Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Juliet’s diary entry 24th January 1975 –

We were taken from the airport to Alliance Boys High School at Kikuyu. We were taken to our house which is a lovely big bungalow. It’s white with a tiled roof and a small verandah. Our garden is huge but needs quite a lot of clearing. We have got a lot of trees too. It’s a lovely temperature here. The house seems cold and bare because it doesn’t have any curtains or carpets – just red polished stone floors and barred windows. The school has provided furniture so we sorted our bedrooms but tonight we will have to sleep in sleeping bags.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 27 Jan 1975 –

Well we’ve been here 3 days and have already made a lot of new friends and settled into our house. We have a stone-built bungalow. This is not a very good plan of our house – it is quite roomy with high ceilings and lots of windows. The floors are red painted stone and the walls emulsion painted in various light colours. There is a big stone fireplace for burning logs in the cool season and the furniture is all made from really good timber. We have an electric cooker and water heater in the kitchen and an immersion heater for the bathroom. Our rooms are 9’3″ high from the beginning of the whitewash up to the gutter and the verandah is 15′ across which gives some idea of the size of the house.

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 27 Jan 1975 –

Juliet has her own room and Fiona and Helen share as before. As we are only 12 miles from Nairobi we have the advantages we expected of electricity all day, a daily milk round and plenty of English speakers.

Letter from Graham to friends 2 Feb 1975 –

We are starting to make our house look like a home – new curtains in two rooms and an old carpet for the living room. Basic furniture has been provided but we had to borrow some old curtains and lampshades are generally not there.

Letter from Graham to Malcolm 16 Mar 1975 –

Our house is furnished with uninteresting but practical furniture. The mattress on our bed is very lumpy with springs covered only by a layer of cotton in places. The main plate on the cooker will not give enough heat, but apart from these faults we have enough comfort. We brought our records and record player here by plane and we make much use of them. Our other things which are coming by sea are supposed to arrive in April, yet they were collected in Bristol on 2nd December.

Letter from Judy to Jo 18 Mar 1975 –

There is mesh on all our bedroom windows as an anti-theft device but we are lucky in this house to have our living room windows left clear – there is a double bar device instead so that when the windows are open the second lot of bars are still preventing entry. In fact we rarely need to open the windows as there are air ventilation blocks in each room and the house stays very cool. In fact we have ‘askaris’ on site who wander around all night frightening poor staff like Graham who will pop off down to school without his torch so we are much better off than if we were living in Nairobi where security is much more of a problem.

Letter from Graham to Diane 25 May 1975 –

We have no phone ourselves but we have friendly neighbours who have; Mr Welch on Kikuyu 2195 or Mr Williams on Kikuyu 2000 and in school hours the school phone would be answered; Kikuyu 2026. We manage quite well without a phone and it is almost impossible to get one because of congestion at the local exchange. What is more annoying is the rather frequent interruptions to our water supply. Electricity failures are rare luckily.

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 1 June 1975 –

Gradually we are making our house more like home: Judy has painted the loo and the passage. The latter has a new green lampshade to enhance the effect of pale green walls. Many weeks ago I ordered a red and purple sisal carpet for our living room. We don’t know when it will be ready – it is being made in a women’s prison. I suppose that if the carpet-making prisoners have finished their sentences I might have to wait a very long time ! We have bought some beautiful wood carvings as ornaments – of animals. Also we have two interesting pictures made with different shades of banana fibre (dried leaves I suppose).

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 25 Jan 1976 –

Mummy and Daddy have a bed called a Water Bed which is an American idea. It is a huge plastic (thick plastic) bag which you fill with about 8 inches deep of water. The bag sits in a frame on the floor. It has to have a thin foam mattress and a blanket over it so the water doesn’t make you cold. It is a lovely sensation swaying around on it and very comfy. I have their double bed now.

Letter from Graham to Diane and Sydney 28 Mar 1976 –

Although we live out in the country I can often hear trains on the main line – one is chugging up the gradient now. Also we hear the traffic on a nearby road – usually only cars and vans but some are quite noisy. And of course these sounds are often completely hidden by the sounds of five people living in one house. Today I wondered if we could put some sponge rubber on the kitchen work surfaces to prevent some of the clatter that goes on.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 20 Nov 1976 –

We have just bought a new dull orange sisal carpet for our sitting room which looks very much nicer than the old natural coloured one. I’ve also re-covered our chairs in dark brown which is a great improvement on the tatty and faded red covers we had. The school has no money left so we had to pay for them ourselves but no doubt we can sell the covers when we leave so won’t lose out too much.

Reminisces by Helen in 1980 –

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 30 June 1977 –

Outside on our huge tree there are two huge hornbills making funny hoarse ‘laughs’ to each other. They often come onto our tree, maybe in search of some kind of insect which lives only on that tree. Often these birds sit on the corrugated roofs of people’s houses. When they alight on these it makes a terrific clang which must be terrible for anyone who happens to be inside. Thank goodness our roof is tiled not iron !