my darling popsy

Letter 1 From Kitale 10/10/1927

2009-02-02T21:49:00.003-05:00

Alan has arrived at last at Kibomet Estate, after slow travel on the steamer and the Uganda Railway. Holbeck Feast was one of the many annual fairs in the Leeds district held on the last Sunday in October.

Kibomet Estate,
Kitale,
Kenya 10/10/1927

Darling Joyce,

Thank you very much, my darling daughter for the nice letter enclosed in Mummie’s of Sept 10th, it arrived yesterday.
Well Joyce dear, Dad has got safely to Kitale at last, after over a month of travelling by sea and on railway, of course it is not really such a great distance from Leeds to Kitale but the steamer goes only about 280 miles a day and the train on the Uganda railway often travels no faster than you could walk that is when it is climbing up the steep gradients from the town of Mombasa at the coast up into the Highland area where Kitale is, 7000 feet above sea level.
I am so glad to read that you and Mummy and Grandpa had a jolly time at Holbeck Feast . What a shame you did not get the Ten Shilling Note but we cannot always be on the winning side every time can we? Sometimes others get their chances too.
By the time the postman delivers this at your door with a Rap Rap! I expect Guy Fawkes Day will have arrived and I and sure Mummy will let you buy some Fireworks Catherine Wheels and Roman Candles & Golden Rains I think are the best, but there is good fun sometimes with a Jumping Cracker.
The weather at home will be too cold now for you to go to the Swimming Bath, but I expect such things as Dancing Lessons and getting ready for Speech Day will be interesting you now. I am glad to hear that Pat has not bitten Grandpa. I am afraid he is sometimes a very naughty and savage dog ! Soon all the shops in Boar Lane and Briggate will be decorating their windows for Christmas.
You must tell me all about it Darling, and about your Christmas Shopping

Write again soon to your loving Daddy XXXXXXXXXX

Return to Kenya, the Journey on SS Malda

2009-01-26T14:32:00.010-05:00

It is such a long time since I posted here and many people have written to me in the intervening months with information or just appreciation of this record of Kenya in the 1920's. I even have a possible name for the young man sitting on the seed drill. I will try to combine all of them in a separate post but now it is time to resume the journey. Alan has been home...but not for long and there is no correspondence from the return journey to England. I would imagine he was in Leeds for only 4 or 5 months before retuning to Kenya to resume the work for Fowlers . This time aboard the SS Malda.

The SS Malda
Below are details and photos from the Shipping Times here

The Malda was built by Barclay Curle & Company Glasgow. Yard No 588.
Some details: Propulsion: steam, two 3 stage Brown Curtis turbines, 4320 bhp, 13 knots, twin screw.
Launched1921Built: 1922; Ship Type: Passenger Cargo Vessel;
Tonnage: 9066 grt: Length: 465 feet: Breadth: 58.3 feet: Draught: 33.5 feet:
Owner History:British India Steam Navigation Company Glasgow & London
Status: Bombed & Sunk - 06/04/1942

Ship the SS MALDA image contributes by John Ward~McQuaid,

________________________________________________

The Letters

There are 4 letters from various ports on the journey aboard the SS Malda. They are interesting for the details of the animals on board and the hot and sweaty weather despite which, fancy dress parties were held in the evenings. Patrick, the dog at home, is still mentioned and my mother is constantly asked to " be helpful". The letters were written on headed notepaper. Below is an example from Letter 3.

Letter 1, Off Port Said , Stromboli, Dogs and the Safety of Ships.

SS Malda Off Port Said 15 /9/27
British India Steam Navigation Company Limited

My Darling Joyce

I am sorry I was not able to write to you from Marseilles but there is only one little writing desk on this ship for 2nd class passengers and so many people wanted to use it several days before we reached Marseilles that I was crowded out.
We had good weather and a calm sea across the Bay of Biscay with the exception of one day when the waves dashed over the prow of the ship and she rolled about a little. And one night there was a fog in the sea and the steam – whistle was being blown all night long.
On Tuesday we passed the Volcano Stromboli which was sending a plume of steam and smoke straight up into the sky at the base of this mountain there are a lot of little whitewashed cottages inhabited by fisher folk and their little boats go dancing over the waves surrounding the mountain.

Always try to make Mummy’s household life as easy as you can and when you grow up to be a young lady it will be a pleasure to you to remember that you did your best and are a blessing to both of us.
I expect Patrick is wondering where I have disappeared to. On this ship we have a Horse and a great many dogs, a Dalmatian, a Bullterrier and a Pekingese with long silky brown hair, this little dog does not like being cooped up aboard a ship and barks a great deal when the butcher comes to feed him.

Twice during this voyage we have had what is called Lifeboat drill, that is a practice at putting on the lifebelts which are provided in the passenger cabin, this is done just as a precaution in case of accident but really there is very little risk about ocean travel nowadays. It will be nightfall before we reach Port Said.
I hope you are getting on nicely at school Have you learned to swim yet swimming is such a healthy and useful thing to know, if the Malda stops at Suez I will write to you again from there.

