by Shel Arensen | Dec 6, 2015 | Shel Arensen
Solomon Njihia was the head chef for the Rift Valley Academy kitchen when I was a student there in the 1970s. I just heard he has passed away. Another link to Kenya’s past has gone. About eight years ago I interviewed Solomon and he told me a story of how he and...
by Christine Nicholls | Nov 22, 2015 | Christine Nicholls
Firebrand Editor of the Kenya Press: Harold George Robertson (‘Rab the Rhymer’) From the age of ten in the 1950s I was an avid daily reader of the Mombasa Times and loved its crossword. So I was very interested to come across some details of one of its former...
by Shel Arensen | Nov 20, 2015 | Shel Arensen
Join Guerrillas of Tsavo author, James G Willson on Saturday 9th & Sunday 10th January 2016 when he will lead a tour Commemorating the centenary of the January 1916 Mkongani Battle, Kwale, where Major Arthur Wavell MC and 15 of his loyal Arab Rifles lost their...
by Shel Arensen | Nov 17, 2015 | Shel Arensen
Escape from Singapore Our December-January edition of Old Africa magazine has a story by Barbara Dods. She tells about growing up in Nairobi while her father, Arthur James Scott Hutton was the architect overseeing the building of Kenya’s Government House (which later...
by Christine Nicholls | Oct 19, 2015 | Christine Nicholls
I’d like to return to the subject of Vladimir Verbi (see my blogs of February and December 2013), the missionary who shot his mother-in-law in the Taita Hills in 1941. To recap, Verbi was having trouble with his second wife, Lascelles, and forbade her going to a party...
by Christine Nicholls | Sep 28, 2015 | Christine Nicholls
My last blogs have been concerned with the role of European women in Kenya, particularly in World War 2. It has become clear that a leading role was played by Lady Sidney Farrar. Who was she? She was the daughter of the 7th Earl of Buckinghamshire, who boasted the...
by Shel Arensen | Sep 20, 2015 | Shel Arensen
The Sultan’s Spymaster by Judy Aldrick is launching with 4 events and book signings starting this Saturday the 26th. We hope you can attend one of the launches. Book Signing In Between the Lines book shop Village Market, Nairobi Saturday, September 26, 2015...
by Christine Nicholls | Aug 29, 2015 | Christine Nicholls
As troops flocked into Kenya to defend the country from possible Italian invasion from Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in the north, so Kenya’s women rushed to help the war effort. Up-country towns such as Nanyuki became gorged with South African troops, and its hotel, the...
by Christine Nicholls | Jul 21, 2015 | Christine Nicholls
What Happened to the Education of European Children in World War 2 in Kenya? Hazel MacGregor (née Kempton, of K Boat Yard in Mombasa) remembers the day war was declared in 1939, when she was ten years old. The European Grocery Shop in Mombasa was run by a German...
by Christine Nicholls | Jun 20, 2015 | Christine Nicholls
Kenya and the Outbreak of the Second World War How did Kenya settlers hear about the outbreak of the Second World War and how did they react? The radio of course alerted settlers to the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939, and able-bodied men rushed to join up, while...
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