Memories that always fill my heart with joy!
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Every time we left the charm of Nairobi and headed for the escarpment (sometimes down into the Rift Valley itself) ... Naivasha, Gilgil, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kitale, Kericho and many, many more destinations, I always felt a special kind of exhilaration. Especially after stopping at the little Italian-built chapel. I learnt how to drive at night, thanks to Guy Spencer, a sports reporter on the East African Standard. He would let me drive his car after we had put our individual papers to bed. More often than not, the Wagon Wheel Hotel in Eldoret was our target. WW made some of the best breakfasts known to man. My favourite was their cold-pressed tongue. Heading further through Kakamega, Busia and on to Kisumu and Lake Victoria was always a blessing.
Life for a little boy growing up in Nairobi was simple ... yet adventurous. Bike rides to Athi River, or the Ngong Hills, Ruaraka, Dundora, along Nairobi River to the Museum, lots of guavas, berries especially jumans (dark blue fruit), pomegranates, and lots more. A little late there was the Empire Cinema with Cinemascope where I watched Dracula and almost pissed in my pants walking home from the bus stop, the brilliant Capital Theatre (the first cinema house I went to) The Royal Theatre which was always special and then of course there were lots of sports and lots of heroes everywhere.
There were always some wonderful suburbs in Nairobi ... later the beginning of slums: Karen, Langata, Lavington, Gigiri, Muthaiga, Brookside, Spring Valley, Loresho, Kilimani, Kileleshwa, Hurlingham, Runda, Kitisuru, Eastleigh, Pangani, Nairobi South C, Lower Kabete, Westlands, and Highridge, although Kangemi, Kawangware, and Dagoretti, Dundora, Shauri Moyo, Kariokor, and many others.
Then there was always the magnanimous Pius Menezes who showed us a movie at least once a month at our schools and some of the clubs around Nairobi. If you did not have a bike, we walked and if we could not get there was always the wonderful Kenya bus service.
I was introduced as a child to the charms and the arid beauty of the Northern Frontier District. My neighbour in Eastleigh drove the Coca-Cola truck to the NFD. I spent time going with the herdsmen from one water hole, grass patch, to the next. Nights listening to their histories past (with the help of my driver interpreter) was heaven. Perhaps, one of the most adventurous destinations was Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf) where the fish grew to immense sizes. It was also the only place in Eastern Africa (I think) where the fighting tiger fish were found. The other place was the Okowango Delta in Botswana.
It was in the NFD that I discovered Koobi Fora National Park, Marsabit National Park and a little further down Turkana National Reserve. It was in Isiolo that I a lot about the Somalis and other tribes. I would sit and listen to Mohamed Asghar's father, uncles, and the other villagers each night. Mohamed would whisper appropriate translations at appropriate moments. The Somalis and Boranas wanted the NFD returned to Somalia. They tried to annexe but failed in the Shifta wars which cost a lot of lives. Still, I felt their pain but I had no idea.
Over the years I came to respect the men and some women who all the administrative offices all over the Northern Frontier District. My friend Mervyn Maciels knows more about it than I do. Still, I treasure the times I spent there.
Then of course there were Meru, Embu, Nyeri, Nanyuki ... and of course, each time we hit the coast, we all seemed born again ... was it the Scotch, the Tusker, the girls, or simply being in a kind of heaven! This is just a tiny glimpse of what I miss and see in my dreams each night! A friend who is no longer with us became a kind of a "star farmer" and succeeded in whatever he tried his hand to. He became a doyen of the departing white farmer community. He was also a brilliant hunter. He was truly in every sense of the word, a "superstar". He opened up Limuru, Kiambu, Thomson Falls and virtually all of the central province to our somewhat ignorant eyes and opened up a whole new world. This included Thomson Falls, Thika Falls, and all the way up to the marvellous Embu, Meru, Maunt Kenya province and of course, the Aberdare Forests. Each new place I visited as a child (and many, many, more times as an adult) almost felt like had watched a living movie in a natural cinemascope. And, of course, I visited every game reserve known to man, woman and animal and I thanked my God and my friends for many of these gifts which, today, always bring a smile to my face and a glow to my heart. I started this journey when I was 12 years when I was the victim of a paedophile priest (no he did not get to me, but he tried to cane my arse off in front of my mother, and I quit) started working the National and Grindlays bank a few days later. Four years later, I became a sports journalist!
