please return to the Driftwood Club.”
It was also very interesting to read about the Kima mission, and the connection with the Friend’s Mission at Kaimosi. I didn’t realise the Friend’s Mission had been established as early as 1902. In the 1980s and 1990s, we lived just down the road from the Mission - by then also with a very well-established hospital and teacher training college.
Mhorag Candy, Cherwell, UK
RETRACING HILLABY IN THE NFD
by Michael Asher
Michael Asher is an author and awardwinning explorer based in Nairobi. In 2019 Michael Asher and Mariantonietta Peru attempted to reconstruct part of John Hillaby’s 1962 trek, as related in his classic book Journey to the Jade Sea (1964). We covered only the desert part of his trek and travelled with and among the Gabra, with Gabra camels. Hillaby had used Samburu camels. This was the most interesting aspect of the journey - as neither the Gabra nor their camels were used to the idea of a camel trek - with unexpected consequences. Quotes from Hillaby on his 1962 journey are in italics.
1962|2019From
the airstrip at Loiyangalani I watched the Cessna swoop low over the jade-sapphire waters of Lake Turkana, come in to land, and drone to a stop. As my travelling companions alighted, scores of local children raced on to the runway, clapping and shouting. My friends were delighted. They had been with me on treks in several countries, but never received a welcome like this.
We were here to retrace a section of John Hillaby’s 1962 journey with camels in what was then known as the Northern Frontier District, to Lake Rudolf (Turkana), and across the Chalbi Desert, as recorded in his classic travel work, Journey to the Jade Sea. It was one of the two books that most inspired me when I first came to Africa, the other being
Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands. Though I’d known Wilfred well and spent years tracking his journeys by camel, my walk in Hillaby’s footsteps had had to wait more than four decades.
In fact, Loiyangalani airstrip was one of the few sites where I could place Hillaby precisely. He had stood right here in December 196257 years earlier - waiting for an aircraft to come in, bringing him the half a dozen bottles of scotch and a fishing rod that he’d left behind in Nairobi. In his day this landing ground mostly served fishing enthusiasts from the capital, who came to hook giant Nile perch on the lake, and relax at what Hillaby referred to as a luxurious fishing camp complete with bar and swimming pool – most likely the current Oasis Lodge. Having embarked on his NFD safari to escape civilization, though, Hillaby resented the camp. As soon as he’d collected his things, he tramped thankfully up the lakeside at the head of his camel-caravan, heading for ElMolo Bay. There was nothing I liked about Loiyangalani more than the prospect of getting away from it, he wrote.
Hillaby, a writer, journalist, naturalist, and experienced walker from Pontefract, Yorkshire, had been advised on the best way to conduct a camel safari by Wilfred Thesiger himself. Though Hillaby admired Wilfred as the Prince of Travelers, he was chary of emulating his rather formidable style, presenting himself more as a classic amateur - a man who
Lake Turkana near Loiyangalani.
(Photo by Mariantonietta Peru)
spoke broken Swahili, had only ever seen camels in a zoo, knew little of the terrain he was crossing, had not mastered the use of a compass, and was so unskilled with a rifle that he had to invent reasons for not shooting for the pot, which he was certain the men saw through. He did come well equipped with medicine for impromptu surgeries among the locals, though - as Wilfred had suggested - and also carried the twelve pairs of tennis-shoes the veteran explorer had urged him to wear instead of boots.
Setting off from Wamba with eight camels suffering from mange, a Turkana cook, three Samburu camel-handlers, and head-man named Lelean, he had passed through the Matthews and Ndotos, bound for South Horr. Told by the DC in Wamba that the camels were too sick to make the entire journey, he had decided to swap them for healthier animals at the Forestry post at Lodosoit. From the beginning, the camels proved to be a major headache: on the second day he awoke to find that they had all run away, having simply eaten through the makeshift boma where they had been corralled - no-one had thought to hobble them. One of the eight, he wrote, was lamed, and another crippled, during the first days of the journey. The men tired out the animals, forever couching them to re-adjust the loads and the camels panicked at the drop of a hat, throwing off their burdens, once, notably, when a startled bull-elephant appeared. The nearest camel reared up and rushed off,
Hillaby wrote, … tripped and fell over with its legs splayed out like a starfish.
The fresh camels he acquired at Lodosoit also gave trouble, as the caravan marched north towards the Jade Sea, across a lunar landscape of lava that stretched to infinity. The way was enlivened by encounters with wildlife, including a buffalo who stared at them doubtfully from under a tree, a lioness who ran away startled when Lelean disturbed her by accident, and a rhino who retreated when the head-man spoke to her softly. Hillaby met bushpig, gazelle, gerenuk and waterbuck, and flocks of guineafowl that he constantly strove to bring down with pot-shots from his rifle or shotgun, without much success. As he himself admitted, he needn’t have bothered, since the Samburu folk of the manyattas his caravan passed were kind enough to present them with goats for dinner, almost daily. Apart from concern about the camels, his other great diversion was his quasi-nightly bush clinics, at which the number of patients increased as he progressed, from a mere handful to, on one occasion, the better part of a tribe, many of whom, he wrote, were the healthiest men I had ever seen
Just before Christmas 1962, he sighted Lake Rudolf, olive green and more vast than I had imagined, certainly more beautiful than I could have foreseen. He joined his crew for a bathe in the cool, refreshing, slightly soapy waters, while the camels mooched up to the shore, knelt down, and drank and drank until they had to be hauled off into the dusk
The author Michael Asher (left) and companions halt in a lugga. (Photo by Mariantonietta Peru)
Six decades on, our Gabra camels were denied the chance of slurping soapy lakewater. The Gabra refused to bring them down to the lake shore, since that meant entering Turkana country. Instead, we had arranged to meet them in a doum-palm lugga near Gus, on the escarpment north of Loiyangalani. The animals weren’t there when we arrived, and it wasn’t till next morning that we saw them stalking down the lugga with the Gabra handlers, led by our guide Jabbar. I counted only seven animals instead of the eight we had been promised – it turned out that one had absconded on the way, and the men had spent hours searching for him in vain. It took more endless hours to load the animals with gear, water and provisions, as the morning wore on and the heat got up. I noticed that instead of the traditional crossstick saddles the Samburu had used on Hillaby’s trek, the Gabra had brought donkey-saddles - oval boards like double snowshoes - which seemed to render the loads too topheavy for good balance.
I knew from experience that camel-loads should tend to hang low, and was apprehensive. My fears were realized only minutes into the first leg of our journey, when a camel suddenly went berserk, roaring, thrashing, rolling over, jerking his legs, throwing off his load and scattering the desert surface with dried spaghetti. Worse was to come, though, when another camel, planting his feet firmly in the sand, shuddered violently, cast his burden, then lurched off towards the horizon, colliding with another animal in his path and making him bolt in duet. Our Gabra camel-men, though the concept of a camel-trek appeared unfamiliar to them, did seem to be more adept at caring for their animals than Hillaby’s crew: he was constantly berating them for thrashing the camels with sticks, often without reason. The Gabra – some of whom owned our camels personally - never did that, but calmly retrieved the runaways, soothed them, and reloaded them with care.
We set off again, but within minutes there was another upheaval, with camels shuddering, bellowing, snapping headropes, scattering tents, bags and assorted provisions across the sand. Since it was already late, we decided to call it a day and make camp in a nearby lugga. It wasn’t until after dark that the Gabra brought in the camels. They had managed to pick up most of the food, and we were able to have dinner, sitting peacefully on a mat under the vast panorama of the stars.
After marching with his caravan along the lake shore from Loiyangalani, Hillaby acquired a contingent of armed askaris from
Marsabit, under the command of a colonial Warden, who announced that he was now in charge. Hillaby was affronted, though he had known that the troops were coming since leaving Wamba, as the DC there had alerted him to the threat from marauding Dassenach (his Merille), on the lake’s north-eastern shore. They had, he was told, a nasty habit of creeping up on travellers in the dark, overpowering, and castrating them. Hillaby had no intention of entering Dassenach country, however. From Allia Bay, just south of what is now Sibiloi National Park, he left Lake Rudolf, and, his caravan enlarged to 15 camels and 25 men, turned south-east towards North Horr.
He reached the post in three days and remained there long enough to collect provisions and bid farewell to his military
Gabra woman with her camels in a doum palm oasis near North Horr. (Photo by Mariantonietta Peru)
escort. During his sojourn he saw a troop of police camel-corps leave the barracks, and was told that they were off to settle clashes between the Gabra and the Boran over the Somali secession question, then at its peak. He also met the almost legendary Catholic missionary Paul Tablino, an engaging little priest, who was to become the leading authority on the Gabra.
Fifty-seven years later, we were luckier than Hillaby in that the rains had fallen in greater abundance. Despite that, however, water was scarce on the first part of our expedition. Finding the wells we’d been heading for dry, we were obliged to divert to North Horr,
ancient cataclysm were the Huri Hills, whose faint outline shook in the heat, and, to the south-east, the ghostly fang-tooth peak of Kulal – the sacred mountain of the Gabra.
Hillaby had been told that his camels would not penetrate the vast fields of shattered black lava that ran in concentric circles round the Huri Hills. As his aim was to cross the Chalbi and head back the way he’d come, he decided to march due east till he hit the lava wall, then turn south-east towards Kalacha and Kulal.
He set off next morning with his team and remaining nine camels. The going was tough, not only because the desert surface turned out
passing numerous manyattas of thatched, dome-shaped dwellings, herds of camels, Gabra men, women and children, tending goats and sheep or nursing troops of donkeys laden with yellow water-drums. We camped in a doum-palm lugga, by shallow green puddles: hammerkops and waders trawled the water, and a squadron of sacred ibis landed like so many tumbling dice on the sandy bed. It was here, at an interval of more than half a century, that our tracks crossed Hillaby’s once more.
Surveying the Chalbi Desert from the police post at North Horr, he was awed by what he called the apocalyptic quality of the landscape – the character that had so impressed him when he’d first viewed the NFD from Wamba. The desert, he wrote, stretched out in a blurr of sand and sky, bounded only by the milky ribbon of mirage on the horizon. The starkness was relieved by the lava plugs of worn-out volcanoes, standing out on the skyline like giant chess-pieces. Among these relics of
to be soft, like puff pastry, requiring the men to adopt a shuffling gait, but worse, because of the rising wind - a rip-roaring, shirt-rattling wind – that lashed them with its coils. The squalls came at irregular intervals, sometimes with such force that the camels shied away. In strong gusts, the camel-men couched the animals with their backs to the wind, kneeling in their lee on the hot sand, waiting for the buffeting to cease. During one such halt, Hillaby watched a black beetle struggle up through the dust as if aware that she might be buried forever. I felt the same way myself, he wrote.
As we led our camels out of our lugga near North Horr, in Hillaby’s footsteps, spiky doum-palm leaves crackled and clattered in the wind. Like our predecessors, were to have the sand-laden squalls in our faces on and off for the next few days. When the wind dropped, we were astonished to see in front of us a vast plain covered in brilliant yellow
Gabra camels grazing on Tribulus flowers in the Chalbi Desert. (Photo by Mariantonietta Peru)
tribulus flowers, stretching as far as the distant low hills. I had heard of these legendary saffron blooms that followed the rains, and realized how privileged we were to see such a breathtaking sight - one that even Hillaby hadn’t witnessed. It was scorching hot when the wind dropped, but traversing a span of low dunes, we came suddenly upon the rippling brown waters of a shallow pool - another product of recent rains. Our camels splayed their front legs, lowered their heads and began taking long, slurping gulps. We made camp in some thorny scrub nearby, and just as we had finished putting up the tents, a savage sandwave whipped through the thorns, knocking down our shelters, giving us no option but to creep in among their folds, and lie there until it was pitch dark and the wind stopped. When we crawled out, our faces in the torchlight were black with dust.
For Hillaby and his caravan, the wind was still raging when they reached the shelter of the lava wall at dusk. There was no water and no grazing here for the camels, but Hillaby liked the place more than the open desert, where, he wrote, I was conscious only of a feeling of nakedness. At last light, he climbed up through lava boulders that seemed perched so precariously on each other that any slight vibration would bring them tumbling down. The lava was a dark, jagged mass stretching as far as the Huri Hills. This, he knew, was their furthest point east. He returned to camp and lay down to sleep, but, dozing off, was startled by two thunderous cracks, followed by showers of clinking small stones. Lelean told him that this was the lava, which often split as it cooled and contracted.
turned south east towards the wells at Kalacha, following the edge of the lava fields. Hillaby’s main concern was for the camels, two of whom were very sick. It was hot and there was little water left: he started counting off the hours till the time he could drink. Men and camels tramped on through the grit-laden wind that seared them, whining in their ears. Once again they had to halt at intervals, couch the camels, and use their bodies as windbreaks. Hillaby found himself in a dark mood, and wondered if he was suffering from the White Melancholy, a deep depression mentioned in the Bible, said to afflict desert travellers, especially at mid-day. Sometimes he had the suspicion that nothing existed but this desert, rolling on and on to the end of the world.
They camped for the night by the lava wall, and in the morning pressed on into the sandstorm once again. The two sick camels were now in very bad shape, and Hillaby wondered if they would make it to the wells. Later, his men picked up a broad swath of tracks, that they said had been made by a whole clan of Boran, moving south from the Ethiopian border. They thought the nomads were heading for the pastures at Balessa Kulal – a green lugga on the lower slopes of Mount Kulal.
