Photographs from N'Gata Farm 1926: 5 Working with Oxen

The work with oxen that Allan describes in the first letter home. There were no horses there.
Again there are not many written details for the images but Allan wrote on this one,
"Intercultivating between growing maize. Wattle plantation in background Njoro 1926"



Same team here as above.




These next two look like some kind of seed drill






This below was the very best I could get from an old faded print with no accompanying negative. As I was working on it and trying to coax some definition out of the yellowed print I noticed there is also a dog in the picture which may be the same dog as in the photograph of the three people with the car. Again when working with that image a dog revealed itself which was almost indistinguishable in the original photograph. I am therefore thinking that the man with the middle with the glasses may be Mr Coltart. I am sure he is the same man who appears in other photographs, working with the big engines.
It was worth including as on the back is written.

"Ox Ploughing on Mr Coltarts Farm. 3 Furrow Oliver Plough 14 Oxen Njoro 1926"




Two more images but without details.

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.