NOSTALGIC EAST AFRICA

Hi Muzzafar,

Please find attached Photos of my Father outside his shop and some shots outside and inside the shop.

He was born in Wick, Caithness, Scotland 4th January 1902, bought up in Wick and later worked in Inverness as a watchmaker where he answered an advert in the local newspaper for a job with Dobies Ltd the Rolex agents in Nairobi, they then sent him Tickets to catch a ship to Kenya where he arrived in Mombasa in 1927 and took the train to Nairobi to work for Dobies, he later left them with 80 Pounds in his pocket and started his own business. He married my Mother (Stella Barbara Mitchell) in 1949, and I was the first born in 1950, followed by John in 1952 and later burns in 1955.

He owned a 5 acre plot and built a double story house on it adjacent to the Ngong Road off Kirichwa Lane almost next to Adams Arcade bordering the Woodley Estate where we were bought up. There he grew Oranges, Potatoes and pineapples with a few Mangos, banana, Guava and Avocado trees and a huge Ki apple hedge surrounding the property.

His shop was in Government Road where Assanands the Music shop is or was but later moved in the early 1950s to the premises in the MacKinnon building shown in the photos which was an Ice Cream Parlor previously and Assanands moved into his previous shop.

He also ran a Mica Mine in amongst the Hills North of Sultan Hamud along the Mombasa Road in Partnership with Peter Cull before I was born.

He bought a Fishing Lodge before I was born at the end of the North Kinangop road at the foot of the Aberdares range just before the forest station at the entrance to the Aberdare National Park and expanded the property when he bought the adjacent farm which was called Mars farm,  this he registered as Schehallion Ltd, this amounted to 285 acres where he bread Ayrshire cattle and ran a dairy farm and supplied milk to the KCC he also grew wheat, barley, corn and latterly flowers for Nairobi (Yellow Arums, Carnations and some others).

In 1955 he asked my maternal grandfather and grandmother (Jack and Nellie Mitchell) to come to Kenya to manage the farm for him while he ran the Jewellers and Watch company in Nairobi.

I remember a company of British Army Soldiers moved in and set up camp on our farm during the 1950s around the time my grandfather was there as a base to conduct anti Mau Mau operations.

Later my father had to sell the farm to the resettlement scheme, so he found and bought a smaller farm,  25 acres, near Tigoni above Banana Hill off Redhill Road past Charpore Lane near the end of the Saint Julians Road.

Keith and Pam Savage the owner of Wilken Telecom then and Uncle and Aunt to Jonathan Savage of Digitel at Wilson were our next door neighbors there with a larger Coffee farm until Keith was blown out of the sky with Bruce Mackenzie after their flight back from Uganda. Pam later sold the farm to Charles Rubia. My Grandparents lived there with a reduced herd of the Ayrshire cattle and ran the dairy together with Chickens and a vegetable farm and the Flowers.

My Father passed away in 1970 from a heart attack which had floored him on 2 other occasions before the third one put his lights out.  After his passing my grandparents decided to leave and go back to the UK so my Mother sold the farm to another next door neighbour called Njenga a Kenyan politician.

We also decided to sell the property at Kirichwa Lane and moved to a smaller house and property in Jacaranda Avenue, Lavington estate. My Mother later remarried in 1977 to a Rhodesian resident who worked for the government there and decided to sell David Lyall Ltd in 1978 or 9. I was living in Scotland since 1973 to study aircraft engineering and started working for Bristow Helicopters in Aberdeen in 1976 and later moved to Brunei to work for the Royal Brunei Malay Regiment as a civilian contracted through Worldwide Helicopters Ltd in 1978 and later returned to Kenya in 2001.

That's a broad outline about part of my father’s life that I know about, but he did have a colourful life here before he met my mother as he had a previous wife who was 15 years his senior who he divorced when he met my mother. She was from the Vincent family. He loved fishing especially for Trout in the rivers around the Kinangop and Sasumua dam and often on Naivasha Lake Spinning for Tilapia and Bass.

Now he was pretty close to Richie Barber farmers in Kitale and James MacLeod farmers around Chemilu as they had gone to school together when he lived in Wick, Scotland, also another Scottish family farming in Molo.

Ok Muzzafar that's all I have just now.

Regards

David

On Tuesday, 27 May 2014, 14:53,