When our caravan arrived at the lava wall, many years later, the place looked exactly as Hillaby had described it. Flat blocks of weathered rock…cracked and broken under the violence of the sun…the bigger of them ends up against the sky. Like him, we had braved some challenges to reach this point. On our way from North Horr, one animal had run off in the night, never to be seen again, and the Gabra had declared another too sick
Next morning they loaded the camels and
Gabra man leading his camel. (Photo by Mariantonietta Peru)
A Gabra woman talking to a camel in the Chalbi Desert. (Photo by Mariantonietta Peru)
to continue. Since this reduced the number to only five, there were not enough to carry the loads, they said. They refused to shift from that point, and it began to look as if our trek in Hillaby’s wake was over.
Luckily we were quite near to the village of el-Gade, where the Gabra Chief lived – the man who had arranged the camels for us in the first place. Leaving the caravan, therefore, we trekked for two hours towards the small settlement in the blazing heat, finding two luggas in spate on our way. There was no choice but to wade through the rushing treaclecoloured water – it was only up to our thighs, but our feet sank deep into the muddy bed, obliging us to hold hands to steady ourselves. We finally made it to the Chief’s house, and after a long discussion he agreed to find us a fresh pair of camels.
Now, two days later, we were at the lava field. We slept in the cover of the blocks, and in the morning loaded the camels and turned south-east as Hillaby had done. The surface was gravelly, sandy and stony. We kept the lava on our left, while on our right, we saw Gabra homesteads – dome dwellings, lying in groves of ancient acacia trees with vast canopies and trunks like pillars. Gabra women wearing elegant headscarves and bare-armed gowns of blue and green, gathered at watering places, tended flocks of goats and sheep in the shade of trees, or drove squadrons of camels out of thorn-brush bomas towards the grazing. Gabra men came and went leading camels bearing water-drums on cross-stick saddles. The trees were alive with birds - eagles, Egyptian vultures, cheeky black crows who thought nothing of hitching a ride on the heads of our camels.
All day Hillaby’s caravan had followed the tracks of the Boran migration, until, just before sunset, they found a depression full of swordgrass and thorn trees. A Boran family had taken shelter here in some derelict huts, lingering behind to care for their two sick children. Hillaby dosed the kids with sulphonamide, and they began to feel better at once. In return the grateful father - an unusually tall man, whom Hillaby calls Conrad - examined the two ailing camels. His wife bent over the animals, talking to them, stroking and soothing them till they were calm. Conrad declared that while one of the sick pair would recover, the other would not, and he tapped Hillaby’s hunting knife
ominously. I agreed to the murder, Hillaby wrote.
It was the first time he’d actually lost a camel, and he blamed his own incompetence for the animal’s fate. I was determined to think no more about the welfare of camels, he wrote, until I had learned to keep them alive. It was a disturbing night, he confessed, and in the morning his caravan set off towards Kulal carrying a hideous sack of meat - the dried flesh of the camel he had slaughtered.
Shortly, he and his caravan reached Balessa Kulal, where they found rich grazing for the camels. From there, they continued southwest to Lake Rudolf’s southern tip, and after many adventures and diversions, finally arrived back in Wamba. They had been out for three months, and had covered over 1,600 kilometres. For now, anyway, we could not follow them. Our trek ended in a grove of old acacias near Kalacha, where we said farewell to our Gabra camel-men and camels. Our trip was a minnow compared with Hillaby’s, but we had at least done what we set out to do - followed his footsteps across the Chalbi Desert.
We slept soundly under the ancient trees. At first light, an aircraft landed on the desert strip beyond the grove, to take us back to the city. As we lifted into the sky, Mount Kulal - the Sacred Mountain of the Gabra - shimmered at the horizon’s edge, veiled in the morning’s liquid light. If we looked hard enough, I thought, perhaps we could just make out Hillaby’s caravan. In my mind’s eye it would always be there, moving on forever.
An eagle taking off in the Chalbi Desert. (Photo by Mariantonietta Peru)
THE SAINTS PLAY AT THE COAST
by Anton Levitan
Your recent articles on the Driftwood Club in Issues 117 and 118 reminded me of happy memories of the Club back in August of 1966, when Dick Soames approached a pop group, The Saints, to come and play at the Driftwood for two weeks during the August school holidays. It was before the days of discos and music was provided by live bands. The Saints were a pop group of students from St Mary’s and Duke of York Schools in Nairobi who played regularly for parties and weekly at the Impala Club on Friday nights.
We were all under 18 and therefore had to persuade our parents to arrange to take us down to Malindi and collect us again after the gig. Dick accommodated us in a back banda and provided meals. We played at the Driftwood every alternate night and were free to play at the other Malindi hotels on our
free nights. During those two weeks we had a ‘blast,’ with the teenage crowd (and some oldies young at heart) meeting at wherever we were playing every night.
I forget what we were paid per night, but it was enough to provide for our drinks and Mars Bars, which sustained us during the sleepy daylight hours between gigs.
Our band consisted of Pete Jackson (rhythm guitar), myself on the drums, Steve Webber (vocals), Dave Jackson (bass guitar) and Greg Risi (lead guitar). We have all scattered across the globe since leaving school with Pete going to Australia, myself still in Kenya, Steve going to the States, Dave pursuing a successful musical career in UK, and Greg settling in Italy. Dave unfortunately passed away a few years ago, and I still correspond with Greg, but I have not heard from Pete or Steve for many years now.
The Saints band at the Sinbad Hotel in Malindi in 1966. From left to right Pete Jackson (rhythm guitar), Anton Levitan in the background (drums), Steve Webber (vocals), Dave Jackson (bass guitar), and Greg Risi (lead guitar).
JM KARIUKI: POPULIST MP MURDERED
PART 6 - KENYATTA SUCCESSION
byTiras Waiyaki
This serialised story gives the life of JM Kariuki and how he became a prominent politician in Kenya in the 1960s. The story continues:
Kenyatta succession
In a secret report dated 30 May 1972, America’s Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, listed Mwai Kibaki and JM Kariuki as Kenyatta’s most likely successors. Whereas Daniel arap Moi’s capacity to last beyond the 90-day period before an election as stipulated in the previous constitution was thought unlikely, Jaramogi Odinga’s chances “improbable” and Foreign Minister Dr Njoroge Mungai’s chances slim, Kibaki was “gaining ground as a compromise candidate” but JM was their frontrunner. “In a free election for the presidency, Kariuki would give Moi a good fight and probably outdistance Mungai,” read the memo as published in The Standard. Koigi wa Wamwere reemphasised this when he said that after Kenyatta no one other than JM Kariuki would have become president.
It was an open secret that people were talking about the likelihood of a JM presidency. JM’s vocal chords were not stifling such talk either. Intelligence reports according to one newspaper, indicated that after a function in Kisii he met opinion leaders from the area privately and asked them if there would be anything wrong if he stood for president
when the time came, adding that he was up to the task. In fact JM led a faction of KANU that was increasingly viewed as the opposition after the banning of Jaramogi’s Kenya People’s Union.
It was whispered that if JM stood against Kenyatta at the polls for Kenya’s presidency in a free and fair exercise in 1974, he would floor the old man. Kenyatta was ageing and ailing. Kenyans increasingly asked in hushed tones, “After Kenyatta, who next?” With Vice President Moi seemingly lacking nationwide appeal, the assassinated Mboya out of the picture, Ronald Ngala dubiously dead and a frail, almost financially ruined Jaramogi just freshly out of detention in 1971, the path seemed clear for Kenya’s ‘cheerful giver’ and ex-freedom fighter who remained connected to the grassroots. “Let them put me in detention, I’ll come out a bigger man than I went in,” JM said publicly. He was holding nothing back.
Shaken, the court of power took heed. No wonder GA Araru MP for Moyale was quoted as having said to a US diplomat that JM was a “better assassination prospect, than a presidential one.”
Pheroze Nowrojee told KTN News, “JM was a national figure. They couldn’t handle him with detention, they couldn’t handle him within the constituency, they couldn’t impoverish him, he had his
own wealth independent of them. They felt in the end that he was a threat to the central position that Kenyatta had manufactured as Kenya’s sole hero of independence and Kenya’s sole political determinant. Here was a younger more charismatic man, he was a threat to the old man’s standing and the pre-eminence of the those around Kenyatta.”
JM’s powerful enemies did all they could to drive a wedge between him and President Kenyatta. At Attorney General Charles Njonjo’s wedding on 18 November 1972 JM approached the president to greet him. In the year 2000, Daily Nation newspaper quoted JM’s youngest wife, Terry Wanjiru, recalling this encounter of how the old man was so excited to see his good friend. “You’re so lost JM. These days you don’t even come to see me.”
To which JM replied, “Mzee, I have always wanted to come see you but your men have been blocking me.”
“Is that so?” Kenyatta asked and promised to look into it. JM’s first cousin Ben Kanyi Waweru pointed out to Inooro TV that Kenyatta had no problem with JM; the enmity towards him was among those who wanted to take over after Kenyatta.
There were two powerful camps battling at the forefront to succeed Kenyatta. One comprising of Moi and Njonjo, the other group
supported a Dr Mungai presidency. There was also the Odinga camp, albeit with slim hope. Then there was JM.
Despite fierce competition between the first two camps, the common factor between them was a lack of fondness towards the vocal JM. Notably, there had been talk since the early 1970s of constitutional changes that would see Mungai rise to the post of prime minister. However, Mungai lost his parliamentary seat in very controversial circumstances in 1974.
As the 1974 general election approached, Mzee was approaching 90 years of age, the stakes grew. JM was banned from addressing gatherings in universities and rallies in his own constituency. The local District Commissioner Mr Stanley Thuo was instructed to impose the ban and he even took away JM’s pistol. Kenya Police mounted roadblocks on roads the administration knew JM would use. He resigned from his position as assistant minister in a huff and joined the backbench in the House.
The attacks became personal. Earlier, guests to a JM family birthday party at his Gilgil home in 1971 were turned away by police at mounted roadblocks located on all roads leading to the farm. 130 guests, including families with children and army officer friends were told to go back and those who had showed up were asked to leave, foreign friends and the press were not spared. His whole family was traumatised, even as this incident captured
international attention. JM, Shikuku and Seroney were soon barred from addressing any public meetings.
A succession of court cases was brought against JM on account of his business practices to discredit him. In May 1973 Moi told a rally that there were disgruntled MPs opposed to Kenyatta wishing to form another party, almost certainly a reference to JM and his allies.
With bankruptcy prospects against him quite high, JM opted apparently to strike a deal with Njonjo to support Moi, thus receiving both physical and financial protection as a result. A tax case against him was dropped in July 1973 and he kept quiet in Parliament for nearly three months. In 1974 he is reported to have supported a Bill by Njonjo that was intended to make English the only official language in Parliament. Bankruptcy proceedings, in return, were dropped. Nevertheless, one
of his wives was prosecuted for involvement in ivory poaching and smuggling as Kariuki stood firm in the face of claims from creditors in late 1973 and early 1974 despite losing two Caltex petrol stations.
Politically, the schemes against him continued. Nakuru Mayor Mburu Gichua camped in Nyandarua North with what looked like instructions to ensure that JM lost at the October 1974 election. The MP was denied licences to address his constituents during the campaign for Parliament save for one occasion in which he criticised greed, corruption, injustice, KANU’s failure to deliver on independence era promises like free education, called for a land commission and ceiling on land ownership. He consequently was banned from visiting the constituency during campaigns but was sly enough to print pamphlets which his wives distributed to his constituents, indicating
JM Kariuki and his first wife, Dorcas, on the phone with other family members.
what he had done for his people and a hard hitting critique of the Kenyatta regime that addressed the development policies enacted since independence but decried the lack of social justice as an instrumental goal of those policies. In reference to himself he challenged the electorate, “If this man has done nothing for you, don’t elect him.”
Politician Burudi Nabwera witnessed the cancellation of a harambee that was to be presided over by JM in Kakamega when at the last minute after JM’s arrival the DC cancelled the meeting. Nabwera subsequently complained about this bitterly in Parliament.
JM critiqued the skewed development distribution in which Central Kenya got the lion’s share of the national ‘cake.’ The vocal politician also took a swipe at
corruption and nepotism that had given birth to primitive accumulation benefiting a few and impoverishing many. Hardly any independence era achievement was spared scrutiny. “As we moved into the late sixties, doubts begun to arise in people as to whether the government had become a personal tool of one man, a few people, few families and so on. By the early seventies, it was clear that Kenyatta had dropped all pretence that this was a national government,” recalled prominent lawyer Pheroze Nowrojee on KTN News.
As Kenyatta praised his government’s achievements over the first ten years of Independence, JM, in true Machiavellian fashion given that he was a vast land owner, took on a system that promoted huge land ownership for a few at the expense of thousands of
landless folk. JM pointed out that this was unacceptable during the colonial era and it was wrong ten years after independence. Kenyatta’s tribesmen at the grassroots had finally begun whispering the same thing. In their eyes JM had become, the ‘saviour’. Though JM was part of the newly landed gentry, the masses did not see the irony in his fight for land because, according to Koigi, JM was, “One of the few detainees who made it into the house of independence yet he fought for the poor, those who were shivering in the cold and rain outside the house. He was rich, but he fought for the poor. He had land, but he fought for the landless.” No doubt such talk upset those with interests in land holdings, commercial and industrial sectors and may have attracted external attention.