Heaps of love to my darling Daughter
_____________________________________________

Letter 2, from Port Sudan, the Heat, Cranes and School.

Alan drew a sketch Map for Mum.

SS Malda 20/9/27
British India Steam Navigation Company limited
Port Sudan

My Darling Joyce,

If you look at a map of the Red Sea which is shaped something like this rough you will see a place about three quarters of the way down the western shore named Suakim or Port Sudan and this is where the “Malda” arrived at about five this mooring.
There are some excellent cranes of great lifting power here and it is an important railway centre for goods traffic but as for the town itself there is nothing attractive about it. It is encircled by naked mountains of dull red rock which make you perspire even to look at them. Nothing at all like the fresh green foliage of the highlands of Kenya.

We have had very hot weather day and night in our passage through the red Sea so hot that sleep was impossible and I think that most of the passengers are feeling worn out but soon we shall be round Guadalupe and in the Indian Ocean where there are usually cool breezes.

I am proud and glad to hear you have been moved up into the big school at Cockburn you will feel yourself quite a grown up girl now. When you next write to me please tell me something about your lessons and your sports. I wish you and Mummy were here with me in this clear air and sunshine but sometimes we cannot get just what we want in the world and have to make the best of what we can get, have we not?

I will write again either from Aden or Mombasa… remember me to Grandpa and Uncle Alec and Aunt Edith and Mr. and Mrs. Harrison and Mr. and Mrs. Barraclough.. I hope you are trying to help Mummy all you can.

Your loving Daddy.
__________________________________________

Letter 3 off Aden. Heat, Dogs and Sharks.

British India Steam Navigation co Ltd
SS Malda
21/9/27
Off Aden

Darling Joyce.

Well my little girl here we are at last getting towards Aden and out of this hot Red Sea.
I am sure we shall all be very glad to leave it, the poor dogs on board pant all day long and hang their tongues out and the butcher comes every now and then and sluices cold water them.
It has been hotter this time in the Red Sea that I have known it before. When the train leaves Mombasa and begins to climb up into the Highlands then the air in the evening is cool and fresh and we all thankfully breathe it in and feel healthier.
Yesterday three sharks swam for a long tome behind the vessel. They have a triangular fin on their backs which juts out above the surface of the water.

You will be wearing your winter coat now I suppose and I have just an open necked white shirt on and khaki trousers and the perspiration is trickling down my whole body as I am writing. We had dancers on the deck in the evening when in the Mediterranean but it is too hot for them now.
I will write you again if possible from Mombasa,

Your loving Daddy

________________________________________

Letter 4 Off Mombasa, Fancy dress, Journey end

SS Malda, Off Mombasa
28/9/27
British India Steam Navigation Company Limited

My Darling Joyce

Well my dear little Girl we have at last got to the end of this long voyage and I am sure we shall all be glad to step ashore and walk about a greater distance than is permitted by the size of the ship.
Last night the passengers held a fancy dress ball some were dressed as Pierrot, one as a chef, one lady in an early Victorian crinoline and poke bonnet, one man went as a skeleton in a close fitting black dress with the white bones painted on it.
This morning the ship is heaving and rolling rather a lot which is a queer sensation to anyone trying to write a letter. I shall be so pleased to receive letters from you, write to me as often as you can and tell me all the news and how you are getting on at school you will have made friends with some nice playmates now I feel sure.

Soon Dad will be on the train climbing up through the Coconut groves and then the Cedar forests then out in to the open Plains of Kitale.
Help Mummy in every way you can my dearest Joyce, and say your prayers every day. I will write to you again very soon.

Heaps of love and kisses from Daddy

_____________________________________________

I will never now know how much my mother was a help to her mother.. probably about as much as I was to her!

Letter Five: 1926 Christmas in Nakuru Hospital with "Fever"

2008-05-06T07:38:00.000-04:00

This is the last letter from the Egerton Estate time in Africa. After this the next letter is from the boat returning to Africa but this time he is bound for the hills near Mt.Elgon. Allan is ill for Christmas and in the hospital at Nakuru so I think he never arrived at the Woodmores at Keringet. We don't know exactly what was wrong with him. On the photo of the rather nice looking hospital below my Mum had written " my father was in this hospital with fever".

