Love, Life, and Elephants

by Dame Daphne Sheldrick

  It was exciting to explore this largely unexplored country. We travelled in the lorry slowly across the endless plains in order to avoid the large aardvark holes, each new plain a spectacle filled with animals – wildebeest and zebra, topi and kongoni hartebeest, Grant and Thomson gazelles, their tiny tails busily flickering like wind-screen wipers. Herds of buffalo and elephants moved in and out of the thickets along with rhinos, some accompanied by a calf at foot. Each plain seemed to hold a resident pride of lions, and each lugga its own leopard. Warthogs popped up wherever we went, running along with their tails erect like flagpoles, and hyenas, disturbed by our passing, loped from rain-filled puddles in which they sat casting an appraising eye over the night’s menu.

  I had recently developed an interest in wildebeest – known affectionately as ‘the clown of the plains’ and the most advanced of the ungulates. We had learned from my father about the nomadic lifestyle of the Serengeti wildebeest and zebras, whose annual wanderings in search of fresh grazing encompassed 300 miles. Now I was able to observe them in their natural habitat – to see for myself how they lived in such close association, yet had almost no physical contact with each other, even when resting; how the bulls seemed to fight more for the acquisition and possession of territory rather than the proximity of a receptive female, and how often frenzied but short-lived ritual scuffles broke out among the males.

  So it was with some sadness this time that I regarded the biltong lines, festooned with strips of drying wildebeest meat. This was no holiday for my father, Dario and Ferrara – they had a job to do – and the killing, cutting, drying was in full swing all over again. However, a problem soon arose. Here in the Mara it became clear that the newly recruited team were not half as efficient as the old, many of the workers not being cut out for this type of work and deserting their posts. My father began to despair of being able to fulfil his contract deadline, until one morning when the most unexpected thing happened. It was Peter who first heard the distant but familiar singing and called to us to come and listen. Soon we could just make out a distant line of about fifty men jogging towards us, and as they came nearer, we heard the familiar words ‘Ngaw, Ngaw Mama, Ngaw Ngaw miwe!’ We simply could not believe it. The old Selengai team, headed by Muteti, had arrived as though in answer to a prayer. They had managed to pay their own train fare to Kijabe station, then walked and sang the remaining eighty miles to camp.

  My father was so moved that words failed him as the men clustered round, smiling, trying to shake our hands, which were pumped up and down energetically. Soon my father was smiling as broadly as the men, amid much cheering and singing. But then he had to tell Muteti that he could only employ twenty men. There followed a spirited discussion among the group, who decided, with extreme good nature, that this dilemma could be easily solved by a running race and the top twenty runners would stay. We were enthusiastic spectators, leaping up and down and shouting encouragement as the runners sprinted off in a cloud of dust across the plains, and from that moment on everything went as smoothly as it had at Selengai.

  For us children, the rest of the safari passed by all too quickly in a haze of days, and a wealth of new experiences: creeping through the bush at the Barakitabu hot springs to spy on Mr Whiddett taking a bath; collecting the soft belly feathers of the Marabou storks; becoming more proficient along with my brother at target practice and even being allowed to spend a night in my brother’s game blind – a hide he had fashioned where we could sit hidden from view and observe the wildlife at close quarters – even though Sheila and I were frog-marched back to the camp when we got the giggles; travelling three full days to Jagitiek to try to find the legendary black-maned lions and then, best of all, returning to camp to hear that the war was over. It surprised us that Dario and Ferrara were upset – ‘We will have to be returned to Italy and we will miss you.’ However, the rest of us were jubilant, and I breathed a prayer of thanks that there would be no more prisoners to feed, and no need to kill any more animals for biltong. We celebrated with a huge bush banquet, afterwards enjoying the most memorable and competitive game of ‘kick the tin’ ever, our version of hide and seek, played in the late evening in failing light and involving a lot of noisy excitement as players exploded out of hiding places. We returned home to our farm some days later when we had to take Dario and Ferrara to the army barracks in Gilgil for repatriation back to Italy. This was difficult for all of us, as we had got on so well together. We often envisaged them recounting to their grandchildren tales of their wild time in Africa.

