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...
by Christine Nicholls | May 18, 2015 | Christine Nicholls
Tich and Dolly Miles were born into a military family. Their father, Frederick Tremayne Miles, a captain in the 18th Hussars, had married an American from New Orleans, Anna Carolie Sellar, in 1883, and they had four children. Olive, the only girl, was born in...
by admin | May 14, 2015 | Only in Africa
About 1910 my father W.J. Dawson, known always as W.J., bought the Plains Dairy, that vast flatland where the Nairobi Airport is today. He and three other young Scotsmen had great times in the corrugated iron house he built there. The others were George Taylor, Will...
by admin | Apr 21, 2015 | Only in Africa
Soon after the outbreak of World War II we boarders from the Prince of Wales School were moved to the old Sparks Hotel at Naivasha because the military required our school building at Kabete for a military hospital. We boys regarded our time at Naivasha like a long...
by Christine Nicholls | Apr 20, 2015 | Christine Nicholls
Phyllis (‘Pippa’) Ada Latour Doyle was awarded France’s highest honour, the Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur, on 25 November 2014, by the French ambassador to New Zealand. What prompted this gesture? An extraordinary story has emerged of an ex-Kenya girl, now 93, and...
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