Nakuru Hospital

Letter 5

Nakuru Hospital
Nakuru
Kenya
31/12/26

My Darling Joyce
Thank you ever so much for the nice long letter and the Christmas card you sent me. I was delighted to get them and also a fine card from Mummy and a good long letter with it. Mummy has sent me several letters which have all reached me safely in Hospital and I must write to her tomorrow.
I am so sorry I forgot to send you a special letter on your birthday but am very pleased to read in your letters what a fine lot of presents you had and some of them such useful ones too. Please tell Mummy that the cake and Pudding arrived safely and in good condition. Daddy is not allowed to eat such rich food yet but he asked the sisters ( that is the Nurses) if they would accept and eat the cake because they were so kind and watchful to Dad when he was lying helpless and ill, it is due to their care that I have got better so quickly. And the sisters said the Cake was delicious and the Almond Icing a perfect treat, they have kept a tiny bit for me to taste by and by. We will have the pudding cooked on New Years Day that is tomorrow and Dad will be allowed to have a little bit of that.

Many of the Magazines & Christmas Numbers Mummy has sent have already arrived & I share them around among the other Patients who enjoy a bit of Christmas reading to pass the time along, for some of them are more seriously ill than Dad & have to stay in bed all day, but I can get up and walk about a bit in a Dressing Gown now and am feeling stronger & better every day.

Dad is coming home on the Wangoni which is the same Steamer which took him to Africa. We sail from Kilindini (is that not a long name for a port) on Feb 22nd and the voyage takes about 28 days, it is a nice time of year to cross the seas in and it should be fairly cool in the Red Sea, which is often the most uncomfortable part of the journey because it is sometimes so hot there.
I wish my Dear Mummy and Joyce could get on the magic Carpet and fly to Kilindini to voyage home with me on the steamer, it is a delightful experience, so many days on the blue, fresh sea with foaming waves all round, but very likely you will have a voyage same day when you are a few years older & you will enjoy it. Daddy has had such a lot of letters this Christmas. From Aunt Minnie & Uncle Reavely & Uncle Alec & Aunt Edith & Aunt Nellie & Grandpa Anderson & Uncle Arnold, & from Uncle John & Mr Robinson. 15 letters came on one day. And tell Mummy a very nice one arrived yesterday from Mr Charles Fowler.
There is a long chair in my bedroom and we pull it out on to the Veranda & Dad sits on it looking at a beautiful view of Lake Nakuru & the mountains. But this is a lazy life and I hope in a few days to be strong enough to get about and do a bit of useful work again.
Lazy idle people are never happy, it is only when we are doing something like learning at school or working at a job that we feel we are helping to push the world along a bit and can be satisfied with ourselves. I am glad you liked the pieces Mummy read you from “The Christmas Carol”. It is the best Christmas story ever written. Charles Dickens was a great and good man. The Photos Mr Barraclough took of you and Mums and Patsy have arrived & very good ones they are of all of you.
I had my first bath since my illness yesterday. Until then I had to be just washed in Bed and to have a real bath was a great treat. Some gaily coloured birds, blue on the back and with yellow breasts and long curved beaks fly up and down the verandah. Sometimes if I am awake in the early morning I hear in the darkness the “cheep cheep”of birds in the bushes nearby and though all is black outside, yet in about a quarter of an hour, sure enough the Dawn begins to break, the birds know that here comes the day before I do. It is Harvest home now on all the Farms and great loads of Maize and Wheat are being carried off the Fields, a Harvest at Christmas sounds strange does it not? I hope my dear Joyce had a really Jolly Christmas and some nice presents and I hope gave some little gifts to others too. With Heaps of love to you and Mums. I shall soon be coming back home now.
Your loving Daddy

The Fowler Machinery: 1925 Consignment to Lord Egerton N'Gata Farm, Njoro,

2008-05-05T07:00:00.004-04:00

Allan Thackeray worked on the estate for just the one year, 1926, (Lord Egerton would have been 52). He had travelled to Kenya to oversee the use of the Fowler equipment sent to the Egerton estate and the records from John Fowler detail a consignment of agricultural implements sent out to Ngata Farm in 1925.

N'Gata Farm, Njoro 1925. Fowler Consignment to Lord Egerton.
The implements were ordered 22/07/1925
Lord Egerton, Tatton Park, for Kenya Colony
11581 9/10 Furrow A/B Paring Plough
15’ Turning Harrows
14291P 15’ Turning Harrows originally to G.Caudwell06/02/1922 (22/07/1925 SOLD SECOND HAND TO Lord Egerton for Kenya Colony)
14606 11/13 Cultivator 4¼” X 1¼” X 10”
14607 4 Shaft Reversible Disc Harrows
14608 4 Wheel Water Cart 7’ x 3’ Steel Frame
14609P 4 Wheel Water Cart 7’ x 3’ Steel Frame

dispatched on 24/09/1925

This information was kindly forwarded to me by Robert Oliver of the Steam Plough Club Uk together with some preliminary details of the engines etc in the photographs.

___________________________________________

The following photographs need information which I will hopefully be able to add after my visit home to Lincolnshire where I will be meeting up with Mr Goodman of the Steam Plough club)

The engine is a Fowler Z6 ploughing engine despatched from the factory on 6th Jan 1926 to a firm called General Real Estates Investment Trust Ltd

Detail of the above. It reads "Made in England, Fowler, Nakuru, V Kilindini" Kilindidni is the port at Mombassa.

