Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 8 Feb 1975 –

Thanks for your letter. There seems to be an efficient service from England. Your letter arrived in the second post today and it’s Saturday !

Diary entry by Juliet 8 Feb 1975 –

Today we got our first letter since we have been here and it was from Grandma Cole. I have got a board for pinning things on so I have pinned it on that.

Diary entry by Juliet 16 Feb 1975 –

I wrote four letters today.

Letter from Juliet, Helen & Fiona to Grandma & Grandad 17 Feb 1975 –

From Juliet – thank you very much for your letter. It was very nice to read about all the daffodils coming out. I’m sure your garden must look lovely. I’ve pinned your letter on my board so I can read it any time. Please tell Aunty thank you for her letter too. From Helen – We all think of you often. From Fiona – I have a wobbly tooth.

Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 2 May 1975 –

Thank you for your letter written on 22nd April. The children were delighted to have a note each from you. I expect you can imagine how letters are looked forward to out here and you would be thrilled if you could see their faces when the postman brings them one.

Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 16 June 1975 –

I’m trying to finish this letter in time to post it when we go to Nairobi – it seems to make a big difference to the time taken for it to arrive if we post it there rather than here. Our post is brought down twice a day from Kikuyu Post Office by our shop man (there is a small shop for the boys to buy bread, soap powder etc on site) on a bicycle and put into pigeon holes in the staff room. So Graham usually has the fun of finding a letter in his pigeon hole – if the children are home they often run down at post time – they have timed it and it takes 7 minutes exactly to get down to school and back !

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 16 June 1975 –

It seems that parcels sent surface mail take on average nearly 6 months to get here, just in case you were thinking of sending anything out for Christmas. Actually the import duty position is so bad one often has to pay as much as the value of the parcel so in spite of the fact that the children would love having one I don’t think it’s worth it. The things Graham’s Mum sent in January still haven’t arrived. Talking of parcels could you find out how much it would cost to send out a cheap and simple photo album for Juliet by airmail ? I imagine you could discover the approximate weight of such an album and whether the postage would be prohibitive. The only albums available out here are fantastically luxurious and expensive and we only want the cheapest Boots kind. On the other hand if the cost of the cheapest kind plus postage equals the cost of buying one here there is not much point in sending it out.

Letter from Fiona, Helen & Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 24 June 1975 –

From Juliet – Thank you for the headscarf – it is very useful to keep my hair tidy. We were all very excited about the parcel from you and could hardly wait for Daddy to come out of the Post Office.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 5 July 1975 –

Graham still has not received his birthday card from you so obviously the Post Office’s stated ‘3 weeks’ needs to be taken with a pinch of salt ! It is obviously not worth sending out the proposed photo album for Juliet – we would have to pay £1-2 import duty on it at this end in addition to the postage. Juliet will have to wait until someone comes out here to visit.

Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 22 Sept 1975 –

Thank you so much for the letters and the headscarf you sent for my birthday. I think it is very pretty and have already worn it several times. When we travel in the van my long hair is an awful nuisance blowing all over the place and a headscarf is ideal to keep me tidy and comfortable – I can’t bear anything heavy or tight on my head. We didn’t have to pay any duty on it so we were lucky. We still haven’t received Juliet’s jersey but friends tell us it is quite usual to wait several weeks even when the parcel is sent airmail.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 16 Nov 1975 –

We will buy Christmas things here as we have to pay duty on any parcel we get even if it’s an unsolicited gift. When Diane sent the children some novelty sweets we had to pay over £1 duty and got what turned out to be 8 small sweets and a lot of packing ! Unfortunately one has to pay the duty in order to get the package so you can’t see if the contents are worth paying for before you part with your money ! Anyway, I think it’s safest to send only ordinary letters even though it’s not so exciting.

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 17 Dec 1975 –

It seems ages since I wrote a proper letter to you but I think you have been well supplied by the children. They have made a habit of writing, fortunately, because they also write to their grandparents in Littlehampton as well as about six cousins and various friends in Bristol. I don’t usually read through their letters so I hope they don’t contain any indiscretions. Helen and Juliet help Fiona because her writing is not very advanced yet. She was immensely pleased yesterday to actually read your letter to her Mum, with a very small amount of assistance.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 9 June 1976 –

We have been thinking that it would be more sensible if you wrote your main letter to us towards the middle of the month and not at the end as most of the business dealings occur in the first week or so of the month and then we can have a note of any bank payments etc without Dad having to write a special letter.

Letter from Judy to Lisbeth & Peter 15 Dec 1976 –

Well I have a lot of letters to write – we are very behindhand this year, having completely failed to get any letter writing done at the coast as we had planned. The combination of heat, humidity and the relaxation induced by being on holiday seemed to make work impossible for us ! The people at the coast accuse the ‘upland’ Kenyans of spending all their time rushing around in a frantic hurry and the ‘upland’ Kenyans accuse the coastal people of never lifting a finger when they can avoid it.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 18 Jan 1977 –

Just a brief note to say that our post seems to have gone haywire recently though I don’t know whether at the Kenyan or British end. Poor Fiona didn’t receive any cards for her birthday and has now received only one from Lisbeth and Peter posted early in January, so any others she should have received seem to have gone astray. Strangely enough anything posted after 13th Jan or so seems to be coming through normally. Anyway, the real point of this letter is to say that if you had sent any business details that we ought to know about since your letter of 29 Dec it might be as well to send them again in case the missing post doesn’t turn up. We had a slightly disgruntled note from Mrs Cole (again posted on 14th Jan) which didn’t mention the stuff we sent them for Christmas, nor mentioned Fiona’s birthday so we presume some of her letters to us and vice versa also have gone astray especially as she accused us of ignoring her questions ! I wonder if Mum would mind just phoning through to Winsley to explain about the postal situation (everyone seems affected – even people whose mail comes from Ireland so the lost mail is probably at the Kenya end). Tell Mrs Cole or whoever you speak to that we have today received her card for Juliet’s birthday but otherwise nothing since the letter accompanying the tape recording before Christmas. It is Mrs Cole’s birthday on 27th Jan and I’m sure she’d be upset if she didn’t receive any mail from us by then though I expect the situation will have reverted to normal by then. It occurred to me that Jo could perhaps arrange to send her some flowers by Interflora for us, presuming of course that you receive this letter alright !

Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 18 Jan 1977 –

The mailing of letter sent after about 13th Jan seems quite normal or at least what we have received seems to be coming through in the usual 4 or 5 days.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 2 Feb 1977 –

Thank you very much for your two recent letters. Our post seems to have recovered it’s normal efficiency though there is still no sign of the missing mail – it seems likely that several sacks were sent seamail at the time of the Heathrow strike in early January so no doubt the post will turn up eventually. Thank you too for phoning Mrs Cole. In the event she did receive my letter but judging by her reply she much appreciated a chat with you. Thank you to Jo too for arranging the sending of the flowers.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 4 Mar 1977 –

Helen received her birthday cards in good time and Fiona’s packet eventually arrived a week or so ago having been delayed because of going through Customs – we were asked to pay over £1.50 Customs Duty which we thought a bit excessive so Graham went and wrought with the customs men and managed to reduce it somewhat ! Fiona was delighted with the contents.