Letter Five: 1926 Christmas in Nakuru Hospital with "Fever"

This is the last letter from the Egerton Estate time in Africa. After this the next letter is from the boat returning to Africa but this time he is bound for the hills near Mt.Elgon. Allan is ill for Christmas and in the hospital at Nakuru so I think he never arrived at the Woodmores at Keringet. We don't know exactly what was wrong with him. On the photo of the rather nice looking hospital below my Mum had written " my father was in this hospital with fever".

Nakuru Hospital

















Letter 5

Nakuru Hospital
Nakuru
Kenya
31/12/26

My Darling Joyce
Thank you ever so much for the nice long letter and the Christmas card you sent me. I was delighted to get them and also a fine card from Mummy and a good long letter with it. Mummy has sent me several letters which have all reached me safely in Hospital and I must write to her tomorrow.
I am so sorry I forgot to send you a special letter on your birthday but am very pleased to read in your letters what a fine lot of presents you had and some of them such useful ones too. Please tell Mummy that the cake and Pudding arrived safely and in good condition. Daddy is not allowed to eat such rich food yet but he asked the sisters ( that is the Nurses) if they would accept and eat the cake because they were so kind and watchful to Dad when he was lying helpless and ill, it is due to their care that I have got better so quickly. And the sisters said the Cake was delicious and the Almond Icing a perfect treat, they have kept a tiny bit for me to taste by and by. We will have the pudding cooked on New Years Day that is tomorrow and Dad will be allowed to have a little bit of that.

Many of the Magazines & Christmas Numbers Mummy has sent have already arrived & I share them around among the other Patients who enjoy a bit of Christmas reading to pass the time along, for some of them are more seriously ill than Dad & have to stay in bed all day, but I can get up and walk about a bit in a Dressing Gown now and am feeling stronger & better every day.

Dad is coming home on the Wangoni which is the same Steamer which took him to Africa. We sail from Kilindini (is that not a long name for a port) on Feb 22nd and the voyage takes about 28 days, it is a nice time of year to cross the seas in and it should be fairly cool in the Red Sea, which is often the most uncomfortable part of the journey because it is sometimes so hot there.
I wish my Dear Mummy and Joyce could get on the magic Carpet and fly to Kilindini to voyage home with me on the steamer, it is a delightful experience, so many days on the blue, fresh sea with foaming waves all round, but very likely you will have a voyage same day when you are a few years older & you will enjoy it. Daddy has had such a lot of letters this Christmas. From Aunt Minnie & Uncle Reavely & Uncle Alec & Aunt Edith & Aunt Nellie & Grandpa Anderson & Uncle Arnold, & from Uncle John & Mr Robinson. 15 letters came on one day. And tell Mummy a very nice one arrived yesterday from Mr Charles Fowler.
There is a long chair in my bedroom and we pull it out on to the Veranda & Dad sits on it looking at a beautiful view of Lake Nakuru & the mountains. But this is a lazy life and I hope in a few days to be strong enough to get about and do a bit of useful work again.
Lazy idle people are never happy, it is only when we are doing something like learning at school or working at a job that we feel we are helping to push the world along a bit and can be satisfied with ourselves. I am glad you liked the pieces Mummy read you from “The Christmas Carol”. It is the best Christmas story ever written. Charles Dickens was a great and good man. The Photos Mr Barraclough took of you and Mums and Patsy have arrived & very good ones they are of all of you.
I had my first bath since my illness yesterday. Until then I had to be just washed in Bed and to have a real bath was a great treat. Some gaily coloured birds, blue on the back and with yellow breasts and long curved beaks fly up and down the verandah. Sometimes if I am awake in the early morning I hear in the darkness the “cheep cheep”of birds in the bushes nearby and though all is black outside, yet in about a quarter of an hour, sure enough the Dawn begins to break, the birds know that here comes the day before I do. It is Harvest home now on all the Farms and great loads of Maize and Wheat are being carried off the Fields, a Harvest at Christmas sounds strange does it not? I hope my dear Joyce had a really Jolly Christmas and some nice presents and I hope gave some little gifts to others too. With Heaps of love to you and Mums. I shall soon be coming back home now.
Your loving Daddy

Letter Four: Ngata 29/11/1926

We go forward many months now, to November. There do not seem to be any letters surviving from the intervening five months. Christmas is coming and he sounds a little wistful for the Christmas displays in the shops, carols and the pantomime in Leeds . Interestingly he refers to coal rationing, and bemoans the lack of shops in Njoro and the ubiquitous Patrick is there of course. He mentions going to visit the Woodmores at Keringet now rather than at Molo. I don't think he ever got there.

With this letter I am showing a picture of his "house" and a store. He liked living in this little round house preferring it to the brick built one he would move into later at Kisinget. The houses were built of anything available, wood corrugated iron, grass reeds mud and petrol cans.
In the book "Red Strangers" by C S Nicholls there is a description of a farmer's hut.

" My house is made of mud with holes of various sizes and shapes to represent doors and windows. The floor is nothing more than Mother Earth... everything is continually covered with sand, mud or white ants and consequently any degree of comfort is impossible.... It is remarkable how much the office owes to petrol boxes and tins... The insects at night are most trying and appear in large numbers, in the form of moths and beetles of all descriptions, that it is almost impossible to read or write, and quite futile to consider any supper but bread and cheese. Scorpions, tarantulas and snakes are also numerous.. "














"My Hut, Njoro"













" The inside of my hut. Njoro "


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House constructed with tubs.