To be continued…
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JAMES BURKE KENYA’S FIRST BLACK LAWYER
by Rupert Watson
Author’s note:
Some time ago, I wrote a short book entitled Culture Clash published by Old Africa in 2014. This concerned the killing of Hugh Grant, the Narok District Commissioner, in 1946 by a local Maasai, one Karambu ole Sendeu, who was incensed at the compulsory purchase of his favourite cow, Lemelelu, by the government. Inevitably Karambu was charged with murder, and equally inevitably, subsequently hanged, but not before an incredibly spirited defence by his advocate, called James Burke, who at one stage I described as “…perhaps pushing his brief almost too far…”
This determination by the lawyer to go that extra mile on behalf of his client has continued to astonish me, and it was only a year or two ago that another advocate and author, the much-missed Pheroze Nowrojee, asked if he could quote sections of my book in a chapter on Burke in his own book, Practising an Honourable Profession. And in the course of our talk, he mentioned that Burke was black! Kenya’s first black lawyer. Did this explain at least some of his extraordinary diligence?
So, I determined to try and find out more about Burke, and here are the fruits of my researches. Many thanks particularly to Pheroze for permission to use material from his book, to Gillian Burke, ‘Old Man Burke’s’ youngest grandchild and presently living in England, to another granddaughter Faiza Akesson and to the most helpful archivist in Gray’s Inn. I also acknowledge how rewarding it was that every single Kenya Gazette, since its first printing on November 15th 1899, had been digitised by Kenya Law. All of that said, there are still many gaps in this story.
James Burke was born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad in about 1882, the eldest child of a schoolteacher, Richardson Joseph Burke. There is still a question mark over his general ancestry, but it is likely that Seminole blood ran through his veins. The Seminole tribe migrated
down from Georgia to Florida in the late 1700s and were there joined by refugees from slavery. These remained a distinct subset of their hosts, and are still referred to as Black Seminoles, some of whom later fled from Florida and scattered around the West Indies. Otherwise, one can only guess at Burke’s genetic make-up from photographs.
As the eldest son, he may well have been the favoured one, which could have had something to do with his heading to London to study law. There were, and still are four Inns of Court and Burke applied to Gray’s Inn and was admitted there on 29th October 1901. In his application he is described as a “student (Govt.
A portrait of James Burke, Kenya’s first black lawyer. (Photo from Rupert Watson)
Exhibitioner)” so maybe he was sponsored in some way. It was then British Government policy to encourage colonial children to further their legal education in England and thereafter to spread their knowledge elsewhere in the Empire. He was introduced to the Inn by a member, Edward Sinclair-Cox. He, in turn, had been contacted by George J Christian, the then-acting Attorney-General of Trinidad, who had presumably spoken up for the young man’s schoolboy abilities. It took Burke five years of study before he was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn on 19th November 1906 and soon after that he set out for Mombasa, now a fully qualified barrister.
The legal profession in Kenya, and elsewhere, was a colonial introduction, and in the early days there were two branches; the Colonial Legal Service, which included the judiciary as well as those lawyers working in various registries and also in the Attorney-General’s chambers, and then those engaged in private practice. With so few legal practitioners, and no facility in Kenya, or in most other young colonies, for legal education, no distinction was made between barristers and solicitors, and either could act as an advocate. Also allowed to practise were Pleaders – less qualified lawyers from India – and in early days the High Court could even license laymen of good character to do so. Not until 1911, when the Mombasa Law Society was founded, were non-lawyers barred from legal practice.
With Mombasa the initial commercial centre in Kenya it was natural that the first courts would be established there, and so they were, in 1902, seven years after Kenya had become a British Protectorate. In 1911, by which time Nairobi had set down the commercial and administrative roots which effectively created the capital, the High Court moved there, more specifically to a timber building in the DC’s office compound on Upper Hill.
Burke’s involvement in Kenya’s legal world, can best be gleaned from notices in the Kenya Gazette the first of which in 1909 shows him linking up with Kavasji Manekji Dalal as “partners in the business of Pleaders as from the 1st Day of November 1909…under the style and firm of Dalal and Burke.” Dalal was a Parsi of Indian origin and probably the Protectorate’s most senior advocate, having begun practice in 1897. He worked with several partners but Burke must have felt he had really fallen on
his feet in joining up with such an experienced lawyer. They both shared a love of cricket and their union lasted well, until the 14th May 1921 when the Gazette announced “… that the partnership which has for some time past been carried on by Mr C [sic] M Dalal and Mr J A C Burke, under the style of Messrs Dalal and Burke at Mombasa…was this day dissolved by mutual consent and that in future the said business will be carried on by the Said J A C Burke.” Dalal had set his sights on a political future, which was to begin with his nomination to the Kenya Legislative Council.
“Dalali” means a broker or auctioneer in Swahili, but it was certainly no more than coincidence that much of Burke’s early work seems to have been connected with moneylending and bankruptcy. In 1922 he is seen acting for Mr Abdulla Suleman Damji in bankruptcy proceedings and ten years later, appearing on behalf of both a Kassam Suleman Damji and Habib Kara in separate applications for certificates “under section 6 of the Moneylenders Ordinance 1932” to allow his clients to carry on business as money-lenders in Mombasa. By then Burke had taken in a new partner to create the firm of Burke and Agard and continued his involvement with both those who lent money, and those who owed it.
Racially, Burke must have found himself
James Burke with his second wife and children. (Photo from Rupert Watson)
James Burke (front right seated) must have sponsored this football team in the 1930s, which Old Africa used as its cover photo in October 2013. We wrongly wrote in the caption that James Burke was the man on the left wearing spectacles. But Rupert Watson’s research has showed us that Burke, from Trinidad, was Kenya’s first black lawyer, starting out in Mombasa in 1906 or 1907.
(Photo from Per Akesson)
in something of a no-man’s land. A very distinguished looking man, he was far better educated than most of the Africans and Asians in and around Mombasa, and unlikely to be befriended by many of its European residents. His first wife, Mwinji Yai, was from Oman and their daughter Joan Alice Burke, born on 5th March 1924, his first child. They lived in Changamwe, west of Mombasa Island and Joan began her schooling at Star of the Sea School, founded by French Catholic sisters and still educating children today. For reasons that remain unclear, she then moved to Mangu High School, outside Nairobi. However, her parents’ relationship was clearly on the wane, and after a few terms there, she was welcomed back into the fold of Burke and his new wife, Maria Vel - a Seychellois lady, with whom he would go on to have at least ten children.
The make-up of his clientele probably gives some idea of the social circles in which Burke mixed, and many of these have either Indian or coastal East African names. Cricket was one of his main interests and he also seems to have been involved in mentoring a local football team in Mombasa. The picture of the team, which actually appeared on the cover of Old Africa’s October-November 2013 issue, shows the mainly African team, with Burke on one end of the seated middle row and another suited mentor on the other.
which shows that in February 1913 Burke’s licences to own a .450 Bull Dog Revolver, .270 Mauser rifle, 12 bore double-barrelled shotgun and 20 bore single-barrelled shotgun were all renewed. Does this indicate enthusiasm for hunting birds and animals in his spare time, or at least mixing with those who did?
Burke clearly also had a commercial streak, and he wanted more than just his legal practice to fulfil him. He became the Honorary Secretary of the Coast Planters Association, and in 1927 started Mombasa Brick and Tile Works Limited with Sydney Blackhurst, who had been born in Durban in 1887, and then moved up the African coast to Mombasa. However, the commercial venture cannot have been a success for Gazette Notices in March and April 1933 show Burke representing himself this time, and applying to the court to be declared personally bankrupt. He subjected himself to a first meeting of his creditors at 2:30 pm on 13th April 1933 and in his petition described himself as “Brick Manufacturer.” He obviously worked hard to satisfy those creditors with a repayment scheme because this was approved by the Supreme Court in Mombasa on 21st December that same year.
Clues to another, more surprising recreational interest come again from the Kenya Gazette,
Burke’s repeated representation of moneylenders and bankrupt clients was no doubt fuelled by the knock-on effects of the Great Depression. As well as this work, he was asked one day to defend a Sheikh Mohammed Bashir, who perhaps knew the lawyer he engaged as a fellow hunter? Bashir and friends had booked a hunting block and obtained permits to shoot a lion from the Game Department in Narok. Having rigged up a bait in a tree the previous day, as dawn broke the next morning his trackers spotted a huge lion approaching, so rapped on the side of the truck. This sent Bashir up onto the roof from where he shot and killed the animal. Shooting game from a vehicle was against all the regulations and Bashir was duly reported to the formidable chief warden, Temple-Boreham, who charged him with contravention of game laws. Burke got Bashir acquitted on the grounds that, from their vantage point below the truck, none of the prosecution witnesses had actually seen him do the shooting and so the identity of the culprit remained in theoretical doubt.
Burke was also becoming active in politics, particularly the issue of African representation in the governing Legislative Council. The Indian
community was most forthright in attempting to promote their own interests in this respect, but they also actively supported the African demands which Burke championed.
Some time in the 1930s Burke moved both his personal and professional lives to Nairobi, taking up residence in Parklands. He also seems to have had at least a branch office in Nakuru where his chambers were opposite the Odeon Cinema. Presumably he spent at least one or two days a week there and is remembered for walking to the law courts with his clerk Maganlal Thakkar following behind on a bicycle, laden down with files and documents. He may well have been practising both there and in Nairobi by the time he took instructions from Bashir and also when, as the court transcript of Karambu old Sendeu’s murder trial reports, “he was given a brief by the Supreme Court to undertake the accused’s defence and without having an opportunity of interviewing his client he travelled to Narok 110 miles away to appear at the trial.”
The details of his defence of Karambu are set out in more detail in Culture Clash. Be that as it may, it should be noted here that first, Burke tried a defence of provocation, which failed on account of the time lapse between Grant refusing to exchange Karambu’s bullock for another one and his throwing the spear. Then the lawyer requested that because there was a history of epilepsy in his client’s family, he would like to have the trial postponed for two weeks so that Karambu could be placed under medical supervision at the Mathari Mental Hospital. Here the supervising Dr Carrothers found that while Karambu may have occasionally suffered from epilepsy, there was no evidence that he was under its influence
when he committed the crime, and therefore no support for any plea of insanity.
Thus it was that Karambu was sentenced to death, but Burke still felt that at least he had a duty to try and have the death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. So, more in hope than expectation, he appealed to His Majesty’s Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa, sitting in Dar es Salaam which found “… there is no substance in the appeal and it is dismissed” and Karambu was hanged in Nairobi on 28th January 1947.
Sadly, Burke had less than four more months to live before his own life came to an end. This was in Arusha in what was then Tanganyika Territory, on 19th May 1947, apparently in an accident on a business trip.
Things worked quickly in those days for only one day later he was buried in Section 11, Lot 212 of Nairobi’s Forest Road Cemetery, a grave now so overgrown with vegetation that several searchers have so far failed to find it. And shortly after the burial, he made a final appearance in the Kenya Gazette as the subject of an application for the administration of his estate on 3rd July 1947 by his eldest child, Joan Alice Burke.
Whenever Burke looked back on his life, as he must have from time to time, surely he must have recognised what a full and fulfilling journey it had been.
So far as indigenous Kenyan advocates go, it was left to CMG Argwings-Kodhek to become the first practising indigenous African lawyer in Kenya, admitted in 1952 after also being called to the bar in London, Lincoln’s Inn in this case. Having made a big name for himself representing Mau Mau defendants, he was elected to the Legislative Council in 1961, and then won a seat in the new House of Representatives in 1963. After several junior ministerial posts President Jomo Kenyatta appointed him Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. A year later, in January 1969, he was killed in a car accident in circumstances which left many questions unanswered.
A notice concerning the administration of James Burke’s estate following his death in 1947. (Image from Rupert Watson)
ONLY IN AFRICA...
Snakes and Policemen
In l967 Tony Archer, Rob Glen and their crew were returning from Western Uganda, having been on a two-month collecting trip for the Los Angeles County Museum, organized through John Williams, who was at that time Curator of the Nairobi National Museum. They were stopped at Malaba, the Uganda-Kenya border post, on a Friday afternoon, as their lorry’s license had expired. By 5 pm nothing had been resolved. The Police would not let them proceed anywhere until they had been to court the coming Monday. So a compromise was made; they were allowed to camp in the Police HQ compound for three nights.
On the Saturday morning Tony and Rob decided to have some fun. Jonathan Leakey from Baringo had asked them to collect Gaboon Vipers for him for his antivenin business. They had about l5 of these snakes with them, so they took them out for an airing! In those days every Police Station had a roundabout surrounded by painted white stones, with a few shrubs in the center. This was an ideal place, so they emptied all the snakes out of their bags, and they had a lovely time stretching and enjoying the sun. Soon a curious policeman came to see what was going on, and to his horror he saw all these snakes wriggling around. He screamed in fright and fled. Soon other police officers came to see what
the problem was, and they also fled to the safety of the building, shouting at Tony and Rob to catch those snakes immediately and put them away. All the snakes were duly caught, and put back in the lorry, but Tony and Rob pretended to “look for the last missing one,” and finally told the police they couldn’t find it, and gave up. The Police Station doors were then all kept firmly shut, and no one would come out.