How did a 12-year-old come to work for the National Grindlays Bank? Well, I used to go fishing in Dundora where there were a few dams and some huge bass and tilapia. One more I had caught quite a few and was about to leave when a European chap came lugging a canvas chair, three rods, several baskets and various other bits and pieces ... oh yes and an umbrella (very thoughtful of him, I thought). I watched him fish without any luck for about an hour. I could see he was frustrated so I went up to him and said, in English, " Try this lure," he replied with a frustrated "kwenda", "kwenda," ... Before I tried again, I pulled my haul from the reeds and showed him my catch. "I caught them all with the lure, why don't you give it a go?" I said. Well, he did eventually ... his rod bent so much, one of two things were likely to happen: his rod would crack in two, or he would land the biggest fish he ever caught in his life. The latter happened but not before more drama he desperately foraged for his lending net ... I managed to calm him down and pointed out that he could land his fish on a nice patch of sand. He did just and in a moment he was in seventh heaven. He called me and when I got to him, he was bent down. He said: "Put your hand in my shirt pocket and bring out what's there." I did and pulled out a roll of bank notes. "Take it," he said, "This is the biggest fish I have ever caught," I told him I could not take all that money. "Anyway," he said, "Take what you need." Happy to say my mum was a very happy lady when her lucky son got home with fish for supper and money for her purse.
Not only that, he gave me his card. He was the Chief Accountant at the bank. That is how I got the job.
The food was great, Uplands Bacon was the best in the world, home-made chappaties, or White House Bakery bread, eggs and veg delivered by cart to the door. More later.
I have enjoyed living in the UK and Australia and I have travelled the world and I have loved every moment, especially in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, the US and Canada and lots of other places. I thank my Maker because I have been truly blessed from that day when a 12-year-old fatherless boy told a snorting, red-eyed headmaster: "I am living school."
Asante Mwarabu!
When we were kids in Nairobi we had a gang called the Pangani Chini stars... most of the guys went to St Teresa's in Eastleigh but lived in salubrious Pagani. We met almost every day (especially during the holidays) at the home of the Ahluwalia family. It was a large family home, two stories and a huge courtyard where workmen packed sacks of charcoal which was the family business. James and George Alvares lived just across the road. There was Philo Mazor (because he cat's eyes) Henry Reuter, Hilary N'gweno, Rodrigues and lots of other itinerant friends. The Ahluwalia family: Sally, Sandy, Gerald, Geoffrey, and whole bunch of sisters. There was a free feed any time but lots of red tea throughout the day and plenty of Indian sweets or samosas or this and that from the Indian Sweets shop around the corner. The Ahluwalias owned a fleet of trucks which they used to transport the charcoal bags around the various districts. It was Gerald's job to the trucks with fuel almost every day. That explains why he was our general paymaster and his dad was well aware of it. Gerald's money begs paid for all our adventure trips, especially the cost of hiring a bicycle or two or three.
We used to go on pretty long bicycle hikes: trips to Dandora, Ruaraka, the Museum and many, many parts of Nairobi. The one outing that had me stumped was a visit to the wonderful Shan Cinema which featured Bollywood's best. I could not handle it and left after just a minute or two after all I was a pal of Roy Rogers, Gregory Peck (some kids called him Goorgorry Peak), the Lone Ranger, Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, Lee Van Cleef, Sam Elliot, Clint Eastwood (many years later), Gary Cooper (High Noon), James Stewart, the man with the longest drawl in Hollywood and a quick finger on his hand gun or his Winchestewasr Rifle. Henry Fonda, Randolph Scott, Alan Lad (Shane) Walter Brenan and Gaby Hayes. I will get to the women another day, starting with Rosalind Russell. In those days when we were politically ignorant and generally ignorant!
