These are the photos of some of the people Allan worked with and their families. Most of these have been developed from old negatives so there are no written records of who they are. It is such a shame, if any more information does come to light I will certainly amend the details here.
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 "
.
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
A short letter this time. He is just one of many who will have written home telling of the beauty of Africa, a place, it seems, it was hard to leave even amongst settlers who fell on hard times.
Njoro is situated on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. It lies 18 km west of Nakuru the district town. Lake Nakuru is now a National Park, famous for its great flocks of flamingos who turn the skies and shores pink as they feed on the lake. The travel guides today promise sitings of black and white rhino, herds of waterbuffalo, zebra, buffalo, giraffe and lions with one of the best chances of seeing a leopard in Kenya.
In this letter Allan just describes the stripy "rats" who don't seem to be on list of favourable animals to see! They were probably not rats but a species of the pretty and lively African striped mouse.
Letter Three
Nagata Farm
Njoro
Kenya Colony
4/6/26
My dear little daughter Joyce,
Just a line to say that Daddy is well and happy and spends many many an hour in thinking of his dear little Joyce and Mother and hopes they are both well; and poor old Patrick too even if he has got big feet, he didn’t make them himself, and they are grand firm things to stand on.
Daddy will be coming home soon now but he does not know yet just when that will be but he longs to see Mummy and Joyce again and we must think of some specially fine treat for all the three of us to have when we see each other once more.
I hope that Mummy and you are now away on a little holiday somewhere, you must get a change of air and surroundings; it does everyone good to see new places and new faces every now and then; Daddy has seen a great many, sometimes more than he wanted to. Auntie Nell has written Dad such a nice letter all the way from Montrose in Scotland and now a letter is on its way back in reply.
When we are ploughing the fields we often see Rats running away in terror, but these are Brown Rats and striped on their backs with Black stripes like a Tiger, they are rather pretty. You would like to see the beautiful moonlight at full moon all over the great Plain, one of the most beautiful things in Africa is the bright moonlight and the stars twinkle twinkle, in the clear air.
With heaps of love to you and to Mother and take care of each other wherever you are
Your Loving Daddy XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Here is a photograph printed from the negatives of some work in the fields pre the employment of heavy machinery. Here are the oxen and the maize crop he referred to in first letter .
The reason for the delay in getting this post on the net is that I have been trying to research, read and understand more about the Africa my Grandfather was experiencing. I had not realised that the time he was there coincided with the infamous era of the "Happy Valley" crowd.
My next post will be some back ground information about both the dissolute Happy Valley settlers and Lord Egerton himself who was one of the few to make a success of farming in Africa. In 1939, Lord Egerton donated 400 hectares of land for a school to provide training for Europeans and Africans in agriculture and an additional 1, 215 hectares along with his strange Castle home on his death in 1958. There is now at Njoro the important and succesful Egerton University which grew from educational foundations that Lord Egerton laid and he is kindly thought of. It is said of him that he “did more for Kenya than any other white person”.
I find myself glad that my grandfather was working for him rather than one of the less palatable friends of Lord Delamere.
Letter Two
We skip forward to after Easter in 1926 and I have included page one of this actual letter as it was written on lovley old Fowler letterheaded paper complete with an impressive 23 branches listed, including Alexandria, Honolulu and Havana.
Allan is now at Lord Egerton's Estate up in Njoro.
Naughty Patrick, the dog, is again referred to and the nature notes are touching.
N´Gata Farm
Njoro
Kenya Colony
BEA
16/5/26
My Dearest Daughter Joyce,
Thank you so much for your long and clever letter you sent with Mummys. I am glad you had such a happy Easter and got lots of eggs.
We must go to Middleton Pond when I come home and see if we cannot catch some of those tiddlers for tea and if we don’t I shall have to buy a big crab on the way home to make up for our loss.
Patrick was naughty to fight Paddy James but perhaps he had to do it in self defence; sometimes the most gentle and peaceful of us have to fight because we are attacked by cruel enemies. Anyhow if Patrick has a fresh hole bitten in his ear he will be able to hear a lot better now and he will look more handsome with the lump on his head bitten off.
I hope you and Mummy will go away for some holiday soon because it will not be long before I am coming sailing back to you and leaving the little black children for other lands where people have olive coloured skins, the Italians and the Spaniards and then at last come to old England where folks skins are white;(at least they are when they wash them properly).
We saw such a large herd of Gazelle, a kind of Deer close to us this week and we often see Ostriches and sometimes Snakes but only little ones. One day I found two tiny little Hares that had been abandoned by their mother; such dear fluffy little things. I brought then home in my pocket and fed them with milk from a spoon and they drank it greedily, they lived for three days and then I am sorry to say they died, they were too young to be left without their Mother.
I hope you are getting on nicely at school, some day perhaps when you are a big girl you may go on a long voyage on the sea. I hope so for it is grand and I am sure you will like it.
Much Love and Many Kisses from Father
On the back of this photo is written;
"My Dog- Mutt and Kipsoi my Cook outside my Hut. "
This I am sure is Kipsoi's mother as we have another photograph of this lady labelled " My cooks mother"
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.
A month long journey from Southampton calling at Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malaga, Marseilles, Genoa, Port Said, Port Sudan, Aden and eventually Mombasa. I know we have more postcards of some of the ports which I will be able to post later but there are only these two at present. He will be here in Kenya on this first trip until 22 Feb 1927 when he returns to the UK, again on the SS Wangoni.
The Military Hospital Gibraltar
The Wangoni arrived at Port Said on 7th November 1925 by this time a very busy international port which developed since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. I quote Blake Burleson's book (and see previous post) to give an idea of what it must have been like.
"Within walking distance of the ships one could find a post office, tea houses, cafes, a railway station, sporting clubs, department stores of various kinds, mosques with tall minarets, churches and synagogues. Walking along the Rue du Commerce was like walking on the midway at a circus ; shopkeepers, sidewalk vendors, jugglers, fortune tellers and magicians courted the tourists."
Another fascinating detail from his book is that Port Said was one of the first places in the world to use gaslight in the streets to increase the visibility for ships.
Port Said: The Customs Quay
On from here they went through the Suez Canal south to the stifling heat of the Red Sea. My grandfather talks in future letters of the terrible heat, it being too hot to, either sleep at night or, hold the deck parties and dances they had enjoyed in the Mediterranean. On a future journey in 1927 they had dogs on board . He writes "the butcher comes every now and then and sluices cold water over them" . Blake Burleson writes that mattresses would be taken on deck at night to take advantage of whatever cooling breeze they could find.
Arriving finally at Mombasa on 12 November 1927 they dock at the Port of Kilindini and then I think he would continue his journey by rail on the Uganada Railway to the station of Menengai just north of Nakuru.
This is a copy of his photograph. From here perhaps by car to Lord Egerton's Estate at N'gata.
The Station: Menengai