Two engines, there is one in the distance.

Fowler Water Tank

The plough was a 6 furrow anti balance plough. ( see in the post Plough)

The 6 Furrow anti Balance Plough:

2008-05-05T05:49:00.000-04:00

The plough is a 6 furrow anti balance plough. The ploughs used in steam ploughing are shaped like a flattened out V . They have plough shares on each end of the V and the engine pulls the double ended plough across the field with one set of plough shares in the ground and at the far side of the field, the other end of the plough is dropped down to the ground and the engine at the other end of the field pulls the plough back.
( information from Robert Oliver, Steam Plough Club UK)

The Caterpillar Tractor

2008-05-05T02:22:00.001-04:00

I have no details of these yet, but the same people are seen again in the Fowler engine photographs.

Other Machinery:

2008-05-05T01:30:00.000-04:00

More photographs of other machinery etc, most without notes as they are printed from the negatives. I hope to be able to add to the information soon.

The train, Uganda Railway

I think this ( middle) may be Mr Coltart who had a farm at Njoro.

This looks as though it may have been a trade show. The name on the banner by the machines is "J R Cox & Co"

This is labelled on the back "Nakuru Show bandsmen KAR." (Kings African Rifles )

I think they might be sawing the timber with the engine..( far left)

This photograph is labelled on the back " Latest 'improved' pattern water cart outside Njoro Ry Station".. with some irony I think.

Photographs from N'Gata Farm 1926: 5 Working with Oxen

2008-05-04T23:18:00.000-04:00

The work with oxen that Allan describes in the first letter home. There were no horses there.
Again there are not many written details for the images but Allan wrote on this one,
"Intercultivating between growing maize. Wattle plantation in background Njoro 1926"

Same team here as above.

These next two look like some kind of seed drill

This below was the very best I could get from an old faded print with no accompanying negative. As I was working on it and trying to coax some definition out of the yellowed print I noticed there is also a dog in the picture which may be the same dog as in the photograph of the three people with the car. Again when working with that image a dog revealed itself which was almost indistinguishable in the original photograph. I am therefore thinking that the man with the middle with the glasses may be Mr Coltart. I am sure he is the same man who appears in other photographs, working with the big engines.
It was worth including as on the back is written.

"Ox Ploughing on Mr Coltarts Farm. 3 Furrow Oliver Plough 14 Oxen Njoro 1926"

Two more images but without details.

Photographs from N'Gata Njoro 1926: 4 People

2008-05-04T00:55:00.000-04:00

These are the photos of some of the people Allan worked with and their families. Most of these have been developed from old negatives so there are no written records of who they are. It is such a shame, if any more information does come to light I will certainly amend the details here.

Photographs Njoro 1926: Public Buildings

2008-05-02T17:17:00.000-04:00

Buildings from round and about Njoro and N'gata.

"Local Church N'Gata"

"A new Store or Duka owned by Indians named Desai being built close to Njoro Ry Station. By far the biggest shop in a 20 mile radius"

"The European Store, Njoro"

"Njoro Station, Uganada Railway"

There are two signs which are visible from the high res scans ..One "Brook Bonds Tea" and the other "Coleman's Blue"

"The Station Menengai, my nearest"

Photographs from N'gata 1926: 3 Domestic Buildings

2008-04-29T12:10:00.000-04:00

Some photographs of domestic buildings around N'gata.

It is a shame the first photograh is so faded, there is a figure standing in front of the house, but it is unclear if it is Lord Egerton or not.

"Lord Egerton's House, N'gata Njoro "

"Mr Broatch my nearest neighbour at Njoro and his little boy."
I have just found a reference to a David BROATCH (b.1 Aug 1924-Njoro,Kenya) son of Thomas John BROATCH (b.29 Dec 1896-Dryfesdale and Sarah McIntosh SHARP (b.12 Aug 1896-Linwood,Renfrew . It must be this little boy.

Same house as above from different angle, I think. The steeply pitched roof will have kept the house fairly cool.

"A Desirable Family Residence near the Station. Roof of Flattened Petrol tins"

Village Hut .. there is a chicken in the foreground and a seated figure to the right

Hut construction, wattle posts which are then covered with a mud facing.

Photographs from N'gata 1926: 2 Allan Thackeray's House, Borland's Ford, Ngata, Njoro

2008-04-28T23:51:00.000-04:00

Views of Allan's house.
It is not entirely clear if these are all of the same house. As yet I have been unable to find any record of the Borland's Ford location. On the enlargements you can see the wattle and daub construction. The interior details are also interesting.. particularly the teapot and the discarded shoes. There are 3 wine glasses and what looks like a tomato ketchup bottle.

"My Hut N'gata"

No details of this photo.

"Interior. My Hut with kitchen help Muriasi, Njoro"

No details of this photo.

