Emma Taylor, an Old Africa reader, is looking for help from other Old Africa fans. Her friend is researching the life of Oriana Wilson, the widow of the Antarctic explorer, Dr Edward Wilson who died with Scott in 1912. The Antarctic may seem rather a long way from Africa, but Oriana was a great traveller herself and letters show that she visited East Africa in 1934, and specifically Kenya in March of that year. Emma was wondering if anyone has any information about Oriana Wilson’s African travels. A letter of March 7th 1934 proclaims she is ‘In Kenya’ and one from Apsley Cherry-Garrard to a mutual friend in New Zealand postmarked May 1934 states: “Mrs Wilson seems to be getting on better in Africa where she wrote just before going northwards to Beira and I...
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Shel Arensen, editor of Old Africa magazine, was born in an African country that's no longer on the map - Tanganyika Territory. He moved to Kenya in 1960 as a four-year-old with his...
Dick and Diana Hedges arrived in Nairobi in 1956 overland from Newport Pagnell, UK in their beloved ex-army ambulance. (A photo of their arrival appeared on Old Africa’s...
I thought the attached photo might be of interest to any unfortunate expat who is having difficulty being granted and/or affording a Kenyan work permit at the present time.
The attached photo was taken in Nairobi’s Industrial Area 50 years ago. Yours truly is sitting in the center front row, being one of half a dozen work permit holders. The picture is of the staff of the workshop and parts department of a motor vehicle importing company on Factory Street. There were five more mzungus at our Victoria Street head office, the managing director, his personal secretary, the chief accountant and two car salesmen...
Elaine Donner Barnett came to Tanganyika as a young girl in 1946. Later she married John Barnett at Kijabe, Kenya in the 1960s, with then vice-president Daniel Moi attending the service....
As I found more of my dad’s notes, I discovered some other interesting facts concerning the amazing Nile River, which flows north while going through the various African countries from its source in Jinja, Uganda. It made me think that when we take time to discover the course of God’s creation, its hard to deny he exists when his presence is evidenced through countless wonders in creation like the Nile, the only major river in the world to flow north.
Before leaving Cairo, the place of pomp and bygone Pharaohs, my dear dad wrote this observation: “The Egyptians must have spent most of...
Dick and Diana Hedges arrived in Nairobi in 1956 overland from Newport Pagnell, UK in their beloved ex-army ambulance. (A photo of their arrival appeared on Old Africa’s...
I hope the following anecdote will be of interest to Old Africa readers. Firstly, because it did happen in Africa about 50 years ago in the Northern Rift Valley province and secondly because I use it to bolster one of my obsessions; after a lifetime spent in being responsible for around 40,000 people on tented, photographic safaris, I am of the opinion that photographic safaris under canvas, recapture the atmosphere of the best traditions of 'Old Africa', whereas packaged safaris to the lodges do not! In the time I am writing about, there was one lodge in Samburu and three in the Masai Mara. I don'...
Christine Nicholls, author and historian, has written several books on East African history including Red Strangers: The White Tribe of Kenya, a biography on missionary-explorer David...
I was interested to read about Mombasa Golf Club in your April/May issue. I lived in Mombasa as a child (my father, Kit Metcalfe, was head of Mombasa Primary School just above the golf course) and at low tide we went snorkelling at the foot of the cliffs below the course. What riches lay there! Scores of golf balls hit over the cliff into the sea by inept golfers. What madman had built a golf course by the cliff, we wondered? We gathered up the balls, climbed back up the cliff, sneaked round the back of the clubhouse, and sold the balls to caddies who then presumably sold them on to players at a handsome profit. We made...
Shel Arensen, editor of Old Africa magazine, was born in an African country that's no longer on the map - Tanganyika Territory. He moved to Kenya in 1960 as a four-year-old with his...Check out other Magazine covers from 99designs
These posts come from a feature we run in each issue of Old Africa sharing readers stories that could happen Only in Africa.
As we drove up the Subukia road towards Lake Hannington (now Lake Bogoria) in 1965, my husband Victor Burke stopped to watch some birds with his binoculars. Within minutes six Tugen men had gathered, intrigued by the binoculars. Victor explained that the binoculars brought things closer. Victor handed the binoculars to the men to try. They took turns looking through the binoculars, turning them this way and that. Finally they handed the binoculars back and told Victor they were no good. “You told us they would bring things closer so we could see them,” one man said, “but we can’t see the wedding that we know is taking place on the other side of that mountain!”
Taken from the recently published book Safarini by Margaret...
Elaine Donner Barnett came to Tanganyika as a young girl in 1946. Later she married John Barnett at Kijabe, Kenya in the 1960s, with then vice-president Daniel Moi attending the service....
1946 In those days one could not always plan ahead and purchase ongoing tickets and connections. After our ship the Gripsholm docked in Alexandria, Egypt on a Saturday night, my father and some other missionary men disembarked and tried to clear the trunks and drums full of household goods through the hassling and haggling of the Egyptian customs officials. It took the entire day and at about 9 pm our American Express agents finally reached an agreement with customs.
We rode a bus from Alexandria to Cairo, arriving shortly after midnight. My weary and worn parents found rooms at the National Hotel in Cairo – but...
Shel Arensen, editor of Old Africa magazine, was born in an African country that's no longer on the map - Tanganyika Territory. He moved to Kenya in 1960 as a four-year-old with his...
I just got back from a road trip in Tanzania, where the roads were pleasantly paved. Our 20-year-old Land Cruiser performed well without so much as a puncture. On my return to Kenya I found a comment on my Old Africa blog asking for a photo of the Volkswagen car my family had driven to Congo in 1968. Here's the VW beetle - KCY 434. The KCY indicated it had been registered in Eldoret where it had been a dealer's demonstration model. The photo shows my father, Ed Arensen, fixing a puncture while I watch alongside my younger brother Brian.
Dick and Diana Hedges arrived in Nairobi in 1956 overland from Newport Pagnell, UK in their beloved ex-army ambulance. (A photo of their arrival appeared on Old Africa’s...I was pleased to receive the following email from Barbara Black from Victoria, British Columbia in Canada after she read my blog about Karen, then and now. Here’s her email.
“You will have to excuse my barely contained delight at finding your blog entry “Karen—Then and Now.” I am a writer living in Victoria, BC, Canada, currently working on a series of poems based on my family history. My great Aunt Calla, sister of my grandmother Sonia Carlson (originally from Sweden) lived in Karen from the 1920s to the 1960s. With her English husband Fred Head they bought 25 acres in the Karen estate and lived there for many years. My Nana is gone now (lived to age 104) and the only records I have of Calla’s time in Karen are her scant recorded recollections...