Anyway, the Pangani Chini gang. One time around 16 of us bicycled to Athi River, the domain of the Kenya Meet Commission, home of the blessed Athi River (why blessed? Because there were usually a lot of black bass and tilapia, the gold and the silver variety). Also, friends of my family lived there and their front yards had lots of space for two tents. All in all, it was a great holiday except at the start. After we had set up camp, started the campfire, cooked the various dishes, played cards, played a little music and before we also fell into an unwakeable slumber, I appointed a rotating shift of nightwatchmen. It was not long before that the snoring was sort of blessed in both tents. Sometime in the night, we were awakened by one of our askaris, shouting snakes, snakes! We almost ran for our lives but stopped just 10 or 20 steps away. I asked the chap how did he know there were snakes and where they were. He said: "I heard the snakes hissing, hiss, hiss, in the tent." He did not actually spot a snake and, in the end, there were no snakes except my uncle and aunt were not amused. But we did catch and cook some fish and the bike ride was always unforgettable.
Sally Ahluwalia was the bigger in the Pangani Chini Gang ... in every sense of the word but more importantly she was our dance teacher at time when Rock 'N' Roll and Jive were hottest dance music. In the hearts of all those kids, she will always remain the greatest gal we have ever known, wives excepted.
The New Yorker, August 3, 1998 P. 44
LIFE AND LETTERS about the writer's friendship with author V. S. Naipaul. The writer first met the the celebrated West Indian author V. S. Naipaul in early 1966 at a party in Kampala, Uganda, which was given by Makerere University, where the author was a member of the Department of Extra-Mural Studies. Naipaul had just arrived for a one-year visiting professorship at the university. The writer impressed Naipaul by quoting from his books and criticizing a radio program about African writing that Naipaul disliked. They became friends and the writer describes many of their conversations in Uganda. He compares Naipaul to a brilliant, demanding child. Naipaul's wife, Pat, was a pretty petite woman in her 30s who seemed rather frail. Naipaul looked down on his university colleagues and expatriates; he considered them intellectually inferior. He was equally dismissive of his students' talents. The writer was dating a Nigerian woman named Yomo during this time and he describes how she left him after she realized she was pregnant with another man's child. The longer Naipaul stayed in Uganda, the more morose he became. He couldn't stand the noise around his house so he decided to move to a hotel in the highlands of western Kenya called Kaptagat Arms. The writer visited him there frequently and spent many hours writing alongside him. Naipaul sometimes asked the writer to keep his wife Pat company and the writer confesses a certain attraction to her which he never acted upon. In late May, 1966, the political situation in Uganda had worsened and a curfew was imposed. Shortly thereafter, Naipaul moved out of his hotel and in with the writer for the final month of his professorship. The writer's friendship with Naipaul gave his writing a comic tone; he began to see Africa through Naipaul's eyes--not as a tragedy but as farse. The writer then skips to the English summer of 1977, after he had published his best-selling book, "The Great Railway Bazaar." Naipaul, who then lived in London, met the writer at a cafe and introduced him to his mistress, Margaret. A year and a half later, in New York, the writer describes another meeting with Naipaul, who was now teaching creative writing at Wesleyan University, at the Oyster Bar, where they happened to run into Margaret. The writer describes the changes in Naipaul's writing as he aged; his writing was denser, plainer, devoid of ornamentation and lightness. The writer describes Naipaul's book, "A Bend in the River," which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1979. The writer, who was one of the Booker Prize judges that year, voted against it; his was the deciding vote. In 1990, at age 57, Naipaul was knighted, and Pat made a lady by association. The writer saw himself as squire to Naipaul's knight. In 1996, Naipaul's wife, Pat, died, and he asked the writer to write her obituary, which appeared in the "Daily Telegraph." On April 15, 1996, two months after Pat's death, Naipaul married Nadira Khannum Alvi, a young divorcee who wrote a weekly column for a Pakistani newspaper. On June 1, 1996, the writer attended a Welsh literary festival known as Hay-on-Wye with Naipaul. They discussed victimhood, writing as an exotic, and the decline of higher education. The writer noticed that Naipaul seemed uncomfortable discussing literary topics and he declined to join the writer for dinner after the festival. A year later, the writer faxed Naipaul to see how he was doing and received a bizarre fax from Nadira in response, in which she criticized his obituary of Pat and his conduct during the Hay-on-Wye festival. The writer notified Naipaul about the fax but received no response from him. Their 30-year friendship appeared to be dissolving. Then, in April, 1998, the writer met his son, Marcel, in a London hotel and they discussed his faltering friendship with Naipaul. After leaving the hotel, the writer ran into Naipaul on the street and confronted him. Naipaul effectively ended their friendship that day, and, in doing so, freed the writer to move on with his own life.