"My Kitchen, Kitchen help-- Muriasai, Cook-- Juma and General help around kitchen, name unknown"

" My Hut, Borlands Ford "
This is a small part of a badly faded photo, but nice old car.

Photographs from Ngata 1926: 1. General Farm Activities

2008-04-27T11:26:00.000-04:00

These next few posts will be photographs, some from negatives and some from prints. They show people, places and work on Lord Egerton's Estate, N'gata, Njoro. The captions in italic are from the wording written by Allan on the back of the photographs.

"Excavating a rain tank near Workshop, N'Gata "

"Working on the Foundations of the N'gata Workshop"

"Felling Wattle at N'gata"

Letter Four: Ngata 29/11/1926

2008-04-20T18:47:00.000-04:00

We go forward many months now, to November. There do not seem to be any letters surviving from the intervening five months. Christmas is coming and he sounds a little wistful for the Christmas displays in the shops, carols and the pantomime in Leeds . Interestingly he refers to coal rationing, and bemoans the lack of shops in Njoro and the ubiquitous Patrick is there of course. He mentions going to visit the Woodmores at Keringet now rather than at Molo. I don't think he ever got there.

With this letter I am showing a picture of his "house" and a store. He liked living in this little round house preferring it to the brick built one he would move into later at Kisinget. The houses were built of anything available, wood corrugated iron, grass reeds mud and petrol cans.
In the book "Red Strangers" by C S Nicholls there is a description of a farmer's hut.

" My house is made of mud with holes of various sizes and shapes to represent doors and windows. The floor is nothing more than Mother Earth... everything is continually covered with sand, mud or white ants and consequently any degree of comfort is impossible.... It is remarkable how much the office owes to petrol boxes and tins... The insects at night are most trying and appear in large numbers, in the form of moths and beetles of all descriptions, that it is almost impossible to read or write, and quite futile to consider any supper but bread and cheese. Scorpions, tarantulas and snakes are also numerous.. "

"My Hut, Njoro"

" The inside of my hut. Njoro "

.

House constructed with tubs.

Letter 4
Lord Egerton of Tatton’s Estates
N’gata Farm
Njoro
Kenya
29/11/ 26

My Darling Joyce

Just a line from Daddy to wish you a merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. I am sorry I have not been able to come Home for the Goose and Plum Pudding but never mind, you and Patrick must eat my share between you.
We will have another special Pudding made when I do arrive. Mummy tells me you are all allowed a small ration of coal every week in Leeds nowadays so it is lucky for you and Mums that ours is only a little House, if they were great big rooms like Temple-Newsham has in it, whatever would you do.
I hear that already you have had Snowstorms, and Dad can hardly remember what Snow looks like it is so long since he saw any. It is hotter and brighter here, with Sunshine at Christmas, than it is in Leeds in July but Dad would much rather live with you and Mums in Leeds than all by himself at Njoro.
I cannot send you a Christmas Present, love, nor a card because we have no rows of nice shops here like you have, to choose them in. There is only one store at Njoro and they keep chiefly foodstuffs. A leg of Mutton or a box of Quaker Oats would be a strange Christmas Gift wouldn’t it.?
I expect you and Mums will have had a grand tour round all the Fairylands and Santa Claus’ shops full of beautiful Toys, and then there will be the Pantomime to see and Carols to sing at Church so even if the weather is cold and dull in old England it is much the best country to spend Christmas in. Daddy is going to visit Mr Woodmore at Keringet for a few days and hear the little children sing “Good King Wenceslaus” and “The First Noel”. They sing in English and do so quite well.

Much Love and Many Kisses from Daddy
I will write a longer letter next time

Letter Three: N'gata Farm 4/6/26. Stars and Stripy Rats

2008-04-15T00:31:00.000-04:00

A short letter this time. He is just one of many who will have written home telling of the beauty of Africa, a place, it seems, it was hard to leave even amongst settlers who fell on hard times.
Njoro is situated on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. It lies 18 km west of Nakuru the district town. Lake Nakuru is now a National Park, famous for its great flocks of flamingos who turn the skies and shores pink as they feed on the lake. The travel guides today promise sitings of black and white rhino, herds of waterbuffalo, zebra, buffalo, giraffe and lions with one of the best chances of seeing a leopard in Kenya.
In this letter Allan just describes the stripy "rats" who don't seem to be on list of favourable animals to see! They were probably not rats but a species of the pretty and lively African striped mouse.