On Sunday morning, when everyone was getting a bit bored of their detention, the local fire engine arrived, the driver ringing the bell, with much noise and excitement. It stopped outside the Police Station door, whereupon the driver and his mate proudly told Tony and Rob they had brought them a snake! The poor snake was a Black Mamba which had been clubbed to death, but it was about six-feet long, so quite impressive. They deposited the snake outside the Station door and drove off. This was the final straw for the police officers, as they imagined more snakes being brought to the Police Station, word having gotten out that these crazy people collected snakes!
Tony and Rob were duly summonsed to their office, given a lecture as to how terrible they were to be terrorizing everyone, and were told to pack up, get out of the compound, and leave fast as possible! The lorry’s expired license was the last thing on the Police Offic-
ers’ minds. They just wanted these crazy snake collectors to be out of their sight and as far away as possible!
Julia Glen, Nanyuki
Coffee with Idi Amin
In 1975, I was flying East African Airways McDonnell Douglas DC-9 twin-engined jets, which carried 95 passengers. Entebbe was one of the frequent destinations and one morning our scheduled departure from Entebbe was delayed as President Idi Amin was flying out from the airport.
His presidential executive jet, a sleek American-made Gulfstream lent by Israel, was parked next to our aircraft. I walked over to admire it and was invited aboard by the captain. At the entrance to the cabin, there was an almost life-size photograph of Amin in his uniform, adorned with a ridiculous number of medals. I then went to the nearby Departure Terminal to watch the proceedings as the president was due soon.
A guard of honour was lined up on the ramp, and all those inside the departure lounge moved toward the huge picture window to observe the parade. Amin arrived in a convoy of limousines and then stood at attention close to the window, with his back to us. We were only a few feet from him, separated by the glass. He was in full military uniform, and an unforgettable sight for me was his huge frame and large head on his short, thick neck. He
was a powerful figure standing 6’4” and had been the Ugandan light-heavyweight boxing champion from 1951 to 1960. After the parade, he took to the skies. I never thought I would see him again. He was deposed in 1979 and went into exile in Saudi Arabia.
In 1985, when my wife and I were living in Jeddah (I was a captain in Saudi Arabian Airlines), we were driving north along Jeddah’s highway to the creek. There was no other traffic when we came across a lone black man dressed in a white ‘thobe,’ the Saudi men’s national dress, taking a photo of his white Chevrolet Camaro sports car on the empty road. As we got closer, we both recognised the unmistakable hulk of Idi Amin.
Around 1997, I took my car for its regular wash in a large petrol station in Jeddah, close to the Saudia City compound where we lived. Customers could sit inside the coffee shop on stools at the long bar and watch their cars being washed through enormous windows behind the barista. When I walked in, there was no mistaking the only other customer, despite him having his back to me. He was an African wearing a white Saudi thobe, and I recognised that bull neck. It was Idi Amin, for sure.
“Amin Dada,” I said, and he turned to face me, looking shocked. I continued in my rather bad Swahili. “I was born in Kampala and flew for East African Airways and saw you at Entebbe airport, which is how I recognised you.”
He nodded and asked me to join him for coffee. We made small talk in Swahili and then carried on in English. The UK newspaper reports that Amin was sick with various diseases appeared to be untrue as he looked strong and healthy.
The only book I have not been able to finish was one
about Idi Amin and his dreadful atrocities. Should I broach that subject with a guest of the Saudi Royal family? As a political leader refugee, he lived in exile in a villa rented for him by the government. He was also given a monthly stipend. I had to be careful not to upset him, as he could have taken my car registration and reported me to the authorities for upsetting their guest. Those kinds of issues were very real concerns in Saudi Arabia.
I did ask him why he had attacked his own people and why there was so much shooting in the country. He replied, “I was trained by the British to be a soldier, and a soldier kills. I was not trained to be a politician.”
“But why did you kill so many people?”
“I had to protect my tribe from the others. That is what tribes do.”
I was talking to a brutal psychopath who showed no regrets.
“And Bob Astles?” Astles was an ex-British army soldier and colonial officer who lived precariously as an advisor to Amin.
“Bob was my friend,” replied Amin, breaking into a smile.
I said, “I remember Uganda
had a vibrant economy and was a good tourist destination, but you ruined it all. Why did you have to do that?”
He replied with his eyes looking straight at mine. “I was not an economist. I was a soldier!”
I could tell he wasn’t used to being asked direct questions from someone who knew his past. I wanted to ask him about the Entebbe Raid, but then the Egyptian petrol station manager joined us. The conversation became less confrontational and more about his quiet life in Jeddah, amongst other things. Amin did say to us that he advised his children not to go into politics.
When Amin stepped out briefly, the Egyptian said to me, “He is a good man.”
“You don’t know him, and what he did in Uganda. He committed terrible atrocities.” But the Egyptian wasn’t interested in, or swayed by, this information.
After about 45 minutes, our cars were ready and we went to the exit door together in a reflective mood. I stood facing him and said goodbye, then glanced at his huge right hand. There was no way I could shake it. I never saw him again, and he died in 2003. His ruthlessness is portrayed in the 2006 award-winning film The Last King of Scotland, starring Forest Whitaker.
Richard Frost, Vipingo
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Idi Amin with his medals.
FISCHER’S 1883 EA EXPEDITION
PART FOUR: NORTH FROM KILIMANJARO
This article originally appeared in German as “Bericht über die im Auftrage der Geographischen Gesellschaft in Hamburg unternommene Reise in das Massai-Land,” published in the geographical journal Mittheilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft in Hamburg, 1882-83, and which formed the basis of Fischer’s 1885 book Das Masai-Land. The translated sections here comprise section I. General Report (pp. 36-99) and section III. D. Dr. G.A. Fischer’s ethnographic collection from East Africa (pp. 275-279).
This article was translated by Eckhart and Almut Spalding (the latter is a retired professor of Germanic Languages and Literature, Illinois College). For the sake of authenticity, Old Africa has chosen not to edit Fischer’s use of words like Negro and Washenzi, which are now objected to as pejorative, but in his day were descriptive.
Report of the Journey into Massai-Land, taken under commission for the Geographical Society in Hamburg by Gustav Adolf Fischer
On the dome-like western peak, thick masses of snow, broken up only by narrow, dark stripes, cover the entire summit year round. If one takes the measurements of v[on] d[er] Decken at face value, the boundary of the eternal snow begins at circa 16,000 feet and
the snow-covered part of the summit stretches across 2,000 feet. New believes that there is snow from about 20,000 feet on up stretching over 2,000 feet— but then the smaller peak would have no snow. A snow boundary at 16,000 feet would also be consistent with my observations on Mount Meru, whose highest peak is at least 15,000 feet high, and exhibits several very thin stripes of snow in July. They disappear again, however, when the sun shines. It was likely an optical illusion, perhaps made by the glare of sunshine on bare rocks, which would explain why Rebmann testified that he had seen snowfields on the eastern side of Mount Meru even though the eastern sides of the mountains are the warmer ones. Even the name that the Massai give Mount Meru underscores that it is not a snow mountain: D¨onyo Er´ok la Sigirari, that is, the black mountain of Sigirari (a Massai district), while Kilima-Njaro is generally called Oldonjo eb´or, the white mountain.
mangi. Their sultan is also called mangi and when the great mountain remained shrouded in cloud, they said “mangi sua,” that is, the lord refrains to show himself, just like they say of their chieftain, “he forbade the trading of grain before tribute was paid.” Incidentally, the inhabitants of Komboko call the mountain Sira. All natives whom I asked said that the white substance on the mountain was “rock.”
The word Kibo, which has been known since Rebmann as the Chagga word for snow, does not mean that at all, but is rather a cry of surprise or reluctance, corresponding to the Swahili word ama. The Kilima-Njaro, whose quantities of water flow almost entirely into the Pangani River, does not mark the boundary of the greater watersheds between eastern regions and the Nile. Its northerly and northeastern sides are not the source of waters which flow to Victoria-Nyanza and are only of small consequence.
The term Kilima-Njaro is a Swahili name, but does not mean (as Rebmann and others contend) great mountain. Instead, the Mohammedan inhabitants of the coast [consider] Njaro to be an evil spirit which sometimes frightens children. Thus it is called Njaro Mountain, [and] many superstitions and fairy tales are associated with it. In addition, the inhabitants of Chagga personify it by frequently calling it lord,
They quickly disappear in the flatland, partly to form swamps or ponds.
This region is naturally exceptionally fertile, due to the abundant rains and the innumerable streams which flow though the Chaggaland on the southern and southwestern slopes of Kilima-Njaro. At any time of year, caravans obtain their sustenance in full, and in this way my 230 men could supply themselves within a few hours with grain to last for 8 days. Komboko is the last station for quite a while where
vegetative sustenance is to be found. Here is also where the casual [pace] of the caravan ends. From here onward, one is practically on a war footing. While desertions occasionally take place after leaving Chaggaland, such [desertions] are [now] sure to cease— for the Massai would mercilessly slay any fleeing porter whom they encounter, or make him a slave so as to trade him later to another caravan.
On April 2 we left the cold and wet Chaggaland. The morning only reached 15°C after sunrise, and we soon
reached a lush pastureland, almost treeless, where the sun once again shone bright and warmed the freezing porters. Here we encountered a caravan coming from Lake Mbaringo. They had narrowly escaped a skirmish with a band of Massai encamped north of Lake Naivasha. The caravan had proceeded along our route just ahead of us. And, as we learned from them, one day’s travel further they lost another two men to the Massai.
Once again, I exhorted my porters to stay together, and to
only leave the encampment in the company of several others, and with adequate arms.
The following day, during which we knew that we would encounter several Massai encampments, was very unsettling for the porters. It would also be decisive for the future of the caravan. What would the Massai say when they see the white man? Will they abduct him? Soon the cattle of the Massai became visible in the distance over the grassland. The treeless grassland is inhabited by giraffes, zebras, and gnus. It extends from Mount Meru in the form of low prominences and gradually rises toward Kilima-Njaro, exhibiting here conical, almost treeless hills.
Soon several women and older people came up to us. The first thing the Massai ask of a caravan is, “Where is the Leigwen´an? Where is the Laib´on?” For the former they are referring to the translator; for the latter, there is no word in German that reflects the full meaning of the word, and must be translated as “sorcerer.”
The Swahili says mganga— that is, a man who is able to forestall misfortune, to find the best route, to drive out evil spirits, to heal sickness, etc. This time, the European was presented as the Laib´on. As far as the Massai were concerned, he was indeed a most remarkable sorcerer. Soon we were followed by a swarm of children, women, and warriors, who pointed at me sometimes laughing, sometimes with disgust, sometimes with fear. We moved into an old encampment, 1,230 m above sea level, in the narrow forested embankment of a
Ethnographic objects from Massailand collected by Gustav Fischer.
stream flowing from KilimaNjaro, which is called ngare neirobi (na erobi in [North Germanic]), cold water. It flows in the direction of Mount Meru, reportedly disappearing in a swamp or ponds. The first thing that a caravan must do after arriving at the location where they will stay overnight is to erect as effective a barricade as possible from acacias and mimosas, which will provide a reliable protection against nighttime attacks.
During the day, the Massai move about at will in the encampment to beg and steal, and amuse themselves in various ways. As a result, the camp soon became overcrowded. Three hundred warriors, women, children and elderly persons ambled around like at an annual fair, where my own tent, as it were, was on display and provided the main attraction. It was an indescribable hustle and bustle, with shouting, laughing, singing, and bellowing. From a distance came the rather pleasant song of tribute from warriors, who hailed from farflung encampments.
The tent had to be surrounded with an armed guard, but it was hardly possible to keep back the crowd. The lively, excited warriors wanted to see the white Laib´on with his four eyes and his alien feet. I could not help but get out of there, otherwise the tent and everything in it would have been torn apart. Packed groups of warriors, women, and children thronged around me. Some stood on their toes to see through the backside of my glasses. Others looked from below, and still others
felt my strange hair. Several, who were too frightened to physically touch me, touched me with [knobkerry] clubs. Finally, they seemed to come to the conclusion that I was flesh and blood like they themselves were, but one thing remained unfathomable and suspicious—my feet. “He has hands like us,” they said to my translator, a Mukavi who always had to remain tightly by my side, “but his feet are entirely different.” They did not want to believe that the shoes were an article of clothing, and the women kept shouting, “He has donkey feet!”
After I distributed a number of rings among the women (which they outright fought over), and after I made the tribute payment (which was rather generous), towards evening everyone pulled back satisfied and in the merriest of moods. The hungry porters could only start preparing their food once night had fallen. They had been completely occupied during the day guarding over their belongings. One can hardly imagine what devious thieves the Massai are. Little sacks of beads disappeared with monkeylike speed, a sidearm was stolen from the tent, [and] the lids of the cooking pots were torn off and spirited away by a laughing thief. They even tried to use the thermometers hanging in front of the tent as earrings.