Letter 4
Lord Egerton of Tatton’s Estates
N’gata Farm
Njoro
Kenya
29/11/ 26

My Darling Joyce

Just a line from Daddy to wish you a merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. I am sorry I have not been able to come Home for the Goose and Plum Pudding but never mind, you and Patrick must eat my share between you.
We will have another special Pudding made when I do arrive. Mummy tells me you are all allowed a small ration of coal every week in Leeds nowadays so it is lucky for you and Mums that ours is only a little House, if they were great big rooms like Temple-Newsham has in it, whatever would you do.
I hear that already you have had Snowstorms, and Dad can hardly remember what Snow looks like it is so long since he saw any. It is hotter and brighter here, with Sunshine at Christmas, than it is in Leeds in July but Dad would much rather live with you and Mums in Leeds than all by himself at Njoro.
I cannot send you a Christmas Present, love, nor a card because we have no rows of nice shops here like you have, to choose them in. There is only one store at Njoro and they keep chiefly foodstuffs. A leg of Mutton or a box of Quaker Oats would be a strange Christmas Gift wouldn’t it.?
I expect you and Mums will have had a grand tour round all the Fairylands and Santa Claus’ shops full of beautiful Toys, and then there will be the Pantomime to see and Carols to sing at Church so even if the weather is cold and dull in old England it is much the best country to spend Christmas in. Daddy is going to visit Mr Woodmore at Keringet for a few days and hear the little children sing “Good King Wenceslaus” and “The First Noel”. They sing in English and do so quite well.

Much Love and Many Kisses from Daddy
I will write a longer letter next time

Christmas 1925 and The First Letter 23 January 1926

Christmas 1925.
There are no Christmas letters but these two photographs of Allan and the Woodmores at Molo. I havn't found any information about the Woodmores yet but a little initial reseach turned up records of the grave of a Percy Woodmore in Nairobi. He died in 1933 at the age of only 45. I am sure this must be the same person.



Molo. Kenya 1925. Xmas. Percy Woodmore's Brother, Wife and children. Mrs Percy Woodmore.
Allan is on the left with the dog



The Mule Buggy, Molo, Xmas 1925.
Self , Percy's brother, wee Peter, Percys brothers wife and Percy.


The First Letter

Allan writes here from Engata Farm and later changes the spelling to N'gata and I think he was already at Lord Egerton's Estate from where he will write the next few letters. The details of the land are fascinating and animals are always mentioned. Patrick is the naughty dog at home. We have a photo of Patrick somewhere. Reading these letters makes me realise why we always had a dog.

Engata Farm
Ngoto
Kenya Colony
23/1/26

My Darling Joyce,

I hope you are well and happy my dear little girl, and think sometimes of Father seven thousand miles away in Africa.
The sun shines hot all day long here and great blue dragonflies and moths, nearly as big as sparrows go buzzing up and down, And we have seen Ostriches running wild on the Farm and near the railway, Zebra and Antelopes and there are scores of lizards running as quick as lightening up and down in the bright sun.

The Carts are pulled by Oxen, we have no horses here and a little dog goes in front to guide the team of oxen, sometimes sixteen are harnessed to one Cart and they go slowly along, pulling their load of Maize, which is what you call Pop-Corn, and there are miles and miles of maize all growing to make beautiful Blancmange and Semolina Puddings and Cornflower Moulds for you to eat in Leeds and Oxford.

I hope you have been to the pantomime and taken Mummy too, are not the little children pretty and what a fellow bold Robinson Crusoe is. I am sure you must be getting on finely and you write and draw so well; you must try to draw me a picture of poor old Patrick and then take him for a walk to the lake at Middleton.

Today is Sunday and I think of you in Sunday School and I am well and happy too though far away round on the other side of this great big world.

Many Kisses Dearest Daughter.


I am putting an image of this first letter up here. I may not with others unless there is a nice letter heading or something particularly interesting.

Setting out to Africa 3pm 15th October 1925

My grandfather has written,
"Tender “ Duchess of York” coming alongside S.S. Wangoni” at Southampton 3 pm Thursday October 15th 1925. Just on the right of the far side ventilating shaft are Mrs Woodmore sat down with back to Camera, myself and Mr Woodmore (he is looking upwards) "

The photo was obviously taken and sold as a souvenir to those on board the Wangoni as it set off for its voyage to Mombasa. On the bottom there is a small stamp saying Leonar and a number and crude lines printed for an address.

This first image, a mixed group of people frozen in a snapshot on a grey day in October waiting to start a voyage of at least a month. My grandfather looking down, Mr Woodmore looking skywards with Mrs Woodmore sitting by him .. what can they have been imagining lay ahead of them?
It must have been a moment of very mixed emotions for them all.

I am going to write some more about the Wangoni in the next post and I am indebted to Blake Burleson whose book "Jung in Africa" arrived 2 days ago with such wonderful descriptions of the journey. It is only a week since I discovered that Jung was on the same ship as Allan Thackeray, and, although I have only read just little of the book, it had already brought vividly to life some of the realities that lay behind these faded photos and yellowing letters.