Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 3 April 1977 –
We are having a four week holiday from school, though I will be busy with the arrangement of next term’s timetable for some of the time. That is a difficult task but I enjoy it as you might enjoy a crossword or any other puzzle. Last term I got a bonus from doing it – I arranged to be free of teaching from Friday lunchtime to Monday lunchtime. I’m sure that won’t be possible again because there is more teaching to be done next term for everyone. Juliet is staying home next term. This should give her time to learn more from Judy about cooking, housekeeping and sewing. She is well ahead with her school studies but she will do some at home – probably Maths, French, Geography and anything she fancies. When she started school here she effectively joined two terms forward and yet she was able to come near the top of her class, despite some good competition. Helen and Fiona will carry on at school because there is not much they can learn at home. All three have been enjoying their schools.
Letter from Graham to Valerie & Graham –
Juliet was perhaps helped in making up her mind by meeting a new girl at school who has not been to school for five years ! She has aquired an advanced vocabulary as a result which has made a big impression on the other girls in the class ( reminiscence by Juliet – this girl had fled Uganda with her family as a result of Idi Amin’s activities. They had lived in a remote place where she did her schooling at home by post). We will be interested to see what happens because I’ve never had a high opinion of ordinary schooling as you know.
Letter from Judy to Elaine & Rod 28 Apr 1977 –
Juliet has decided to stay home this term as she will be repeating this years work when she gets back to Bristol, and she wants to learn more about cooking and housekeeping while she has the chance – also to spend more time on her writing, at which she shows definite talent. Neither Helen nor Fiona would miss school if you paid them £100 so they are not at all envious.
Diary entry by Helen 3 May 1977 –
This morning when I looked out of the sitting room window I saw Mt Kenya. I thought it looked magnificent and rather kingly. It was quite nice to be back in school again and meet my friends, especially Pamela. I wished we didn’t have any work to do though.
Letter from Graham to Diane & Sydney 7 May 1977 –
Juliet is not at school any more. So far she has enjoyed it and we are pleased that the experiment has got off to a good start.
Diary entry by Helen 25 May 1977 –
This morning I wished Pamela Happy Birthday and we were both happy. We talked a lot today and I was glad I was not in the Turkey Farm.
Diary entry by Helen 26 May 1977 –
We had singing after lunch and I really got annoyed with Susan Kimau because she was singing out of tune and much too loud.
Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 26 May 1977 –
As you know, I am not going to school but that doesn’t mean that I don’t do any work ! I do about an hour of maths every day with Mum and we usually go over some French together too. For English letter writing is useful so please tell me about any spelling or grammatical mistakes. I also take down words that I find I can’t understand while reading books and later on Mum tells me the meanings. Every week I use one of my library tickets on a history book. Recently I have had ‘Queen Victoria’ by Lytton Strachey which I found was very good reading but there were a lot of words I couldn’t understand eg portentousness which I thought was a very good descriptive word for Queen Victoria. I also had a book about Victorian times in general. Quite a time ago I read a lot of books about Queen Elizabeth 1 which I also found very interesting but how entirely different Elizabeth was from Victoria. At school we did quite a lot of sport but now I’m at home I can’t do quite so much but I still swim. Mum and I go down to the pool in the afternoon on days when it’s sunny and I do diving and surface-diving for a coin and practicing my strokes, mainly front-crawl because that is my worst stroke except butterfly for which I have no hope at all. I enjoy breast-stroke most of all but cannot swim very far at a great speed. The fastest I have done 25m was 18.7 seconds. I will end my letter now as I must get ready for bed so as to get enough sleep to be able to wake up on time to make Fiona and Helen’s breakfast in the morning. PS I’m sure you know that my hair was cut short by Mum about a week ago – well, if you didn’t, you do now !
Diary entry by Helen 30 May 1977 –
This morning in the pick-up there was a tiny puppy and it was really cute. (Reminiscence by Juliet – this pick-up was the vehicle Chris Wangombe sometimes used for doing the school run. We sat in the back flatbed bit – either under the canvas canopy or with no canopy depending on the weather. It was great fun to ride in though often smelled of the goats he also used to transport in it – not at the same time. I was very conflicted about travelling to school in it – it was fun and worked as a mode of transport, but I hated being seen to get out of it when some of the other girls at school arrived in chauffeur driven Mercedes. However, Chris, quite rightly, was merciless and drove me right to the front doors of school instead of dropping me at the bottom of the drive as I pleaded with him to do. He would have no truck with such snobbish behaviour! A lesson I have long remembered.)
Diary entry by Helen 30 May 1977 –
I got home from school quite late because the people I was collected by went walking around Longonot crater and got lost. I don’t like being collected late because then I don’t have much time to play.
Letter from Graham to Malcolm, Frances, Stephen & Jane 30 May 1977 –
On Monday mornings I usually drive to Nairobi to take Fiona, Helen and some other children to their schools. It’s not the easiest way to start the week but it means I can legitimately miss the dreadful school assembly. Before starting my teaching at 9:10am I have time to rest a bit and drink tea to recover from the drive. The distance is not great, perhaps 20 miles, but I usually feel tired afterwards.
Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 9 June 1977 –
Juliet is still very much enjoying being at home and I find her a pleasant companion. At the moment she is in bed with a touch of bronchitis but usually she is busy all day. She manages to get through a good many books every week and has been reading a lot of autobiographies – Bertrand Russell, AS Neill and Queen Victoria to name a few ! It has been good for her to broaden her horizons a little, and she is determined to concentrate hard on her studies when she gets back to school in England.
Letter from Judy to Valerie & Graham 9 June 1977 –
Graham thought he’d apply for the Brislington job but so far hasn’t sent the letter off being up to his eyes in school work here – teaching all 6th Form with classes of 30+ is a fairly time consuming job not to mention persuading the Ministry to get the paperwork moving for our departure and keeping the car running (vital for school runs).
Letter from Judy to Caroline & Martin 22 June 1977 –
Michael Mowat’s play ‘Tobias and the Angel’ was a rousing success and much enjoyed by boys, staff and visitors alike – the lead actors and actresses being excellent, audible and managing to keep straight faces even with the audience spending most of the evening rolling around in their seats with laughter. We went down the first night and sat with Mike Mowat for part of the time which gave us almost as much amusement as the play. When Kanyonyo (Tobias) was having his feet washed by the girls, Michael in all seriousness said “Can they (the audience) be laughing at the sufuria (washing bowl) do you think?”. It had been painted gold for the occasion. Stanley and Malaika Otieno were also very good as the Archangel and the Father respectively.
Diary entry by Helen 20 July 1977 –
Today in the morning we had a mass practice of the Magnificat – it is quite a nice song but very hard to sing. This is my 2nd last day and I am glad because I am looking forward to England and Mombasa.
Juliet's Kenya Days blog 