After a two-day sojourn at ngare neirobi, we pressed on, mostly to the northwest. The route proceeded partly through light mimosa groves, dropping down to 1,150 m onto a mostly treeless plain, which stretches between Kilima-Njaro and Mount
Longido, in whose lower parts a stream of natron-rich water flows in a ditch, and partly soaking the grasslands. The area is called ngare njuki, after this reddish water. The plain is bordered by Mount Meru, the Kilima-Njaro, Mount Longido, and the D¨onyo Er´ok la Matumbatu, which has a height similar to that of Mount Meru, but which never has snow. Mirages were visible to the northeast, shimmering over the grassland as if it were on fire. In the distance we would have thought we were seeing an expanse of water, in which the hills stood like islands. Several herds of gnus stood in long rows, and individual giant marabou storks sought out giant beetles in the antelope droppings, for lack of other sustenance. The following day (7 April) it was forbidden to march, being a Mohammedan day of misfortune (the 28th). Indeed it turned out to be one. Towards midday, gunshots and cries for help suddenly rang out from the acacia groves, on whose fringe we were encamped.
Life in the encampment, so peaceful until now, instantly turned into fearful running and flight. Several Massai warriors were bracing themselves on their mighty spears, and vaulting over the [acacia] barrier. There were women in the encampment to trade in animal skins and milk, and they ran screaming to the fortified entryway. Some of the porters rushed over there, and the entrance quickly became jammed [with people]. As is typical among the Mohammedans, the response to the gunshots outside the encampment was to shoot ineffectually, which
wounded a Massai woman in the upper thigh, and killed an elderly Massai man. I sheltered an old man and several women in my tent against possible attacks from the overexcited porters. In the meantime, porters who had gone out to collect wood had come back. They told me that several young Massai warriors had attempted to attack them, but that [the porters] managed to use their weapons just in time to shoot and kill two Massai, and the others fled. After the nervous excitement had died down a bit, I released the Massai who had been in my tent. We immediately strengthened the barricade with thorned acacia branches into an 8-foot tall and 4-foot thick wall. With this we could successfully fight off an attack. But few of the porters partook of their evening meal with
appetite, if at all. The night passed uneventfully, however. We remained in a state of uncertainty for quite some time. Finally, towards evening the Laib´on of the district appeared with a number of warriors and elders and explained that, after lengthy consultations, it was decided to maintain a state of peace, and that they were prepared to accept a standard gift of atonement for the dead. After brief discussions, the following was paid: 1-1/2 weights of iron wire, 50 rings of brass wire, 600 strands of beads, and 14 war capes, at the distribution of which there was an outright fight among the young warriors, who did not spare their [knobkerry] clubs. It had already turned dark, and I shot off a rocket in front of the Laib´on and the elders present, and said that I would
send this fire into their herds and destroy all their livestock, if the young lads were to harass us come tomorrow. Furthermore, I requested two older warriors so that they may guide us on our way. After this was promised, the Massai left in a state of true friendship. Indeed, on the following morning two of the warriors from the older age-set appeared, accompanied by others who offered to sell [us] two oxen. These were quickly purchased and slaughtered for the hungry porters. The going rate for one of them in these parts is 30-40 iron wire rings (of approx. 20 cm. diameter), 10 brass wire rings, and 40100 strings of beads. These things have a value of about 10 Marks.
To be continued…
FLYING ADVENTURES STRANDED IN SOUTHERN SUDAN
by Richard Frost
Thursday 1st July 1976. The Accident. CRASH! Down went the aircraft’s nose section onto the sandy runway. Simultaneously, the back of my seat was pushed forward by the cargo of beer crates in the cabin, jamming me against the instrument panel.
While turning the aircraft slowly at the end of the runway, the nose wheel had collapsed into the soft sand, forcing the two propellers to dig in as well. The engines stopped immediately. After the sudden noise of the bottles violently clinking, an ominous silence.
“Damn, Damn, Damn!” I swore as I quickly switched off the fuel pumps, magnetos and Master Electric Switch. I heaved with all my strength on the back of my seat to push the crates away so I could get out. Moving to the back of the twin-engine Cessna 402, I opened the door and stood at the top of the aircraft steps, feeling upset, ashamed, and shocked. A group of people were waiting at the bottom of the steps, staring at me.
“This is the first time I have ever damaged an aircraft,” I said.
The sand was so soft that all the wheels had sunk into it up to their rims. The stylish machine now rested in an undignified position with its nose down and tail up. It was unserviceable and wouldn’t be able to fly back to Wilson until repaired - but I needed to be back in Nairobi in the next few days.
My flying career so far had been going well. It was incident-free, and I was a 26-year-old
First Officer with East African Airways and was on a VC10 ground course. I’d set my sights on flying this iconic aircraft ten years ago when still a schoolboy, and now my opportunity had come. I’d had a few days off between the classroom studies and simulator training, but the opportunity to earn extra money moonlighting for an air charter company at Wilson airport had been too tempting. In despair, I now realised I should not have taken on this freelance flight, having been warned of the rough airstrip in this remote part of southern Sudan, north of Bentiu. This was not a good place to be stranded, so far away from rescue.
Before my departure early that morning, no one from the charter company was around with a load sheet. I could only guess the overall weight of the aircraft. I had no passengers, but the cabin was loaded with heavy beer crates, which I was to fly to a Chevron Oil test drill site 17 miles north of Bentiu in southern Sudan. My take-off run at Wilson was longer than normal, and I struggled to climb out and had to fly around the Odeon Drive-In Cinema screen straight ahead, and low over the houses in the ‘South C’ residential area, and then over the Nairobi Game Park to gain airspeed and more height. The aircraft was well overweight.
My three-hour flight to Juba was uneventful, and I cleared Customs and refuelled. As Juba’s altitude is only 1,804 feet against that of Wilson at 5,546 feet, and had a longer runway, I had no problem with the take-off this time. I continued
A Cessna 402, the same kind of plane that Richard Frost flew to Southern Sudan in 1976
for nearly two hours towards the Chevron Test Drill site. Just north of Bentiu, I noticed a long runway at Rubkona and, a few minutes later, I was overhead the Chevron airstrip. It was now early afternoon, and I could see a few people and a Land Rover waiting for me. I flew low to check the surface and got a hand signal to land. The sand airstrip looked smooth and safe. I touched down gently at about 85 mph, and at first, I thought there was no problem, the airstrip seemed fine. But then the two main aircraft wheels sank into soft sand and slammed into some rough rocks several inches under the surface with an alarming thud. Unbeknownst to me, there had been heavy rain that morning, leaving the sand looking smooth but very wet and soft. This slowed my landing roll, and I continued down the runway, bumping over hidden foundation stones. As the aircraft neared the end of the runway, I used the momentum to turn the aircraft in the soft sand. It was a big mistake. I should have stopped straight, unloaded the aircraft, and waited for the runway to dry overnight and the wheel ruts to be repaired. The Land Rover, which had followed me, had also made deep tracks in the runway.
On inspecting the damage with an aircraft engineer, who had been there repairing another aircraft after a similar accident, I was surprised to see that the nose wheel side struts of a Cessna 402 are only attached to the thin aluminium of the nose compartment baggage containers. This was not strong enough to take the side forces, and the side strut went straight through the metal. The propellers were only
slightly bent but would still have to be replaced. The beer crates were unloaded into the Land Rover and, once the aircraft was made secure, we drove to the Chevron Test Drill camp in sombre silence. I was shown into a comfortable room in the drillers’ accommodation with a washroom nearby, and was left to lick my wounds. After a shower, I went to the Camp Mess where I met the Chevron Oil manager to discuss the crash and what to do next. The aircraft needed spares and an engineer pilot to be flown in from Wilson, and I needed to get back to Nairobi as soon as possible. I dared not miss my simulator training. He said he would try to contact Chevron’s aircraft manager in Khartoum and see if it could fly me to Nairobi.
The beer had now been in a cooler for a few hours, and I was invited to help myself. Meanwhile, all the drillers were enjoying their beers too, and then we had dinner together. I went to bed still feeling annoyed by the situation, but somewhat placated after a couple of cold Tuskers.
Friday 2nd July 1976. The Coup. At breakfast, the manager looked drawn and gave me bad news. He had heard on his radio that a coup against President Nimeiry had been attempted at dawn at the Khartoum International Airport after his aircraft had landed from a Presidential visit to Washington and Paris. Loyalist forces prevented the President from being arrested. In the afternoon, the insurgents started attacking key locations in the city. Hundreds of civilians had been killed. All flights from the airport had been cancelled.
A map showing Bentiu in Southern Sudan, the area where Richard Frost was stranded after his mishap on the sandy landing strip.
Chevron’s company aircraft, a de Havilland Twin Otter, and the pilots were grounded. Now I was definitely going to miss my simulator training. This was an important part of my Transition Class to the VC10. If I were unavailable, I could lose my job, and it would be the end of my budding airline career. I could only sit there and hope for the best - and have another cold Tusker, or two!
Help came in the form of a sympathetic Chevron drilling technician, who was a HAM Amateur Radio licensed operator. As there was no telephone communication with Khartoum or Nairobi, he could try and get a fellow HAM operator to assist. These amateur radio enthusiasts had connections all over the world. The radios use shortwave highfrequency signals that are reflected to the earth by a layer of charged particles in the upper atmosphere called the ionosphere. These signals can travel thousands of miles, especially at night. The HAM radio mast has to be at least 40 feet above ground for effective communication. I wrote down my message to whoever would receive the information, as it takes time to find another HAM operator who can hear the signal clearly. I left the kind man to his beloved radio and went for dinner and a couple of beers that I felt were owed to me.
Saturday 3rd July 1976. The HAM Radio. The next morning, the HAM operator said he had made contact with another one in New Zealand. He’d broadcast my name, the circumstances, the name and number to call my home on Murishu Road, Langata, and a hopeful date of arrival, and that East African Airways should be told I had malaria and could not come to simulator training. That was the last we heard from New Zealand. I had no idea if he managed to call my home. Now I had to wait for the coup to end and hope to be rescued.
Later in the morning, the aircraft engineer and I went to the airstrip to assess the damage and see if there was any chance of restoring the aircraft to a flying condition by jury rigging the landing gear and straightening the propellers. We both considered this solution to be farfetched and dangerous. Despite my anxiety, I slept long hours in the afternoons and at night, even though I went to bed early straight after dinner.
A drawing by the author showing the damage to the plane’s nose wheel and props after his crash landing.
sound of four Hercules C-130 military aircraft flying low to the south of our camp. Their four turboprop engines make an unmistakable and easily recognised sound. Was this something to do with the coup? Were the aircraft flying to Juba? I went back to sleep.
Sunday 4th July 1976. Entebbe Raid Aircraft. At breakfast, everyone was talking about the sound of the aircraft flying overhead, and all agreed there were four Hercules. The BBC World Service News announced that the Jewish hostages on a hijacked Air France aircraft in Entebbe had been rescued just after midnight by Israeli forces. They had flown back to Tel Aviv, via Nairobi, in four Hercules. What a coincidence to have been directly under their secret flightpath en route to Entebbe. They’d had to fly very low to avoid being detected by radar.
We all listened to the radio for news of both the coup’s progress and more details on the Raid. The Israeli “Operation Jonathan” (military name “Operation Thunderbolt”) rescued 102 hostages, but three were unfortunately killed in crossfire, along with the leader of the raid, Yonatan Netanyahu, older brother of Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The seven hijackers, as well as 45 Ugandan soldiers, were also killed.
That night, I was woken up by the distinctive
Meanwhile, the coup in Khartoum was petering out as the insurgents had no supplies, and we hoped the airport would open soon. All this stress in our camp could only be handled by a lonely, stranded pilot and a group of oil drillers in one way - several cold beers at lunch and dinner! Flying the beers up from Nairobi in an overloaded aircraft and landing on an
unsuitable airstrip made me feel that I’d earned my share of the cargo – and I was getting used to my long afternoon naps.
Monday 5th July 1976. The Rescue. Over breakfast, I noticed a lot of empty beer crates neatly stacked against the wall of the Mess. We’d done a good job!
The manager came in with some good news for me.
“You’re in luck - Khartoum airport is now open and our aircraft will pick you up this morning.”
“I hope it’s not going to land at this airstrip?”
“No, it will land at Rubkona,” he confirmed. “We’ll be leaving shortly.”
The smart Chevron Twin Otter aircraft duly arrived to collect me, and I was relieved to be on my way home. I hoped my ‘malaria’ fib story had, by some miracle, reached the East African Airways training department. What a lovely sight it was to land and taxi into Wilson airport on a bright sunny afternoon. Home again.
My friends at our Murishu Road house welcomed me back, and I was amazed to hear that they’d received a phone call from the New Zealand HAM radio operator.
“Did you call the airline?” I asked my East
African Airways colleague, Rob Grumbley, who was on the same VC10 training course.
“I didn’t need to - you are rostered for the start of simulator training tomorrow morning.”
I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d got away with it. The next morning, I reported for duty, not letting on what I had been up to.
As it turned out, Rob and I were on the very last VC10 course. I loved flying that magnificent jet, but flew it for only a few months. In January 1977 East African Airways operations came to a halt, and I was devastated when the fleet was grounded. The aircraft were then bought by the Royal Air Force and converted into tankers to refuel airborne fighter jets. A few months later Kenya Airways was established, and I was among their first intake of pilots on the Boeing 707.