  Towards the end of the war a terrible drought depleted the farm’s cattle herd and my father was forced to think of a new way to generate income for the family. Ever resourceful and keen to sell milk in good quantity, he imported some pedigree Ayrshire cattle from Australia – four heifers and two bulls – and did this for two years in succession. Although imported livestock were particularly susceptible to Africa’s tick bovine diseases, ours actually flourished and within time bred over fifty calves. Some of the milking cows yielded up to four gallons a day, which guaranteed us a regular income, as did the sale of the bull calves. The new additions were the inspiration behind my father’s inventive ‘spray race’ – a neat alternative to the conventional dipping tank. Not wanting his aristocratic bovines to risk injury by jumping into a tank, he constructed a shower that sprayed them with insecticide as they walked sedately through. The first ‘cow’ to brave the invention was Sheila – sprayed with water – and it proved to be an enormous success, adopted and adapted by many of the local farmers.

  When I turned thirteen I joined my older sister at the Kenya Girls’ High School in Nairobi, where I settled in relatively easily, making close and to this day lasting friendships and distinguishing myself in the science as opposed to the arts stream. In adolescence, my previously straight and straggly hair turned thick and curly and was tamed into a bob, and my figure turned feminine for the better. In tandem with my classmates I was to acquire a ‘Patch’ boyfriend – ‘Patch’ being the nickname given to the Prince of Wales School, where my brother, Peter, had completed his secondary education. In those days further academic tuition at university level was an option only for those aspiring to be a doctor or vet, for which a university degree was essential. We knew that our father could not afford the fees, quite apart from the fact that none of us girls even entertained the idea of becoming academics. We were much more practical, anxious to earn our own money in order to relieve the burden on our parents and get on with our lives; eventually getting married, with a family of our own and living happily ever after, as had our parents. As it turned out, I was smitten early even by the standards of the day, for at the age of fifteen I fell madly in love with Bill Woodley, an ex-Patch boy, who at the time was working as a junior assistant warden in Nairobi National Park alongside my brother, who had also joined the new National Parks Service. We had a lot in common – he was Kenyan-born, crazy about wildlife and committed to Nature. Rather amazingly, he fell in love with me, much to the envy of my friends. On days when we were allowed out, he would pull up outside school in his lorry, named Lena, which had been left to him in a legacy, and toot for me to join him; dressed in his bush jacket, he looked even more handsome than usual. Aged twenty, he was considered sophisticated and worldly, a catch above the usual schoolboys my peers dated. By now I was a school prefect, charged with keeping order in my ‘house’ and setting a good example to the younger pupils. I was obsessed with being in love with Bill, and during the holidays I tried to acquire items for my ‘bottom drawer’, nice linen and other household items, something that was fashionable in those days to set one up for married life. Both Granny Webb and my mother, with all their gentle tact and wisdom, cautioned me about becoming too involved too young – ‘There is no hurry, Daphne, no hurry at all’ – but Bill and I were so wrapped up in each other that I could barely even wait around long enough for her to end her counsel. As far as I was concerned it was only a matter of time – I knew I had to finish school
at least – before Bill and I would be married.

  As we passed into the 1950s the fabric of life began to change, unrest among Africans gathering, slowly but surely. At first the turbulence was minor – negligence in work, small incidences of theft – but then, in a matter of months, it was clear that the unrest had moved on from local issues to something political and territorial. There were signs that the Mau Mau, who were an underground group of members of the Kikuyu, aimed to remove from Kenya British rule and European settlers, who they felt had dispossessed them of their land. The local policeman told us that clandestine meetings were becoming commonplace, as these activists went around gathering support for their cause with promises of land, houses, cars and all that the ‘White Tribe’ owned once they had been driven out or killed. Oathing ceremonies involving obscene rituals began to take place surreptitiously, often imposed under duress, some said to be so barbaric that the details were spoken of only in hushed whispers. The increased attacks on the livestock and property of the white farmers, plus an escalation in lawlessness, were all symptoms of the changing climate.