Letter Three

Nagata Farm
Njoro
Kenya Colony
4/6/26

My dear little daughter Joyce,

Just a line to say that Daddy is well and happy and spends many many an hour in thinking of his dear little Joyce and Mother and hopes they are both well; and poor old Patrick too even if he has got big feet, he didn’t make them himself, and they are grand firm things to stand on.
Daddy will be coming home soon now but he does not know yet just when that will be but he longs to see Mummy and Joyce again and we must think of some specially fine treat for all the three of us to have when we see each other once more.
I hope that Mummy and you are now away on a little holiday somewhere, you must get a change of air and surroundings; it does everyone good to see new places and new faces every now and then; Daddy has seen a great many, sometimes more than he wanted to. Auntie Nell has written Dad such a nice letter all the way from Montrose in Scotland and now a letter is on its way back in reply.
When we are ploughing the fields we often see Rats running away in terror, but these are Brown Rats and striped on their backs with Black stripes like a Tiger, they are rather pretty. You would like to see the beautiful moonlight at full moon all over the great Plain, one of the most beautiful things in Africa is the bright moonlight and the stars twinkle twinkle, in the clear air.

With heaps of love to you and to Mother and take care of each other wherever you are

Your Loving Daddy XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Here is a photograph printed from the negatives of some work in the fields pre the employment of heavy machinery. Here are the oxen and the maize crop he referred to in first letter .

Lord Egerton of Tatton.

2008-04-13T15:21:00.001-04:00

Lord Maurice Egerton of Tatton was the fourth Baron Egerton of Tatton in Cheshire. He was born in 1874 and died childless on 30 January 1958 marking the end of the Egerton line. The Egerton family had been at Tatton Park since the 16th Century and it seems sad that great heritage should literally die out. Here below is the beautiful Tatton Park House which was gifted to the National Trust on his death.

I have been slowly trying to make a picture of this man in my mind, he was said to have been "an innovator and a man of great inventive and technical skill, a pioneer aviator, photographer and filmmaker, he was an early motorist and prodigious traveller," but for all that he presents a lonely figure, dying far away from Cheshire at his castle estate in Kenya. Bitterly spurned by an un named woman who he pursued twice, even building the strange and wonderful Egerton Castle for her because she had rejected his first prospective marital home.

I can do no better than quote from this article by journalist Benson Riungu, written in June 2004 for the East African Standard, Nairobi.

"Determining to impress her, Lord Egerton set about building a ‘house’ on a scale that would surely impress her and make her change her mind. He conceived of a castle that would have no comparison in England or any other country for that matter.
Dressed stones and zinc tiles for the roof were shipped from Europe, the builders from Europe and Asia. The result, in 1938, was a stupendous four-storey edifice fitted with some of the most up-to-date mechanical and electrical gadgets at the time, including an escalator.
Upon completion, the peer threw what was billed as the biggest party ever seen in pre-colonial Kenya, with guests coming from as far as Northern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe and Nyasaland, now Malawi.
The cheers and congratulations, it was to turn out, had come too soon. When the woman for whom the castle had been built came back to Kenya and viewed it, she dismissed it as "a museum" and a monument to vanity.
Being spurned appears to have changed Lord Egerton in a fundamental way. Thereafter he seemed to live in a fantasy world.
He furnished and ran the castle as if the family he had envisaged actually existed. Nobody but the house servants was ever allowed in.
But an even more far-reaching chance was in his attitude towards women. He developed such a passionate hatred for them that he banned them from his castle and put up notices warning female trespassers that they risked being shot on sight.
Visitors, including friends, were to leave their wives and daughters eight miles away from the castle. And when he planned to visit the quarters where his African staff lived, he would issue a two-week notice so that all women could be vacated."

The article explores some of the goings on of the Happy Valley set and is a very interesting read go here to read the article " The Houses That Love Built"

However he is remembered for founding the excellent Egerton University at Njoro, there is a page on their site detailing his contribution here and his gift of Tatton Park to the National Trust. The above image of Lord Egerton is from their website here

Letter Two: N'gata Farm Njoro 16/5/26

2008-04-06T19:08:00.000-04:00

The reason for the delay in getting this post on the net is that I have been trying to research, read and understand more about the Africa my Grandfather was experiencing. I had not realised that the time he was there coincided with the infamous era of the "Happy Valley" crowd.

My next post will be some back ground information about both the dissolute Happy Valley settlers and Lord Egerton himself who was one of the few to make a success of farming in Africa. In 1939, Lord Egerton donated 400 hectares of land for a school to provide training for Europeans and Africans in agriculture and an additional 1, 215 hectares along with his strange Castle home on his death in 1958. There is now at Njoro the important and succesful Egerton University which grew from educational foundations that Lord Egerton laid and he is kindly thought of. It is said of him that he “did more for Kenya than any other white person”.
I find myself glad that my grandfather was working for him rather than one of the less palatable friends of Lord Delamere.

Letter Two
We skip forward to after Easter in 1926 and I have included page one of this actual letter as it was written on lovley old Fowler letterheaded paper complete with an impressive 23 branches listed, including Alexandria, Honolulu and Havana.
Allan is now at Lord Egerton's Estate up in Njoro.
Naughty Patrick, the dog, is again referred to and the nature notes are touching.

