Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Diary entry by Juliet 7 Dec 1975 –

Yesterday Catherine flew from Nairobi to Heathrow Airport and she then had to get another plane to Northern Ireland where she will be visiting her family. Alastair and I have been playing with dolls – he played with his two Action Men and I with my little Tenie. We made a town with lego, books and various other things. Helen has been away staying with her school friend Pam. Alastair is going to look after my mice while we are away on holiday.

Diary entry by Juliet 12 Dec 1975 –

Today it was very warm but windy and we went swimming. At first we found the key was gone so Alastair got Mr Chesterton’s key and used that. There was us five, three of the Stevensons including Jane who has just recovered from appendicitis, three Thomas’s (Brian, Guri and little daughter Kari from Alliance Girls High School), four Wangombes (also from Alliance Girls – Ruth, Carole, Gathoni and mum Grace), five Scholes and their friends, Joy & John Williams and two more people from the Girls School and that adds up to 28 people so it got quite full. In the evening I went to Caroline & Martin’s party next door.

Diary entry by Juliet 14 Dec 1975 –

This morning we made a town of three houses out of lego, books and various other things. I have a little doll I call Tenie Snowe who has an old servant Lucie and runs a hospital. It is great fun. In the afternoon we went swimming with the Wangombes like yesterday on the tyres with the goggles.

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 17 Dec 1975 –

Fiona is most entertaining lately. She has two very good friends; Karen who was six last week goes to school with her. Karen’s father is another maths teacher here – I think they come from Surrey. Another extremely nice little friend is a bit younger and is called Gathoni although her real name is Sarah-Jane. Gathoni apparently means ‘little girl’ in the Kikuyu language and this is a description which certainly fits her and she is the youngest of three girls as well. The middle girl of the three is a close friend of Helen’s and is only two days older than her. We see them quite a lot. There are five other children here we see little of because they go to boarding school and several more who go to different day schools.

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 25 Jan 1976 –

Fiona and Helen are making a Lilliput village in their bedroom with the three Wangombe girls. This is an elaborate and creative game in which the children build a village which covers all the available floor-space in the room. They use Ladybird books for house walls, clothes pegs to mark out the roads and a combination of cardboard constructions and lego for furniture. Today they thought of using pretty hankies for carpets. This game can go on for hours; thinking of improvements and making the people (dolls) live extraordinary lives.

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 2 Mar 1976 –

Today we had a tea party at the headmaster’s house because our friends Tony and Barbara Charlton are leaving tomorrow. We gave them a book about Africa and they asked everybody to sign it, even Fiona !

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 4 Mar 1976 –

Yesterday we drove the Charltons (good friends of ours who have just finished their contract) to the airport and spent a pleasant morning there watching planes arrive and take off. On the way home we went through the game park and managed to see two lionesses with seven very tiny cubs, 2 cheetahs and another 2 lionesses on a kill; not bad for 3/4 of an hour !

Letter from Juliet to Nanny & Grandad 5 Mar 1976 –

Our friends Caroline and Martin have got a new baby called Daniel and I have been taking him for walks.

Caroline and Martin’s entries in Helen’s autograph book.

Letter from Judy to Tony & Barbara 24 Mar 1976 –

The Scholes’ pony is arriving in April – I shouldn’t think your flower beds with last long after that ! We’re still supposed to be bringing it from Timau in the van. Roger is going to unrivet the back bars and then replace them afterwards – his idea of course. Sometimes I think we’re mugs.

Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 29 Mar 1976 –

I am so glad you enjoyed the tape recording and managed to make head or tail of it. The ‘Little Girl’ who didn’t know her name was Ruth Wangombe, elder sister of Carole who shared Helen’s birthday barbecue party. Helen herself answered ‘Helen’ and then in answer to ‘what is your friend’s name’ Ruth answered ‘Luth’ which provoked the children’s giggles. I must explain about this. The Kikuyu tribe are on the whole very good linguists but they all have difficulty saying ‘R’ and often substitute ‘L’ – Ruth and her two sisters Carole and Gathoni are half Kikuyu half New Zealand but speak perfect English, so all the children knew she was playing the fool when she said ‘Luth’. It was Graham singing at first – later joined by Gigli ! – you may have noticed that he didn’t get the timing quite right where Gigli joined in but by that time we were laughing so much we daren’t try recording again. You can imagine us juggling with bowls of water, cups to pour it, watches to time entry, record player with the real Gigli, not to mention the tape recorder and microphone for Graham himself to sing – it all required a high level of combined operations made even worse by the fact that we couldn’t speak while the tape recorder was on !

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 3 Apr 1976 –

Did you recognise Gigli on the recording we sent you ? We bought an LP with about 12 songs on it for the bargain price of about £1.50. The music sounds a bit scratchy because it was from the original 78rpm records. I don’t suppose you enjoyed the Indian music very much but we do. We acquired a taste for it quite recently.