  There were many discussions and firmly held views in my family and among our friends. It was impossible for Granny Chart, or any of us white Kenyans for that matter, to accept the Mau Mau view of the settlers as illegal intruders. Rather than brutal foreign colonizers, we and our ancestors were humane and totally honourable pioneers who had braved the unknown and, with blood, sweat and toil, brought progress to darkest Africa, promising law and order and good governance under benign British rule. Those in the know urged the British Government to quell the Mau Mau before it had time to turn an entire generation of youth, but these warnings went unheeded by Whitehall, and the intimidation meted out by the activists against those who gave witness against the organization, or who refused to take the secret oath of allegiance, became more brutal, barbaric and savage, with murder and mutilation turning into almost daily events.

  At first, everyday life was not radically affected, but then as the evidence of carnage shifted – from strangled cats and headless dogs hung from trees, to white farmers brutally murdered – we had to restrict our movements. No longer could we stay out in the forest, and doors had to be locked by nightfall. My father moved his pedigree stock nearer the house and employed tribesmen not aligned to the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru to guard them at night.

  It wasn’t long before the horrific reality of the Mau Mau attacks struck at the heart of my family. In the dark depths of night, Grandpa and Granny Webb were robbed and badly beaten during a raid on their house by thugs suspected of being Mau Mau initiates. Actually, they were ‘luckier’ than neighbouring victims, who had been hacked into little pieces. Both my grandparents were assumed dead, clubbed into unconsciousness and left lying in pools of blood. Fortunately they suffered only relatively minor injuries and concussion, but the savagery of the attack, the hatred wielded upon them, left its emotional mark on them. There were no telephone links on the farms in those days and only a few people had radio communication. Unwilling to give up their independence by moving in with us, my grandparents were persuaded that they would be safer in their seaside cottage at Malindi. It was almost unbearable to think that we would now see each other only a few times a year, but this brutal attack left indelible scars on both my grandparents. Even Granny Chart was sorry to see them go, though remaining adamant that she would be staying put, and going nowhere, no matter what! She even refused my father’s eminently sensible suggestion of taking in a police reservist as a lodger, saying that she did not want to have to look after him as well as herself. Fear was not a part of Granny Chart’s DNA.

  However, apprehension became a way of life on our farm. Our staff were nervous and edgy and no one ventured out after dark. One of our most joyful Mkamba workers (an individual member of the Wakamba tribe is known as a Mkamba), whom we nicknamed Kinanda, or ‘the gramophone’ because he was always singing, began to waste away. His behaviour changed, the singing stopped, and he became morose and withdrawn. All of us were worried, thinking some terrible illness was consuming him, so on the pretext of some work in the town, my father managed to get him into Never Die and drove him to the doctor in Nakuru. The outcome of extensive tests was puzzling, for the doctor could find no physical cause whatsoever for his decline. Upon returning home, Kinanda began to talk, but all he revealed was that he was doomed to die and there was simply nothing anyone could do about it. He wanted to continue to work for as long as possible, then go back to his ancestral land, where his bones would be laid to rest. We were devastated that he would want to give up his life like this and did our best to talk to him, but it was to no avail. My father suspected that a spell had been cast over him, so a succession of witch doctors were brought in, in the hope of countering anything sinister, but nothing worked. Kinanda continued to fade away before our very eyes, professing ignorance all along as to why he had lost the will to live. Finally he declared that it was time to be taken home to die, and with tears streaming down his sunken cheeks, and tears streaming down all our faces, we bade him farewell, knowing that this was the last time we would see each other.

  Kinanda died shortly after. On his deathbed, he asked that a message be relayed to us. In an enforced Mau Mau oathing ceremony he had been ordered to murder us all, and because he refused to do this, loving the family too much to kill us in cold blood, a death curse was cast on him. His refusal to murder us had cost him his own life and that disturbed us unbearably. Kinanda’s sacrifice is something that deeply affected us all and is still lodged inside me to this day.