The sauna at the Norfolk Hotel
Growing up in Nairobi I had a lot of mentors. Journalist sAlan Armstrong painted a picture of true friendship that come alive in the cinemascope of my mind as does the moving pictures of Michael Parry, Azhar Chaudhary, Adrian Grimwood, Michael Chester, Joe Rodrigues, Charles Hayes, Ensoll, Joe Kadhi, Phillip Ochieng, Jack Beverly, John Bierman, Tom Clark, Trevor Grundy, Marcel Brunner, Jack Ensoll, and a host of others who played a major part in the maturing of Cyprian Skip Fernandes as a journalist. I learnt my politics from Tom Mboya, Njoroge Mungai, Mwai Kibaki, Fitz De Souza, and Humphrey Slade. I found Marcel Brunner very interesting, particularly his godfathership of Kenya sports. I am also grateful to all the sports I met, interviewed or wrote about, especially Hilary Fernandes, Silu Fernandes, Oscar D'Souza, Crescent Fernandes and heaps of others. One of the lessons I will never forget was meeting Njoroge Mungai regularly in the sauna at the Norfolk Hotel and drinking champagne with Aquavit. My head was spinning and I sat there long after the waiters came to close the sauna but I was given a room to recover and went straight to work the next morning. There were lots of others and I will add them to this list as they come to mind.
THE FOLLOWING IS A PIECE BY ONE OF MY FAVOURITE KENYAN WRITERS
CS (CHRISTINE NICHOLLS)
The Donovan Maule Theatre
Many of you will remember Nairobi’s Donovan Maule Theatre. My abiding memory is of us Kenya High School girls trying to persuade our headmistress, Miss Stott, to let us go to see Lock up Your Daughters there in 1960. She eventually relented. Who were the couple who founded the theatre? Donovan Maule was born in Brighton on 24 June 1899 and his wife Mollie was born in London on 24 June 1897. Both came from theatrical families and toured the country with their parents. They were married in 1920. Donovan Maule joined the army in World War II and ended his army career in Egypt as director of drama, Middle East Land Forces. He and his wife Mollie then sailed to Kenya. They docked in Mombasa on 4 September 1947 and made for Nairobi, but found that the theatres there had all been converted to cinemas during the war. They proposed to start a professional repertory company in Nairobi and began by doing a broadcast for Children’s Hour at the Cable and Wireless transmitter at a tiny studio at Kabete. They had to make all their own sound effects. To make ends meet they began their own drama school using a space in front of the screen at the Capitol cinema. Their first play was The Dear Departed. The Theatre Royal had become the Cameo cinema but the Maules decided that this was a better venue for them, though they could only use it for matinees so that films could be shown in the evenings.
They began to build their own theatre in 1949 – The Studio Theatre, with 55 seats. They were able to tour to Nakuru and Nyeri. The venture was prosperous enough for them to hire a professional actor from England – Geoffrey Best. Frequent electricity failures plunged the stage into darkness, but the show went on, lit by candles. With the coming of the Mau Mau emergency, restrictions were imposed on touring – they had always to travel in convoy, never after dark and should always be armed. They took Bell, Book and Candle on their first full-scale tour of East Africa under these restrictions. The Studio Theatre was bursting at the seams, and a site became available, between Connaught and Jackson roads, near the Legislative Council building. There the new Donovan Maule Theatre was designed by the architect Frederick Wilkinson and was built, entirely with public subscription, and opened in 1958. The Maules engaged the great Sir Donald Wolfit to stage ‘Scenes from Shakespeare’, which I remember seeing with a group of girls from the Kenya High School.