Epilogue
After the daring rescue of the Air France hostages in Entebbe by the Israeli forces, President Idi Amin was furious. He took his revenge on the very unfortunate Mrs Dora Bloch in hospital by having her killed, as well as 245 innocent Kenyan-Ugandans. Three thousand Kenyans had to flee Uganda. Over the years, several commemorative medallions have been made of Operation Jonathan, one of which I found among my parents’ treasures after they passed away. Sadly, it is too late to ask them how they acquired it.
Chevron found oil in 1977 and the first commercial flow started in 1979. They were caught up in Sudan’s serious political difficulties and ended their operations in 1984 after three expatriate workers were killed. The company sold its interests in 1992. Sadly, there is another civil war in that troubled country now.
Forty years after my crash landing at the Chevron Oil drilling airstrip, I met Alan Herd, a well-known Kenyan pilot, flight instructor and aircraft engineer. I was telling him this story, and to my surprise, he said, “I was the one who fixed and rescued that aircraft!” At that time, he was the Technical Director of Kenya Air Charters and Caspair Ltd., the company for whom I had been freelancing.
Top: The Entebbe Raid bronze medallion, top side. Bottom: The opposite side of the same medallion, giving its code name Operation Jonathan.
CAMEL SAFARIHURI HILLS AND MT FOROLE PART 2
by Bizzie Frost
In Part One the author with her husband Richard, Fiona Alexander and Hugh and Ros Lamprey trekked from Kalacha over the Huri Hills to the base of Mt Forole on the Kenya-Ethiopian border. Here’s the rest of the story.
Climb up Mt Forole, then back across the Huri Hills
1982
Sunday 25 July – Our camp is about 2,500 feet, and Hugh, Fiona, Richard and I set off at 8.30 am to climb Mt Forole. We believe this is the first time women have climbed it – or perhaps, white women. It is a fine morning and once again, Wario is assigned to be our guide. We follow him along the path to the second waterhole, then to a third one above that. The going this far is fairly easy, with a few bushes in the way and having to duck under low branches. Then the real work begins. We have to scramble through thorns and scrub bushes, over and around rocks, forcing our way slowly up towards the summit, which has the ‘baboon skull’ boulder sitting on the top. We finally emerge out of the thick bush onto the saddle between
the summit and the ‘baboon skull,’ with a magnificent view over the other side of the mountain to Ethiopia. The ‘baboon skull’ boulder is enormous, as are those beneath, supporting it. We have to battle on with more ‘bundu bashing’ to reach the summit and go through some interesting vegetation – wild fennel, leleshwa, all kinds of delicate flowers and moss in a rather swampy area. As we are in sight of the summit, three greater kudu run along the top and disappear down a precipitous slope on the other side.
We have a great sense of achievement as we near the top. Fiona leads us to the beacon and we reach it at 1 pm. We take a few photos of us at the top and then enjoy a good picnic prepared by Ros. Hugh waves to her, four thousand feet below us – we are now at 6,580 feet. He rebuilds the beacon, number K B35, which has seen better days, and we leave a tin, tucked securely on it with a rock, with a note inside with the date and our names.
We reflect that somebody, sometime, had carried all these stones and cement up the mountain to make
the beacon. We can see the Kenya-Ethiopian border line delineated by a lighter colour across the plains below and up the mountainside.
At 2 pm, we begin our long, scrambling descent. Fiona’s knees are feeling painful by the time we reach the third water hole. We reach camp at 6.30 pm, tired but satisfied with having achieved the long-planned mission with perfect weather all day. Once again, we have a campfire, and in the night are woken up by a light rain shower.
Monday 26 July – We begin our walk home, and the Water Chief and his wives (one of them a beautiful, young Ethiopian woman with two gorgeous children) come to see us off. We now have three days to reach our fresh water supplies, and stick to the road as much as possible. The walk is a long pull back up to the Huri Hills, and we choose a terrible place to camp. The wind is a gale, and after lunch, we follow the example of the Gabra camel men and make ourselves a windbreak, which we all huddle behind. (Their technique of building a
Mount Forole - the summit was our goal.
windbreak was one we were to use many times years later when camping in the deserts of Saudi Arabia.)
On our walk, we pass biblical scenes – herds of goats with Gabra herdsmen carrying numerous newborn kids. We passed another herd of just kid goats being herded by two small boys.
I have to say more about Kilonzo, our safari mpishi , or cook. He is the most willing, hard-working, uncomplaining cook imaginable. When you look at the options of where he can set up a kitchen, he comes up with truly remarkable results. He finds his spot immediately, lights a fire and produces a pot of tea in no time. As if by magic, fresh loaves of bread appear out of his safari oven, made from an empty four-gallon kerosene debe tin container. Somehow, he manages to create a variety of tasty dishes out of Fiona’s cans of corned beef. He cut his foot on a piece of wire in the kitchen on Friday morning and walked the 20 miles on it before telling us. (I’ve been doing lots of ‘nursing’ on this trip – eyes, feet, camel humps – I’ve enjoyed being so useful.)
Tuesday 27 July – None of us slept well – it was such a horrible campsite. We’d been limited though, because the trees we’d wanted to camp under are at the foot of a Gabra traditional worshipping hill where they pray for rain and sacrifice their goats.
Our walk today is another
super one, through the rolling hills and grassland – we all enjoy it. We follow the road most of the way and again see many herds of goats. The camel men choose a nice spot for today’s camp, although no matter how much of a valley or sheltered spot you choose, the wind still gets you. You can hear it winding itself up, then bundling down towards you, and then it blows wildly around you for a while, roaring its way through the
trees and bushes, and then at last, some stillness. But the spot is beautiful, we do some washing and have a short rest. Then Richard and I climb a nearby hill. For once, it is a clear day, good light, unlike the rather dullish hazy light we’ve had before. The climb up the hill is longer and steeper than expected, but the view at the top is unbelievable –stretching across the plains to Mt Forole in the north,
Almost near the summit and Baboon Skull.
Hugh and Richard on the summit of Mt Forole.
and southwards to a fantastic view of the Huri Hills. We can follow our whole route. The low evening light shows the contours of these volcanic cones, the colours of straw and ripe wheat. Craters on most volcanic hills and mountains are on the top, but here they are on the side, all facing eastwards. I wonder if this is because the constant, strong wind that we’ve faced was also blowing 10 million years ago, and blew the volcanic
lava explosions in the same direction, like a giant hair dryer? The wind at the top feels like it’s about 60 mph. I’ve forgotten to mention the large flocks of little Quelea birds that frequent our camps, and they are up here playing, flying and diving in the wind in unison, as though having great fun.
We arrive back at camp to find two Gabra boys have walked 14 miles from the large settlement which we’d seen four days ago,
just before the descent to the Forole plains. They were looking for ‘the nurse.’ With the camel men translating their Gabra into Swahili, they said that two Gabra children had been playing, a girl and a boy carrying a spear over his shoulder. They had been running along a path, and he had tripped, and the blunt end had dug into the ground. The little girl behind had then impaled herself on the sharp blade of the spear. It had gone through her lower abdomen and out through her back, just below her shoulder blade.
At that hour, there was nothing we could do to help. The boys continued into the night to the mission station to find help there.
Wednesday 28 July – It is a cloudy morning as we set off on another walk through the beautiful hills. Our objective today is to collect our halfway water. After about an hour’s walk, we see a Land Rover making slow progress towards us. I know it must be for the small girl at the settlement. A Norwegian Evangelist Missionary from Marsabit is driving it. When he hears there is a nurse in our group, he says he’d be grateful if I’d go with him. I can’t refuse.
We bump our way in the Land Rover over the same track we’d walked over yesterday – it surprises me how much ground we cover on foot. We finally reach the settlement, only to discover that the girl is not there, but at another small one some way off. They ask if we will please
wait while a message is sent to say that we have arrived. We prepare for a long wait. No one seems very interested in the unfortunate child. The Norwegian has a young interpreter with him who also finds it difficult to extract information from the Gabra. As we wait, any romantic ideas of the Gabra nomads are dispelled for good. The living conditions are harsh – no regular water, filth, flies, disease (terrible eye diseases), it is just awful. Inevitably, they have a pungent smell – a mix of strong curry and pepper. The people themselves are unfriendly. Some women offer us tea, which I decline. As soon as something moist is around, flies all hone in on it – the tea cups were barely visible beneath the black cloud of hovering insects.
I learn two details about the Gabra while we wait. The women with male children wear a long leather strip hanging from their waist, decorated with small cowry shells – but I forget to ask where they get the cowry shells from. The elders of the tribe wear a white kind of turban on their heads.
We wait over two-anda-half hours, and no one is forthcoming with how much longer we’ll have to wait or how far away the girl’s village is. Eventually, a message is relayed to us – the girl died that morning, as I’d expected. I am relieved, as I’d dreaded seeing the injury and dying child, knowing there was nothing I could do to help. We set off back across the hills towards the
water drop-off point where we’ll be camping, and as we near it, we find Dambala, the head camel man, lying on the grass. At first, I think he’s there to indicate a campsite, but he gets up and limps slowly towards us, looking pitiful. He complains that he has ‘malaria’ all over. He gets into the Land Rover, which has lots of loose tools in the back. As we go over the numerous bumps, they bang violently, making him clutch his head at each one. Once
we find Hugh, we decide to send Dambala back to Kalacha with the missionary. I was disappointed that I’d missed one of the best walks today, but we climb a nearby hill to make up for it. The view isn’t as spectacular as the previous one, but we could see Afgab, Tula Gallu, and Mt Kulal. Back in camp, Richard has picked us a nice shady spot for our camp, and as I settle onto my pillow, I realise it smells like the Gabra – curry and pepper. I
Fiona Alexander looking out over Ethiopia.
wonder if it comes from the dust and not washing, and our hair hasn’t been washed for two weeks.
Thursday 29 July – Today is going to be another long day – we have to reach Afgab. The going is reasonable, following a short bit of road, then a reasonable path through the lava. As we look west, memories of our first two days over the lava come back. We walk 18 miles and reach our destination, and find a fair site in a small lugga.
Later, Hugh, Richard and I walk over to the Afgab water hole, hoping to find it nice and clean. The picturesque and huge rock pool is about 40 yards across, filled with rainwater only, and lies at the end of a large kind of ‘moat’ which surrounds
Afgab. Sadly, the water is stagnant, green, filthy and smells; we see some ducks on the far side. The Gabra bring their livestock down the steep, rocky path to the water and the place is strewn with droppings. For the Gabra, water is water, and they get into it and wash themselves.
Friday 30 July – We all decide to take it easy in the morning, but the camel men are near home and eager to go. We set off for Kalacha at 8.30 am, with only about three hours’ walk to go. The wind is at last behind us and blows us down to the village. At our first orange rest, my premonitions of scorpions
A young Gabra woman wearing traditional aluminium beads.
Bizzie attending to blisters on Dambala’s feet.
A Gabra elder indicated by his white turban.
are realised - Hugh spots one as I am just about to lie on it. We are mean and squash it with a stone. By the time we reach Kalacha, I have a headache and feel a bit fluey. When we reach the UNEP hut, we find a group from Kenyatta University there. They have completely taken over. There is an English woman there who is married to a Kikuyu (he isn’t there) with her daughter, Wambui, who is nearly two years old. The woman is a teacher at the university, she is some kind of geographer, and her compass is broken. She knows Hugh and asks him if he can lend her a compass. Hugh has only one compass, one of his old “war instruments” given to him by his father, and it has great sentimental value. His generosity forces him to almost lend it to her until Ros and the rest of us exclaim in alarm that he should not – a justified alarm when we see Wambui throwing the other one on the ground.
Instead, Hugh agrees to try to fix this broken one and sits next to the English woman, who now has Wambui on her lap. She lifts her T-shirt and begins to breastfeed Wambui. It is an amusing scene as Hugh is such a shy man and concentrates twice as hard on the compass repair job!
As our ‘camp’ has been taken over, we decide to leave for Olturot. We pay off the camel men, who leave without so much as a “Kwaheri.” We have purchased a souvenir wooden camel bell from Adano, one of the camel men, for Shs.30.
We drive along the edge of the Chalbi Desert and then across it. The soda sediment makes for a glaring heat, which we feel in the old Land Rover. We head for Koroli Springs, but it is too late to get near – we see about 2,000 camels leaving after watering there all day. Their sides are bulging with
water. It is a fine sight, seeing them all slowly striding in a line across the desert. We also see a big herd of Grevy’s zebra, ostriches, and two oryx. We are now in Rendille country, far more colourful people than the Gabra. They wear bright red shukas and carry spears, like the Samburu and Maasai. Unlike the unfriendly Gabra, they wave cheerfully at us as we pass.
Richard drives very well. It is 6.30 pm when we reach Olturot and we go to our tree by the runway to set up our last camp. We are treated to a shower in the moonlight and breeze – it is such a relief that it really is just a ‘breeze!’ The two weeks of howling wind were exhausting and difficult to sleep through.