  I left school at sixteen, convinced I had fluffed the Senior Cambridge School Leaving exams, but as I was confident that my future was going to be with Bill, I decided that the most useful thing I could do was to acquire some skills about how to run a home efficiently. My mother was of like opinion, not because she thought I should be marrying Bill just yet, but because being a competent housewife was in her view an essential skill for life. Under her expert tutelage I embarked on a hectic three-month in-house domestic training course, learning how to organize a household, how to cook, how to clean, how to polish and garden. Family secrets, including Great-Granny Aggett’s candle- and soap-making, were gifted to me, as well as tried and tested herbal cures for low-level illnesses and injuries. I also took this time to learn how to drive, suspecting that I only obtained my licence because the policeman conducting the test suffered whiplash when I did a rather jerky hill start and he probably never wanted to repeat the experience again. During those three months I acquired lifelong knowledge and skills that in turn I have passed on to my daughters, Gillian and Angela. I derive much pleasure, and a feeling of continuity, in seeing them follow the old pioneering recipes, even if some of the ingredients or methods have been updated in the interim.

  It mattered to me and came as quite a surprise that I actually did well academically, even though I had been distracted. I passed my School Leaving Certificate with flying colours, placed eighth in the Colony and awarded a bursary that qualified me for free university education. My headmistress, Miss Stott, was convinced I should pursue a career in medicine, and my parents and grandparents took this very seriously. However, I knew this would mean a seven-year exile to study in England and that was the last thing I wanted, over and above being parted from Bill. I could not see myself living anywhere other than Kenya, so I told my parents that my heart would break and that if they made me go, I would elope.

  They could tell that I meant it, and after much cajoling the subject was dropped. Instead, I joined Sheila in the YWCA in Nairobi and began a secretarial course at the same college as my sister. Bill had been given the extra task of grading the Nairobi Park roads, over and above his other Park warden duties, and so we were together a lot, spending all weekend doing his rounds on his enormous Caterpillar Grader, on which he had painted the name ‘Daphne’ in large letters at the side. But soon Bill was informed that he was being transferred to the as yet undeveloped but newly gazetted giant Tsavo N
ational Park. By coincidence, Peter was being sent to the western half of the Park and Bill would be in the eastern section. For Bill and me this posting was a calamity, Tsavo being 200 miles from Nairobi, so we decided to become engaged. At my seventeenth birthday party, with the family gathered, Bill asked my father for my hand in marriage. Taken completely aback, my father mumbled: ‘Yes, yes, of course, one day, no hurry,’ but when the ring we had chosen together in Nairobi was lovingly placed on my finger, my father had to take the request more seriously. Grandpa Webb caught the gist of the conversation and started up ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’ on the piano, during which my father managed to recover himself, announcing: ‘We expect the engagement to last at least a year to give these two children time to change their minds.’ I glanced at Bill, who was obviously amused and gave me a wink. We knew there was nothing that could change our minds.

  After graduating from secretarial college I got a job with an office of the African Explosives and Chemical Industries Company, a local branch of ICI, where I was paid £30 a month, an excellent salary. Bill duly went off to Tsavo East to begin working with David Sheldrick, a major who had been the youngest company commander within the King’s African Rifles during the Second World War years. Having returned from active service in Abyssinia and Burma, David had joined Safariland, the first professional hunting safari operating firm to become established in Nairobi. He was married with two small children, was renowned for his film-star looks and had a reputation as an awe-inspiring leader with a sound knowledge of natural history and the wildlife of Africa – an obvious choice for the job of transforming the unforgiving scrubland of what used to be the Taru Desert into a viable National Park. Tsavo had been a curious choice, but it was devoid of any permanent settlement because it was such inhospitable country, covered in an entanglement of dense scrub vegetation infested with tsetse fly, too arid for cultivation and unsuitable for livestock, a parched semi-arid desert that could expect little more than ten inches of rain a year. Although there was not an abundance of wildlife in Tsavo, it was known for its diversity of indigenous species, including fearsome lions, breeding herds of elephants and thousands of black rhinos, and it just happened to be where the northern and southern forms of fauna met, doubling up on the races of giraffe, ostrich and Grant’s gazelle (although this was not known at the time). David and his team of workers, Bill included, were there to make something out of nothing, much as the Aggetts had done further up-country nearly fifty years earlier, but in this case they had to transform useless scrubland into a National Park.