When independence came to Kenya in 1963 the Donovan Maule Theatre was five years old. The first African to appear on its stage was Joseph Kichure in The Miracle Worker in 1961. Joseph had been a house painter and had worked on the theatre’s advertising frames dotted around Nairobi before he became the chief electrician. Donald Kiboro, another African actor, was a success in A Man for All Seasons, in 1965. But things were disintegrating. The partnership of Donovan and Mollie was under strain. Mollie wrote of her husband: ‘I have been completely loyal to him all these years and never discussed with anyone how absolutely impossible he is to work with. We cannot discuss the smallest matter of business without a row. Life is never on an even keel. He is either completely down with no energy for anything and utterly depressing to live with, or indulging in grandiose schemes like buying the vacant plot next to the theatre and building luxury flats. It would be much more to the point if he stuck to his own job instead of letting everything get out of hand.’ The health of both Donovan and Mollie was failing, for they were approaching 70.
The year 1970 saw both Donovan and Mollie’s retirement. The theatre was taken over by their daughter, Annabel. The Maules moved to a house at Kisauni, Mombasa. Unfortunately, the new Nyali bridge was built there, putting an end to their quiet haven and their country lane became a six-lane motorway. Donovan Maule died in Mombasa Hospital on 2 March 1982 and was buried at Kisauni cemetery. The Donovan Maule Theatre closed in 1984 and was then subject to looting and destruction. In 1988 its empty shell was demolished, a sad end to an entertaining enterprise. Mollie Maule died in Mombasa in 1984. Kisauni cemetery, where Donovan and Mollie are buried, is now in a deplorable state, overgrown with grass and with a road running through it.
PS: My later brother-in-law Max Alphonso got the itch for creating scenery from spending every spare moment he could at the DM. He trained as a boiler maker at East African Railways. Eventually, he worked at various star theatres in the London West End. He dedicated his life to carpentering theatre stages.
KENYA'S PIONEER SPORTS HEROES
WHILE WE CORRECTLY celebrate the wonderful successes Kenyan athletes achieve in the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, and the World Championships, we should all remember the four men who were at the forefront of the birth of it all:
Archie Evans,
Sir Derek Erskine,
Ray Batchelor,
John Velzian
The Government realised the
popularity of sports among most of the people of Kenya and in 1949 Archie Evans
(I think his brother also helped him) set about organising sports, near and far
in Kenya, wherever he could find any interest. He coached the Kenya team to the
first Olympics which included the man considered the father of long distance
running in Kenya Arere Anentia.
Archie was assisted greatly by Sir
Derek Erskine, a member of Parliament at the time. Erskine provided unstinting support,
and I would consider him the real father of Kenyan sports.
Ray Batchelor, one of my all-time best friends, was an exceptional coach. His place in Kenya’s athletics history will always be celebrated as the man who masterminded Seraphino Antao’s Commonwealth Games sprint double gold medals … something that remains unique in Kenyan
sports history to this day. In Mombasa, Ray was considered something of a coaching God. He played soccer and rugby all over the place.
John Velzian took off where Ray left off and wrote his own pages of history.
One other man must never be forgotten: Marcel Brunner. He will be remembered as the father of Kenya boxing.
Daniel arap Moi watched Evans at work in Jeanes School and went home to Rift Valley and encouraged every single teacher (Brother Colm) there to get their pupils interested in athletics and sports. There was an Irish priest there who became the godfather of athletics in the Rift Valley
and is credited with coaching many champions.
Cyprian, what an adventurer you were !! very interesting story.
ReplyDeletethe last few words should read " I am leaving school" do they call it editing? perhaps!
ReplyDelete