Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Our minibus was originally blue and we jointly owned it with Elaine & Geoff Shepard in Bristol. Dad had its colour changed from pale blue to pillar box red before we had it shipped from England. The photo above was taken in the Puy area of central France in 1974.

Letter from Judy to Valerie & Graham 23 Feb 1975 –

Our minibus is due to arrive in Mombasa on March 3rd so Graham will have to take a weekend off to fetch it. I am quite resigned to driving out here – there is so little traffic compared with England. We hope to do more sightseeing when we have our own transport.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 3 Mar 1975 –

The minibus is due to arrive in Mombasa today so we are hoping to collect it at the weekend or early next week. Graham will go down by coach – there are no passenger trains running at the moment due to a shortage of spare parts apparently. Several people have offered to go with him if he wants company on the long drive back. The headmaster is very good about giving time off for this kind of thing.

Letter from Judy to Jenny & Andy 6 Mar 1975 –

Graham has gone down to Mombasa to collect the minibus which is quite an adventure – I expect it to take him several days to clear it with Customs though the Headmaster did give him the name of an important ‘old boy’ of the school who is in the Customs Dept. ! This is the advantage of Alliance though bureaucracy is heart-breakingly time consuming here.

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 10 Mar 1975 –

We have got our van here at last and it has been getting much admiration from friends. The only sign of its long journey was a broken back light. I had to travel to Mombasa to get it, a journey of over 300 miles. I went by coach overnight and the fare was just over £2. Unfortunately we had a puncture and after changing the wheel the spare got punctured too, so we had to wait while another coach was fetched from Mombasa. Instead of taking 9 hours the journey took 15 hours. Luckily I had a couple of interesting companions to chat with. We waited by a Hindu temple and at 4am a recorded chanting could be heard coming from it and I could see people moving about. In Mombasa I spent a day and a half getting the van cleared through Customs and released by the dock authorities. I stayed in a good hotel where Bed & Breakfast was good value at under £3. There was as much breakfast as you could manage to eat. The journey home was straightforward except for a tendency for the engine to boil. It took eight and a half hours including stops for petrol, water and refreshments.

Diary entry by Juliet 12 Mar 1975 –

Our minibus is a BMC. It is red with a yellow fibre-glass roof panel at the back. It seats 12 passengers. At the front, behind the drivers seat is a notice which says ’12 seats’ but somebody has scratched off the 1 and the S’s so it now says ‘2 eat’ ! The van’s new Kenyan registration is KQF 295. In Kenya they all begin with K.

Letter from Judy to Lisbeth & Peter 7 April 1975 –

The Africans we meet are very hospitable – luckily our minibus is very good at breaking the ice – we are able to give all kinds of people lifts that we would never normally meet.