Saturday 31 July – It was also good to feel warm at night again and we slept well. We are all slow this morning, and try to send a message
The Huri Hills viewed from a hilltop in evening light.
to my sister in Nairobi via Hugh’s radio to let her know all is well. After that, we go to the Balesa-Kulal air strip to wait for Steve, who is up on Mt Kulal, five minutes flying time away. He flies down to meet us and is surprised to hear from Hugh how tough the safari has been, as it seems the last one was bad enough! We finally press on and at South Horr find our brakes are kaput. We stop at the Ministry of Works depot, and an observant mechanic spots the trouble – plus two broken springs on the back right-hand side. The brake fluid pipe had been broken too, on the back left wheel. He uses ‘bush mechanics’ to bend and block the brake pipe and tops it up with fluid, ties the springs firmly with some rope, and we continue.
It is a debate whether to stop and camp past Maralal, or go on to Nairobi. It’s raining, and we agree to stop for a beer at the lodge. As we pile out of our respective vehicles, we all confess that we’d like a night of comfort in the lodge. Oh boy – a
super room in a log cabin with a roaring fire, a hot bath, hair wash – it couldn’t be nicer.
We all enjoy our gourmet dinner - French onion soup, pork chops and trifle - and Fiona kindly treats us to wine. What a welcome change to corned beefalthough Kilonzo’s cooking did wonders with it. We joke about what might have been happening while we’ve been away, as we’ve had no radio or newspapers – there could even have been a coup!
I sing Richard to sleep once back in our room. What a luxurious, warm, comfortable night, with the fire going, the rain pattering on the roof and snug in our beds!
The Afgab water hole. Richard and Bizzie with a haughty camel
Sunday 1 August 1982 – We wake up feeling excited that we’ll be seeing Dusko later today. We join Fiona, Ros and Hugh at breakfast at 8.30 am, and they have some bad news.
“There’s been a coup,” says Hugh.
Because of last night’s joking over dinner, we both start to laugh - then realise he’s serious. A radio announcement comes over
the speakers saying that there has been a coup in Nairobi and that no one must travel today. The VOK radio is eventually cut off, and the BBC don’t have any news for us. Lucas, the manager, advises us to follow him into Maralal town to fill up with fuel and our stop at the petrol station is memorable. Hugh introduces us to a tall, extraordinary-looking man called Wilfred Thesiger
and tells us afterwards that Thesiger was the great Arabian explorer. (This chance encounter paved the way for many future meetings with him in Kenya and London, and we were to get to know him well.)
So, we prepare to stay another night at the Lodge, but there is a broadcast at noon with a jolly voice announcing all is well and we can proceed – and, thanks to Lucas, we have enough petrol to reach Nairobi. On the road, all is fine; Fiona finishes The Times crossword, and I write my diary. We go through lots of rain from Maralal to Nyaharuru. Richard is driving, and although the Land Rover is going fairly well, she is definitely tired!
As we approach Gilgil, where there is a large military barracks, there are numerous army roadblocks. Soldiers stop us at each one, aiming their guns aggressively at us. They point rudely at
Richard in his element driving the Land Rover.
The long line of camels walking across the Chalbi Desert.
‘Steve’ Stephenson flies in to Balesa-Kulal airstrip near Olturot to see us before we return to Nairobi.
Kilonzo sitting in the back of Hugh and Ros’s Land Rover. We are relieved that he is with them with their red UN number plates. The soldiers demand to see his ID card, but they calm down when they discover he is a Wakamba tribesman and is our camp cook. The soldiers move to us, and a gun is pointed through the window on Richard’s side. The soldier asks if we have heard what has happened in Nairobi. We say, “Sort of, can you tell us more?” but they just tell us we’ll find out when we reach Nairobi.
10.15pm, lying in bed at home: As we drove through Karen and Langata this evening, there were no cars or people around – very spooky. Before proceeding home, we thought we’d call in at the Karen Police Station to collect our shotgun (we always had to leave it with the police if we went away). We are surprised to find the
police have barricaded the road leading into the station. Several policemen pop up behind the barricades, and guns are aimed at us with shouts: “STOP! Mnataka nini ? (What do you want?)” At night, on this day of a national coup, our Land Rover with its fully loaded roof rack alarmed them, and we hadn’t realised there was a curfew. We back up and drive away. As we pass the Karen Dukas, we notice that the new “The Horseman” restaurant is almost finished and looking very smart.
We drop Fiona off, and then zoom up to Pixie’s. We can’t wait to see Dusko again. He is still awake when we arrive, in the back of Pixie’s Land Cruiser, as she’d been about to bring him over to us. I hardly recognise my baby – he looks so big, chubby and changed. His bright eyes shine out in the darkness from a round face glowing with health. He was
overjoyed to see his Daddy, and once I took my scarf off, he recognised me. We have lots of laughs with him and, after his bedtime, we stay for supper. Then we have another spooky drive to get home.
Richard heard more details on today’s events than I did, but it appears the efforts at a coup were by the Air Force. It seems that many people have been killed and there’s been lots of action in the Ngong Hills. Seems ironic that we’ve been in the ‘hot’ Shifta (meaning ‘bandit’ in Swahili) area of northern Kenya for three weeks with no trouble, yet the nearer we got to Nairobi, the worse it had become. What an unforgettable time we’ve had.
A LUCKY LIFE: A TEA PLANTER IN KENYA
By Nick Paterson Reviewed by Old Africa
In this personal memoir, Nick Paterson outlines his life from his early years in East Africa to his career in the tea industry in Kenya. Written primarily for his family, the book also provides a fascinating account of life in Kenya through its early years of independence to the present.
Nick’s branch of the Paterson family, though British, had a long history of living in Grenada in the Caribbean between about 1785 and 1958. They were plantation owners, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, politicians, and entrepreneurs. Nick’s father broke away from Grenada, serving in the military as a magistrate in Somalia during World War II, where young Nick and his sister and mother joined him at Hargeisha before Nick was sent to school in Britain. Nick’s father, Sir George Paterson QC, OBE, ended his career as Chief Justice of Northern Rhodesia.
At school at Sherborne, Nick’s speed put him on the wing for the school’s rugby first XV. In those days wingers were expected to throw the ball in at lineouts. As Nick recounts in his book: “I was not the most consistent thrower of the ball, so Mickey (the coach) decided our hooker, Jeremy Page, should undertake throwing duties and I would join in the three-quarter line where I made an impact as my presence was unexpected. Years later when Sherborne held a dinner to celebrate 100 years of school rugby, I talked to Mickey. He suggested that he and I had a small place in rugby history because the Sherborne team was the first to use a hooker to throw the ball in at a lineout. Now, of course, it is standard for hookers to throw the ball in for lineouts.”
In Kenya as a tea planter Nick lived in Kericho, but he played rugby for Nakuru, where he met his wife Pat. He was selected to play on the wing for the East African rugby team against South Africa on 25 February 1961.
The book tells of the diligent work that Nick and others put in managing tea estates for Finlays in the Kericho area, dealing with labour issues, hailstorms, replanting, putting in gum trees for fuel to dry tea leaves and even the controversial mechanization of tea plucking. Nick worked his way up the ranks of Finlays, first being appointed as a supervisor and then as General Manager from 1992 to 1998.
Nick writes well and describes not only the tea industry, but his family life and his adventures and expeditions around Kenya. One chapter that stands out is an account of a canoe trip down the Malewa River from Gilgil to Lake Naivasha in the 1960s. The story appeared in Old Africa issue 110 while the book was in the editing stages.
The book includes accounts of rugby games, bird shooting, hiking in the Mau Forest and much more. The book has a good selection of photos scattered throughout the book to illustrate the text.
As Nick Paterson looks back, his conclusion is that he has indeed had a lucky life as a tea planter in Kenya.
A Lucky Life is available from amazon.com as a paperback for $13.26 and on kindle for $3.50. And it is on amazon.co.uk as a paperback for £9 and on kindle for £3.
HISTORY QUIZ #83
History Quiz Competition #84!
Win two nights for two at Satao Camp!
How closely did you read this issue of Old Africa? Answer the ten questions in our history quiz below and you have a chance to win a vacation at Satao Camp. All the answers are found in this issue of Old Africa. You don’t have to cut up your magazine. Just write the correct answers on a separate sheet of paper and send your entry along with your name and address and phone number to: History Quiz, Old Africa, PO Box 2338, Naivasha, Kenya 20117. Or you can email your list of answers to editorial@oldafricamagazine.com The winner will be randomly chosen from all the correct entries received by the contest deadline, which is 4th September 2025.
1. What cargo did Richard Frost fly in to Sudan before his airplane was stranded after a crash landing?
2. Where did John Hillaby collect his first camels for his 1962 NFD trek?
Old Africa reader Charlie Hewitt-Stubbs from Bissel is the winner of our History Quiz 83, which appeared in Old Africa issue 119 (June-July 2025). By the contest deadline we received 25 entries. Charlie’s name was chosen in the draw and he wins two nights for two at Satao Camp. If you didn’t win this time, have a go at Quiz 84, which follows below. This month’s History Quiz Contest is sponsored once again by Satao Camp and Old Africa is thankful for their support and willingness to sponsor this page.
3. What kind of Swedish-built aircraft did Count Carl Gustav von Rosen favour for his flying in Africa?
4. Who built the Namanga River Lodge?
5. What is the name of the Maasai spearman that James Burke defended in court?
6. What year did Princess Margaret visit Nairobi?
7. Who was the drummer for The Saints, a pop band made up of students from St Mary’s School and Duke of York School?
8. Who contracted jaundice on the Nile River, preventing him from doing any hard work at the Driftwood Club for which he had been hired by Dick Soames?
9. What kind of snakes did Rob Glen and Tony Archer air out in the flower garden in the Police Station on the Uganda border?
10. The Nairobi City Players entertained Nairobi with drama performances for how many years?
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Unbeatable Wildlife Viewing: Spot elephants, impala, lions, and more right from your veranda or observe from the camp watchtower.
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Book your adventure today
HISTORIC PHOTO CONTEST
Enter our Historic Photo Contest
Jonathan Block from Naivasha is the winner of our Historic Photo Contest this issue with two images of the menu card from Treetops Hotel in 1971. He wins a book prize from Old Africa.
ORIGINAL MENU CARD FROM TREEOPS HOTEL 1971
Old family albums hold many treasures. Enter one of your photos in our Historic Photo Contest and win a free book from Old Africa! And have the pleasure of sharing your photo with Old Africa readers around the world.
If your photo is chosen as a winner in our Historic Photo Contest, you will win a free book from Old Africa. The best way to send a photo to Old Africa is to have it scanned as a jpeg file of 300 dpi resolution and email it to us at: editorial@oldafricamagazine.com Note on your email that you want this photo entered in our Historic Photo Contest. If you don’t have access to a scanner or to email, you can mail your photo or photos to us at: Old Africa, PO Box 2338, Naivasha, Kenya 20117.
HISTORY MYSTERY CONTEST
This cement and rock relic on the Kenya-Ethiopian border dates back to the early days of World War II. Does anyone know where this construction is and what its purpose was? Win a Ksh 3000/- gift certificate from Text Book Centre by identifying the location of this historic square block. Who built it and why was it constructed? If you know what this cement box was used for and where it is located, or if you have any personal connection to this mystery location, send in your answer to Old Africa for a chance to win our History Mystery Contest.
Contest Deadline: For this prize we have to receive your entry by 4 September 2025.
Send your answer to this History Mystery Contest along with any information, history, memories or stories about this cement block to: History Mystery Contest, Old Africa Magazine, PO Box 2338, Naivasha, Kenya 20117. Or email your answer to: editorial@oldafricamagazine.com. Editors will choose the winning entry. The answer to our mystery contest will be announced in our next issue along with the name of the winner and his or her story about our mystery location. Family members of Old Africa staff members are ineligible to enter this contest.
Our History Mystery Contest is sponsored by Text Book Centre.
…much more than a Bookshop!
HISTORY MYSTERY ANSWER
We received several other correct answers to this History Mystery Contest, including one from Martin Evans who sent the black-and-white photo above, which was taken at the Namanga River Lodge in about 1960 or 1961 when his family was travelling back from Kilifi to Kampi ya Moto near Nakuru where they lived, presumably via Arusha. The photo shows Martin and his brother Tim next to their Land Rover examining the elephant skull in the parking area.
Namanga River Lodge
Fran More from France is the winner of our History Mystery Contest by correctly identifying our mystery location at the Namanga River Lodge. She wins a book prize from Old Africa . Here is her answer: The photographs in your History Mystery Contest are of the Namanga River Lodge, situated just outside Namanga, next to the Nairobi-Namanga-Arusha road. It was first established as a colonial hotel in 1930, thanks to Budge Gethin. In 1934 it also became a rest stop for tourists visiting Amboseli and crossing into Tanganyika.
Budge Gethin was an ex-British soldier, whose full name was Percy St Lawrence Gethin. His nickname Budge was apparently due to his refusal to agree with anyone in arguments, on a matter of principle!
I remember stopping there with my family many times, when we were en route to the self-help bandas in Amboseli, just a Reserve in the 1950s and 1960s). It was always such a great trip, and stopping there was all part of the experience, and one we looked forward to.
In the late 1980s and up until 1995 I passed it often, to and from Nairobi, Arusha, Ngorongoro, and the northern slopes of Mt Meru, where I had a camel safari camp. The lodge was very run down then, so I opted instead for a cold Coke and a bag of fresh samosas from a Somali duka at the border, as I continued my journey, mostly to see my kids at Pembroke House, Gilgil, or to watch them in a school match when they came to play in Nairobi.