N´Gata Farm
Njoro
Kenya Colony
BEA
16/5/26

My Dearest Daughter Joyce,

Thank you so much for your long and clever letter you sent with Mummys. I am glad you had such a happy Easter and got lots of eggs.
We must go to Middleton Pond when I come home and see if we cannot catch some of those tiddlers for tea and if we don’t I shall have to buy a big crab on the way home to make up for our loss.
Patrick was naughty to fight Paddy James but perhaps he had to do it in self defence; sometimes the most gentle and peaceful of us have to fight because we are attacked by cruel enemies. Anyhow if Patrick has a fresh hole bitten in his ear he will be able to hear a lot better now and he will look more handsome with the lump on his head bitten off.
I hope you and Mummy will go away for some holiday soon because it will not be long before I am coming sailing back to you and leaving the little black children for other lands where people have olive coloured skins, the Italians and the Spaniards and then at last come to old England where folks skins are white;(at least they are when they wash them properly).

We saw such a large herd of Gazelle, a kind of Deer close to us this week and we often see Ostriches and sometimes Snakes but only little ones. One day I found two tiny little Hares that had been abandoned by their mother; such dear fluffy little things. I brought then home in my pocket and fed them with milk from a spoon and they drank it greedily, they lived for three days and then I am sorry to say they died, they were too young to be left without their Mother.
I hope you are getting on nicely at school, some day perhaps when you are a big girl you may go on a long voyage on the sea. I hope so for it is grand and I am sure you will like it.

Much Love and Many Kisses from Father

On the back of this photo is written;
"My Dog- Mutt and Kipsoi my Cook outside my Hut. "

This I am sure is Kipsoi's mother as we have another photograph of this lady labelled " My cooks mother"

Christmas 1925 and The First Letter 23 January 1926

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Christmas 1925.
There are no Christmas letters but these two photographs of Allan and the Woodmores at Molo. I havn't found any information about the Woodmores yet but a little initial reseach turned up records of the grave of a Percy Woodmore in Nairobi. He died in 1933 at the age of only 45. I am sure this must be the same person.

Molo. Kenya 1925. Xmas. Percy Woodmore's Brother, Wife and children. Mrs Percy Woodmore.
Allan is on the left with the dog

The Mule Buggy, Molo, Xmas 1925.
Self , Percy's brother, wee Peter, Percys brothers wife and Percy.

The First Letter

Allan writes here from Engata Farm and later changes the spelling to N'gata and I think he was already at Lord Egerton's Estate from where he will write the next few letters. The details of the land are fascinating and animals are always mentioned. Patrick is the naughty dog at home. We have a photo of Patrick somewhere. Reading these letters makes me realise why we always had a dog.

Engata Farm
Ngoto
Kenya Colony
23/1/26

My Darling Joyce,

I hope you are well and happy my dear little girl, and think sometimes of Father seven thousand miles away in Africa.
The sun shines hot all day long here and great blue dragonflies and moths, nearly as big as sparrows go buzzing up and down, And we have seen Ostriches running wild on the Farm and near the railway, Zebra and Antelopes and there are scores of lizards running as quick as lightening up and down in the bright sun.

The Carts are pulled by Oxen, we have no horses here and a little dog goes in front to guide the team of oxen, sometimes sixteen are harnessed to one Cart and they go slowly along, pulling their load of Maize, which is what you call Pop-Corn, and there are miles and miles of maize all growing to make beautiful Blancmange and Semolina Puddings and Cornflower Moulds for you to eat in Leeds and Oxford.

I hope you have been to the pantomime and taken Mummy too, are not the little children pretty and what a fellow bold Robinson Crusoe is. I am sure you must be getting on finely and you write and draw so well; you must try to draw me a picture of poor old Patrick and then take him for a walk to the lake at Middleton.

Today is Sunday and I think of you in Sunday School and I am well and happy too though far away round on the other side of this great big world.

Many Kisses Dearest Daughter.

I am putting an image of this first letter up here. I may not with others unless there is a nice letter heading or something particularly interesting.

Along the Suez Canal, through the Red Sea and so to Africa

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A month long journey from Southampton calling at Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malaga, Marseilles, Genoa, Port Said, Port Sudan, Aden and eventually Mombasa. I know we have more postcards of some of the ports which I will be able to post later but there are only these two at present. He will be here in Kenya on this first trip until 22 Feb 1927 when he returns to the UK, again on the SS Wangoni.

The Military Hospital Gibraltar

The Wangoni arrived at Port Said on 7th November 1925 by this time a very busy international port which developed since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. I quote Blake Burleson's book (and see previous post) to give an idea of what it must have been like.
"Within walking distance of the ships one could find a post office, tea houses, cafes, a railway station, sporting clubs, department stores of various kinds, mosques with tall minarets, churches and synagogues. Walking along the Rue du Commerce was like walking on the midway at a circus ; shopkeepers, sidewalk vendors, jugglers, fortune tellers and magicians courted the tourists."
Another fascinating detail from his book is that Port Said was one of the first places in the world to use gaslight in the streets to increase the visibility for ships.

