Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 21 Mar 1976 –

We are still thinking about sending the children home for a holiday in August. It’s difficult to decide whether it’s justifiable to spend over £600 on fares even though I’m sure the children would have a marvellous time. Presumably if we did there would be no problem in you or Jo putting them up for part of the 3 weeks at Littlehampton? I feel it is unlikely the Coles will get out here though they like to think they will. Dad Cole had his hip operation on 24th Feb and seems to be making a reasonable recovery, but neither of them is really strong and healthy.

Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 29 Mar 1976 –

We are hoping to book up for the children to fly home in August during the next few weeks. We haven’t said much to them yet as I don’t want them to be disappointed if anything happened to prevent the trip. Will you tell us honestly if you think you could cope with having them at Winsley for part of the three weeks holiday. We would not be happy about sending them home if we felt you were going to be rushing round getting exhausted looking after them and entertaining them.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 7 May 1976 –

The children are looking forward immensely to their visit to you in the summer – at the moment we are waiting for the new British Airways Summer flights to be issued as we may have more choice then – at the moment there are only daytime flights on 3 days each week. It seems sensible to send them on a daytime flight for various reasons: 1) it does away with the 2 or 3 hours wait at the airport at a time when the children would normally be sleeping, 2) it means that whoever is meeting them at Heathrow can do it at a reasonable time of day. At the moment the daytime flights leave Nairobi at 10am and get into Heathrow at 17:50 (though of course this is 19:50 by Nairobi time) which doesn’t seem to make it an unreasonable day for the children.

Stamps from the letters we sent.

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 24 May 1976 –

Fiona will come with the other girls to England because they are so happy together and there would be no point separating them. It’s going to be only a year before their final return but at their age a year is so long that the visit seems worthwhile.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 26 May 1976 –

I am going into town today to visit East African Airways – British Airways new timetable only has night flights to Heathrow which is a bit of a blow. Later Have just found out that E.African Airways run the daytime flights advertised in the old British Airways timetable so it seems likely that we will send the kids home on Sun Aug 1st on the flight that gets into Heathrow at 17:50. Anyway we will confirm a bit nearer the time.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 9 June 1976 –

It seems an excellent idea to camp with all the kids for a few days – ours would be delighted I’m sure and Jo will find Juliet and Helen old enough to be really helpful. On several occasions we have left them to ‘strike camp’ for us and they have dismantled the tent and packed everything away very competently. We are taking Juliet into town this afternoon to get a photo for her passport. We have discovered that we can put the two younger ones on her passport which is a great help as we have to pay 140/- for each passport, not to mention photos as well. It will mean she will only have one vital document to look after, not three. There will certainly be a few things we would like you to get while the children are with you – new shoes for a start, but I will send details later. As far as I know, the children can bring anything back provided it is their own personal goods – ie anything new should be removed from it’s wrappings and opened so that it can be called ‘used’. They are allowed 40lb each which should be adequate.

Letter from Judy to Elaine and Rod 30 June 1976 –

We are sending the children home for a holiday during August – mainly for the grandparents’ sake – none of them being fit to make the journey out here – but of course our girls will have a wonderful time and no doubt be thoroughly spoilt. They will be staying at Winsley with Graham’s Mum & Dad for the second half of the month but I don’t know if it will be possible for them to visit Bristol, much as they’d like it. They are quite capable of coming on their own but I know very well that Mrs Cole won’t dream of letting them out of her sight, particularly with us thousands of miles away, and as neither drive the journey is rather difficult. I’ve just made Juliet a trouser suit so am exceedingly popular ! We suddenly realised that old shorts and flip-flops are not really suitable for a holiday in August in England and the children don’t really possess much else other than school uniform. Although we moan about the cold here at this time of year, we haven’t had to have our anoraks out once except on the mountain; we feel cold if it’s 70°F and only warm up when it gets to 80°F.

Letter from Judy to Muriel and Tony 5 July 1976 –

Graham and I are quite looking forward to a month on our own to do various things like climbing the mountain that we couldn’t do with them, but it will be very strange without them and I am not looking forward to seeing them fly off at all.

Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 5 July 1976 –

We have booked up the children’s flight for 1st August and will arrange their return flight when we go in to pay for the tickets on Wednesday. I will ask Mum & Dad Pring to phone through to next door (where the Aunties lived as Grandma & Grandad didn’t have a phone) as soon as the children have arrived safely so that you need not worry for longer than necessary ! They should land at 5:50pm on the Sunday but of course may be delayed a little and no doubt it will take a while to go through Customs etc. Juliet’s friend Catherine flew home by herself last Christmas and managed very well so she has been able to tell Juliet all about it. Juliet seems to be quite confident – I know the crew will be extra helpful being unaccompanied children. As you can imagine the children are now counting the days and crossing them off on their calendar, but fortunately perhaps they have exams at school which gives them plenty to keep their minds occupied.

Letter from Judy to Jo 16 July 1976 –

I don’t know which terminal they arrive at but no doubt it will be easy to find out when you arrive at Heathrow. Juliet will have £5 on her and an array of telephone numbers so will know what to do in the event of any unexpected delay on your part. Of course it’s much more likely the delay will be on the children’s side. Their return flight is booked for Aug 29th so they have exactly 4 weeks. We will send cheques home with Juliet to cover expenses. I will send details via Juliet of the things I would like you to buy them. In an emergency you could try contacting us through the Williams (Kikuyu 2000) or the School (Kikuyu 2026) but being holiday time it may not be possible to get through and in any case we will be away for part of the time ourselves. We won’t expect to hear they’ve arrived – we will presume so unless we hear otherwise. I hope you are ready to withstand the invasion – make sure you get the girls to do their share of the work – they can do most jobs very competently now.

Stamps from the letters we sent.

Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 27 July 1976 –

It’s amazing to think that by the time you receive this the children may already be in England. As you can imagine they are head over heels with excitement though poor Juliet has to try to keep her feet on the ground for some of the time at least as she has exams all week and needs to work for several hours every evening. She finds it harder to memorise than Helen and I must admire the way she has stuck at it.