Kenya Kaleidoscope

When Agnes Cree arrived by ship in Mombasa in 1927, Kenya Colony had only been formally in existence for seven years. Agnes married Brian Shaw in Nanyuki and the couple moved to Sotik where they bought and developed a farm. This story relates their struggles to make the farm productive, births in the bush, medical emergencies, muddy roads and much more. During World War II Agnes was left to run the farm on her own, but she made it pay with the introduction of dairy cattle. In the early 1950s, Agnes took up the challenge of politics, winning a seat in Kenya’s Legislative Council (LegCo) to represent Nyanza Constituency. She kept her seat until Kenya’s independence in 1963. Agnes attended the Lancaster House conferences in England that charted the pathway to the handover of power from the British government. This book gives us a rare insider perspective into this formative period in Kenya’s history. After independence, Brian and Agnes chose to stay in Kenya, moving from Sotik to the Langata area of Nairobi. It was during this period that Agnes wrote this memoir, which has not been published until now.