Port Said: The Customs Quay

On from here they went through the Suez Canal south to the stifling heat of the Red Sea. My grandfather talks in future letters of the terrible heat, it being too hot to, either sleep at night or, hold the deck parties and dances they had enjoyed in the Mediterranean. On a future journey in 1927 they had dogs on board . He writes "the butcher comes every now and then and sluices cold water over them" . Blake Burleson writes that mattresses would be taken on deck at night to take advantage of whatever cooling breeze they could find.

Arriving finally at Mombasa on 12 November 1927 they dock at the Port of Kilindini and then I think he would continue his journey by rail on the Uganada Railway to the station of Menengai just north of Nakuru.
This is a copy of his photograph. From here perhaps by car to Lord Egerton's Estate at N'gata.

The Station: Menengai

The Voyage to Mombasa on the SS Wangoni (complete with Ship's Cat)

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The Wangoni was one of the great German East African /Woermann Line steamships that took adventurers across the world. It operated passenger and cargo services between Germany and East African, West African and South African ports and between South Africa and India.
The journey must have been fascinating with such a motley crowd of passengers from adventurers, business men, tourists, big game hunters and military personnel.
I found out by accident that Carl Jung was also travelling on this ship on his way to make a survey for the British Government. In his excellent book, Jung in Africa Blake Burleson devotes a chapter to this voyage He describes the atmosphere on board, the passengers' reasons for travelling, the after dinner conversations ranging from the terrible catalogue of diseases they may encounter to " fears and fantasies of this "terra incognita" of the Dark Continent.

I have yet to find out who Mr and Mrs Percy Woodmore were and what relationship they had with Allan Thackeray, but here is a photo of the three of them with small unnamed girl.. (I wonder what happened to her).

Photo on Board

Written on the back is
"Mr and Mrs Woodmore & Self. photo by Capt Maxwell, Bay of Biscay."

Postcard of the Wangoni : It must have been sent to Mum in a letter..

“My Darling Joyce. This is the steamer Father is in, You would like to see my little cabin and the narrow bed like a couch where I sleep. We have a nice Pussycat on the steamer, but not a dog. Sometimes the spray of the sea comes right over the deck and we have to run or else it would soak us. Your loving Father”

The Deck of the Wangoni.

Another photo postcard. I would assume these were for sale on board.

On the back is written “Bay of Biscay, S.S Wangoni outward bound to Mombasa 1925”

A few word about the journey in the next post.

Setting out to Africa 3pm 15th October 1925

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My grandfather has written,
"Tender “ Duchess of York” coming alongside S.S. Wangoni” at Southampton 3 pm Thursday October 15th 1925. Just on the right of the far side ventilating shaft are Mrs Woodmore sat down with back to Camera, myself and Mr Woodmore (he is looking upwards) "

The photo was obviously taken and sold as a souvenir to those on board the Wangoni as it set off for its voyage to Mombasa. On the bottom there is a small stamp saying Leonar and a number and crude lines printed for an address.

This first image, a mixed group of people frozen in a snapshot on a grey day in October waiting to start a voyage of at least a month. My grandfather looking down, Mr Woodmore looking skywards with Mrs Woodmore sitting by him .. what can they have been imagining lay ahead of them?
It must have been a moment of very mixed emotions for them all.

I am going to write some more about the Wangoni in the next post and I am indebted to Blake Burleson whose book "Jung in Africa" arrived 2 days ago with such wonderful descriptions of the journey. It is only a week since I discovered that Jung was on the same ship as Allan Thackeray, and, although I have only read just little of the book, it had already brought vividly to life some of the realities that lay behind these faded photos and yellowing letters.

About this blog...

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I am in the process of preparing a blog of letters and photographs from Kenya and India in the 1920´s and early 1930´s. My grandparents, Allan and Annie Thackeray sent them back to their daughter Joyce who was living in Scotland while her parents were travelling. My grandfather was an engineer for John Fowler of Leeds and was working with the steam ploughs in both Africa and India. The letters are to a young girl, my mother was 8 at the start of the letters, so are not so much about the trials and tribulations of the work but more about general life and of course fond questions about her well being etc but there are some fascinating glimpses of the countries and people.

The first post will be about the journey from Southampton to Mombasa on the SS Wangoni which set sail 26th October 1925 incidentally with Carl Jung on board too.
Should anyone stumble across this first page and have any interesting information re the John Fowler Co, the Thackeray family or agriculture in Kenya and India in the 1920's and 1930's please don't hesitate to contact me. I have many missing gaps. I never knew my grandfather, was too young to ask my grandmother much before she died and my mother died 3 years ago...I don't even know if we have any relations alive on the Thackeray side.
My email is val.littlewood@gmail.com
I would love to hear from you.