I understand the Namanga River Lodge was refurbished in 2010, but by then I was living in the UK, so I have not been back.
Photos of Namanga River Lodge courtesy Nathan Puffer.
BOOK REVIEWS
History of Nairobi City Players
Reviewed by Nicholas Donne
Nairobi City Players (NCP) was an amateur theatrical group that performed shows in Kenya, principally in Nairobi from 1956 to 2014. The group performed over a period of history that was hugely significant for Kenya. It commenced performances in 1956, when the country was still a British colony, staged shows during the period when Kenya changed from a British colony in 1963 to an independent republic and continued to present productions for a further 50 years after that.
The first production presented at the New Kenya National Theatre in November 1963 was a play by Peter Ustinov entitled The Love of Four Colonels . Fifty-six years later, in March 2014, the final curtain came down on Old Time Music Hall , the last production staged by Nairobi City Players. This show was a musical revue and formed part of the celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the Muthaiga Country Club.
of the interest generated by the website, more people contributed articles and memoirs. Consequently, the format of this document changed and, in the words of Little Topsy in the ballet sequence of The King and I , the first musical staged by the group in 1961, “It Just Growed.”
A collective effort from a small production team has now meant that a book has been launched in July this year and is entitled History of Nairobi City Players . This book consists of over 100 pages and has been compiled from various documents including theatrical programmes, photographs, newspaper articles and reviews, as well as from some personal recollections of several participants in the various shows staged by the group from 1956 to 2014. This anthology adds to the rich theatrical history of Kenya. A limited number of copies have been printed and these are currently available by contacting Nick Donne at info.foncp@ gmail.com. The net price for the book is Kshs 3,500 but NCP is offering these for sale to readers of the Old Africa Magazine at an initial discounted price of Kshs 3,200 (excluding P&P) for purchases made before 31st August this year.
Proceeds from the sales of the book will be used to develop and maintain the existing NCP website (www.ncp.co.ke).
Six years later, in October 2020, soon after the commencement of the Covid pandemic, a few former members of the group got together and decided that they would launch a website to preserve the corporate memory of the group. They were able to use the extensive NCP records that had been stored by Mary Epsom as a basis of the material, and after generous funding from some ex-members, (as this magazine reported in its AugustSeptember 2022 edition) the website launch was finally achieved in November 2022.
Following the establishment of the website, the group then set itself the task of the preparation and publication of its 58-year history. There were no specifications as to the form that this history should take, and because
Classic Review Journey to the Jade Sea
by John Hillaby
Reviewed by Michael Asher, an author and award-winning explorer, based in Nairobi.
True wilderness is not inherently hostilerather misunderstood.
Later in life, John Hillaby estimated he’d walked a total of about 100,000 kilometres — three times the circumference of the globe— yet reading his classic travel work Journey to the Jade Sea (1964), one might easily mistake him for an amateur. Documenting his historic trek with camels to Lake Rudolf (now Turkana) across the Northern Frontier District of a colonial Kenya on the cusp of independence, he consistently highlights his
lack of qualifications and experience—even his own ineptitude. “I knew nothing of guns and gear,” he wrote, “and as for the camels, I’d only seen them previously through the bars of a zoo.” The success of his expedition, he claims, was largely due to the Africans he travelled with.
It’s this modest, self-deprecating approach to what was in fact an epic three-month journey through wilderness that makes Hillaby’s book so endearing. Though advised by explorer Wilfred Thesiger, whom he calls “something of a stoic,” Hillaby is careful to eschew the role of hard-boiled colonial expert. A veteran journalist—having written for both The New York Times and New Scientist —he conveys a deep sense of place without romanticising the landscape. He writes with empathy and nuance about indigenous people —Samburu, Turkana, Borana, Rendille, and others— without exoticising them.
Hillaby’s 1,800-kilometre figure-of-eight journey with camels from Wamba, along the shores of the Jade Sea and across the Chalbi Desert, feels more like a meditation than a conquest. He moves slowly through the wild country with curiosity, respect, humility, and humour. Though exposed to the desert’s obligatory fare of thirst, dust storms, fatigue, and moodswinging heat, he never presents the landscape as threatening. Encounters with potentially dangerous wildlife— elephant, lion, buffalo, and rhino—are rarely dramatic and often gently comic: the lioness who flees in panic, more afraid than the humans; the rhino who sidles off when addressed in a calm voice.
that people in urban society have of wilderness, suggesting this stems more from alienation than actual danger: “True wilderness is not inherently hostile,” he writes, “but rather misunderstood.”
Hillaby’s prose is elegant. His observations of nature are often witty and woven effortlessly into the narrative. He has an enviable knack for explaining complex processes in simple terms—like his account of how the Jade Sea shifts from green to blue with the motion of microscopic organisms near the surface. He avoids technical jargon: instead, his descriptions evoke the stark beauty and grandeur of the landscape without ever feeling forced.
Notably, Hillaby makes no great claim for his journey. He says he walked into the NFD “for the hell of it,” weary of the “chronic boredom” of city life. He is not walking for fame or glory, but to immerse himself in nature—to feel it, to be part of it. His book encourages readers to slow down and truly appreciate the Earth in all its beauty. Though written over 60 years ago and portraying a Kenya subtly changed by time, Journey to the Jade Sea has not lost its relevance. In an era of asphalt highways, poisoned skies, and vanishing wildlife, Hillaby’s reflections feel more urgent than ever. Real travel, he suggests, is about connection—not speed, comfort, or consumption. The only authentic way to experience wilderness is, quite simply, on foot.
Hillaby learns the importance of “flight distances”—the instinctive buffer zone animals maintain before fleeing—observing that “wild animals, in their natural habitats, rarely attack humans unless provoked or threatened.” He addresses the common fear
Copies of Journey to the Jade Sea , first published in 1964, followed by various reprints with different covers, is out of print, but it can be found on used book websites like abebooks. com with prices ranging from US$6$10 and up to $60 for a first edition.
Old Africa
This issue we are featuring some more photos from the Astrid von Kalckstein collection, which Ben Cork recently donated to Old Africa. The photos were in a photo pouch dated 1956.
1. The photo wallet which contained the following miscellaneous photos developed in Nairobi in 1956.
2. The King’s African Rifles providing security on the streets of Nairobi in 1956.
PHOTO ALBUM
3. Crowds gather to watch the motorcade accompanying Princess Margaret on her visit to Nairobi in 1956.
4. This photo captures just a blurry glimpse of Princess Margaret next to Governor Evelyn Baring with his feathered cap.
5. A vintage car in a cross-country race approaches the escarpment over the Kedong Valley.
6. A pickup truck which had an accident and narrowly avert dropping over the edge of the escarpment.
7. The Italian chapel at the bottom of the Kedong escarpment.
8. Spectators watch cars racing at the speedway in Nakuru.
MWISHOWE
by Brian Perry
Count Carl Gustav von Rosen was a Swede who became an African aviator extraordinaire. He developed an enduring relationship with Ethiopia for over 30 years, and he made unique contributions to the country’s development; an airborne knighterrant!
He started his flying career as a stunt pilot in Sweden, before joining the Swedish Red Cross Brigade and being posted to Ethiopia in the mid-1930s following the invasion of the country by Italian forces in late 1935; he was 25. He flew countless missions in the country as a Red Cross pilot, carrying injured combatants and mustard gas casualties from the battlefields into hospitals under appalling conditions. Reportedly, three types of gas were dropped by the Italians, namely yperite, arsine and phosgene. Von Rosen was himself burned by yperite and reported the use of mustard gas by the Italians to the outside world. Following the defeat of the Italians, and the liberation of Ethiopia by the Allies in 1941, he went on to contribute in various ways to the Ethiopia’s recuperation, and he was instrumental in establishing the Ethiopia Air Force in 1946.
Pilots, technicians and staff personnel arrived in Addis Ababa from Sweden to start the Ethiopia Air Force. An old Italian
Count Carl Gustav von Rosen 1909-1977 Swedish Aviator
airfield at Bishoftu (also known as Debre Zeit), south of Addis Ababa, was selected as the base. The SAAB 91A was selected as the initial training aircraft, and five of them were ordered. To add credibility to his plan, von Rosen flew a Saab Sapphire (Safir) from Stockholm to Addis Ababa non-stop (a Saab 91A, the three-seater version) in 1947. The fuel quantity for his special plane had to be increased from 175 litres to 947 litres, leaving very little space in the cockpit, and the oil capacity was increased from 8 to 45 litres. In total the take-off weight was increased from 995 kg to 1500 kg! One of the major challenges he faced was to get a permission from the Soviet Union to fly above the eastern bloc territories. With his heavy load, he took off from Stockholm’s Bromma airport on 9 May1947. At sunset he entered the Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) conditions over North Africa, and this was further complicated by a sandstorm that affected the aeroplane compass. After almost ten hours of flying in these conditions he finally landed in Addis Ababa at 11.05 on 10 May, after a total flight of 31 gruelling hours. Von Rosen left Ethiopia in 1956 and returned to Europe and took up a more sedentary role as a KLM pilot. As he left, Emperor Haile Selassie had given him some 200 acres of
his
Count Carl Gustav von Rosen and one of
Saab airplanes in Ethiopia.
land in western Ethiopia in recognition of his contributions to the country and the air force. Von Rosen’s adventurous spirit brought him back to Africa, and eventually back to Ethiopia.
In the late 1960s he threw his lot in with the Biafrans in their fight against the Federal Nigerian forces during Nigeria’s civil war. He imported to Nigeria five SAAB single engine Malmo MF1-9 planes, and he created what was known as the ‘Biafran Babies,’ attacking Nigerian government positions by flying at tree top level.
I first met von Rosen in Ethiopia in 1971, where my job as a vet entailed the supervision of livestock vaccination teams as part of the pan-African campaign to control rinderpest (cattle plague) from cattle, a campaign that eventually succeeded when the disease was declared eradicated from the face of the globe in 2011. The endless hours I spent traversing the southern and central parts of the country by road in my Land Rover took their toll, not only from the discomforts experienced on the rudimentary tracks, generously labelled on maps as roads, but more importantly from the endless time wasted travelling long distances between the different teams I
supervised. I learned to read book after book as my driver Kebede chauffeured me around the country. The travelling was endless. I dreamt of a more efficient way of travelling these long distances.
At a party in Addis Ababa in 1971 I met a person who had just learnt to fly in Ethiopia, so I decided to get my flying licence. Before long I was taking flying lessons with the grandly named Imperial Ethiopian Aero Club. This small club of some three single engine planes operated out of a hangar shared with a small charter company called Axum Air, at the corner of what was then named Haile Selassie International Airport (now more modestly named Bole airport).
In those days there was no such thing as airport security at Addis Ababa airport when I drove out to the Axum Air hangar for my flying lessons, nor later when I had my pilot’s licence. I parked my car outside the airport, strode confidently inside, greeting the occasional zabanya (guard), and ran up the stairs to the top of the control tower to deposit my flight plan, and chat amicably and informally with the duty officials about the weather or the traffic. Von Rosen was, at the time, a fellow member of the Imperial
Food aid ‘bombs’ attached the to the wings of von Rosen’s airplane.
Ethiopian Aero Club with an impressive aviator’s track record.
In 1969 he had formally retired, but as with many 60-year-olds, retirement is a process rather than an event. He went back to Sweden but continued to travel regularly to Ethiopia. I first met him in 1971 in the Ghion Hotel in Addis Ababa, where he displayed a slide show of his flying experiences in Ethiopia. He had a wide selection of images taken by him from the air over many years, covering various parts of the beautiful country. The presentation included some dramatic photos taken inside a volcano in the northern part of the Danakil desert, where he clearly put all his faith in the principle that hot air rises! At first, I had a purely social interaction with him through the Aero Club, during which I organised an Aero Club supper at a Chinese restaurant in Addis Ababa, to which I invited him to give an after dinner talk on his flying experiences.
Then in early 1973 von Rosen reactivated his interest in Ethiopia’s wellbeing, when the country was being severely affected by the drought and severe famine of 1973-1974, in which it is estimated that some 200,000
people died. He imported from Sweden SAAB Safari aeroplanes, and established a base at Kombolcha, north of Addis Ababa in the Rift Valley. Here he started assembling food bundles (initially in large tyres, but eventually in canvass containers), which he attached to the wings of these planes and dropped a ‘bombs’ of food in remote areas. I visited him there. He then moved this operation further south, to the area in which I was vaccinating cattle, and we worked concurrently in the neighbourhood of Wolamu Soddo in the southern Rift Valley of Ethiopia. We both made use of the simple overnight housing accommodation of the integrated rural development programme in the region (then called the Wolamo Agricultural Development Unit or WADU), and we met most evenings for dinner to mull over the day’s excitements over a beer.
After the famine and the change of government in Ethiopia, von Rosen continued his own personal contributions to the country. The last action he saw in Ethiopia was in 1977, during the Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia, when he was again flying famine relief for refugees. He was killed on the ground on 13 July 1977, during a sudden Somali army attack in Gode at the outbreak of the war. He was given a state funeral in Addis Ababa.
Packing food supplies in gunny sacks to be dropped over famine-stricken areas.
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