Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Letter from Graham to David April 1975 –

The children get books from Nairobi Library. I don’t have much time to read but I do play records often. I bought ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ recently. We have neighbours who get on well with us and they have lent us several records including Santana, Beatles White Album and Rolling Stones. I’ve found it really great to put the speakers against my ears with some records. Some 6th Formers here are interested in my strange music but I think they found Tangerine Dream’s ‘Phaedra’ a little too strange I think. Oddly enough most Kenyans are not very musical. It seems that traditionally they made far less music than West Africans. The Kikuyu people have their own style of modern music which is interesting and distinctive in style. The Voice of Kenya radio plays a great variety of music including quite a lot of Jim Reeves and copies of hit songs by little-known singers. The music programmes are usually not pleasant to listen to for long.

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 9 June 1975 –

I’ve just come home after staying for the weekend at my school friend Cheryl Green’s house. On Saturday evening we went to a Drive-In to watch the film ‘Carry On Dick’. A Drive-In is a place where you drive into a sort of car park where there is a huge screen which shows the film. There are speakers which you put in the car so you can hear the film. On Saturday afternoon we went to Nairobi Game Park and saw 8 lions asleep in the grass and a few others in another place. At the hippo pools there were lots of baboons and the warden let us feed them with stale bread. We held it in our hands and the baboons took it out. When I got home Mummy told me they had also been to the Game Park and saw 8 lions also.

Letter from Graham to David 26 June 1975 –

I am writing this while listening to ‘Tommy’ played by the London Symphony Orchestra with others. We bought it yesterday for the equivalent of nearly £6 so I hope it will continue to entertain us – we like it on first impression.

Diary entry by Juliet 5 July 1975 –

Yesterday evening we had a party starting at 6:15pm with a bonfire. Then there was a grown-ups party and I stayed up to help serve drinks. Catherine, Alastair and I baked some potatoes in the cinders. This morning the fire was still going so we built it up again and Helen and I cooked more potatoes.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 5 July 1975 –

We had a grand party on Friday night, starting with a bonfire for the children, mostly from the compound but with the addition of the three Wangombe girls who are the daughters of Grace, the headmistress of Alliance Girls High School which is half a mile away or so and are great friends of our girls. Their mother is from New Zealand and their father is Kenyan. We had cut one of our hedges down so the kids had a lovely time carting all the fir branches down to the fire site then setting light to them. A case of well-disguised hard work ! The children all went home sure that they had had a marvellous party ! We had invited various people to come later in the evening and to our surprise over 50 people turned up ! Obviously everyone was only too glad of an evening entertainment at this stage in the term. Fortunately, going on the principle that too much food and drink is better than too little we had sufficient to keep everyone happy and the only deficiency was space. We now have a very unjustified reputation as party-givers ! Surprisingly enough, although there is much social coming and going for meals etc there are rarely big parties – partly because half the staff are teetotal perhaps and wouldn’t feel able to offer alcohol in their own houses, while the other half wouldn’t feel they’d had a proper party without it. Anyway it all worked out well on this occasion. As it was July 4th we invited the Americans who work over at Kikuyu Hospital – it is a Presbyterian hospital with one doctor, though there should be two, and various expatriate nurses as well as the regular Kenyan nurses. Philip acts as our GP for prescriptions etc and I suppose we are lucky to have someone so near.

Letter from Judy to Jane July 1975 –

We manage to lead a very active social life – it’s an unusual evening that sees us at home on our own – because it’s a long way into Nairobi we rarely go in the evening. Night driving is very hazardous; the road is narrow, winding and unlit of course, but the worst thing is the number of people who drive without any lights on at all ! Several evenings a week we play badminton in the school hall – it’s surprising how much we have improved since we started and Graham is now very good – we’ll have to challenge you to a game when we get back to England. We were very extravagant and bought ourselves two racquets, good ones; they cost about £10 each. I don’t know how that would compare to English prices.

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 5 Aug 1975 –

I have been playing badminton with Catherine and Alastair. They can beat me quite often even though I learned first and taught them how to play !

Letter from Graham to Tom & Mary 11 Sept 1975 –

We got our belongings via Pickfords and the high seas a month ago so our house is now a bit more like a home. Hundreds of books were among the possessions including ‘Quotations of Mao’ which is a banned book according to rumour. Personally I think it is far less likely to cause trouble to the authorities than Mills ‘On Liberty’ which shares the bookshelf. I have just read ‘Stand On Zanzibar’ by John Brunner. It is SF, set in the year 2010 and very interesting. I’m sure you would like it Tom, but beware of the opening pages; they are rather odd and untypical.

Letter from Graham to the Aunties 8 Oct 1975 –

At the end of our back garden is a tennis court where Juliet and her friends can play when the schoolboys are not there.

Letter from Graham to David 3 Dec 1975 –

We have a new Led Zeppelin record we enjoy listening to. We have also bought some Indian music; some being traditional and some modern. A cheap LP here costs the equivalent of £2.40 so we are even more reluctant than before to buy records. We certainly get a lot of use from our record player and we have lent it to students sometimes on Sunday afternoons.

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 17 Dec 1975 –

Apart from the children there are several dogs here to entertain the children. When owners are away Juliet sometimes feeds them and sees to putting them indoors at night for guard duty. One dog, whom Juliet sees to most, is called Mac and is the same size (though very different) as Diane’s Mac. This ‘work’ earns a bag of sweets. I must describe this dog to you, he is so funny. He looks like, and presumably is, a cross between an alsation and a corgi. His shape is of the latter but his colouring is that of a black (mainly) and brown alsation. He has a docked tail which wags preposterously when happy and this is quite often. As we are providers of food while his owners (Tony & Barbara Charlton) are away we have become his friends. He likes to come and rest outside the house and is quite nice to have around. This sort of friendship without responsibility suits me admirably.

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 15 Mar 1976 –

Yesterday I went for a riding lesson with Caroline from next door. I have been for a lesson there before and remembered what to do. I had a big pony called Midnight because she was black with a few spots like stars. We had to do lots of things like trotting and doing exercises like lying down on the horses’ backs. I enjoyed it very much and want to go again.

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 18 May 1976 –

Helen and I have a lovely time riding our bikes around here but I have had three punctures in the last two months. Once when Mummy was on a cycling holiday she had 5 punctures in 3 days !

Diary entry by Helen 11 Feb 1977 –

After an early tea we went down to our friends (the Stevensons) to watch ‘The Lost Island’ which is a good TV programme. (we had no TV throughout our childhood so were used to watching in friend’s homes!).

Diary entry by Helen 9 Mar 1977 –

This evening we played a card game called Racing Demons which is a good game but you have got to be fast.

Diary entry by Helen 16 Mar 1977 –

This evening Mum and Dad went out for a meal and we dressed up. It was jolly good fun dressing up and Juliet used all the scarves of course !

Diary entry by Helen 18 Mar 1977 –

After tea we played horses, me the horse and Fiona the rider which was good fun. I had a bath with Fiona which was half nice half not because it’s nice to have someone to talk to but horrible because she splashes you.