You Have Not a Leg to Stand On (14 page)

While all the alterations took place, we really needed to be on-site as I was acting as site manager and every night we needed somewhere to lay our weary heads. The new terms of our tenancy for the flat we lived in on the Edgware Road just up from Marble Arch, had caused us to buy the house in the first place. I swapped our car, our little faithful, Toyota Estate that had served us so well all way from Kuwait to London, for a scooter to take us around London. Also, an old Bedford Van that had been a mobile shop, and which I planned to convert into a mobile home. I did rebuild it into a mobile home, and a very smart mobile home it was too. Looking at the photographs now, of all the work I must have done to build it into a state we could live in I just don't know how I thought I could do it. Water, cooker, shower, loo, double bed, dining table, cupboards, everything a modern mobile home would have, only I did it myself. Anyway we did it and we parked it outside our newly acquired little house. We lived in it while we ripped out the inside, and rebuilt it into a very smart, fully equipped, modern, two bedroom house. Then we added an extension into the garden at the back for the kitchen come dining room. We created a separate one bedroom flat in the half basement for an income, not much of an income, but an income.

One of the little teams of people we used to build more drains and access manholes were two particularly helpful and pleasant rather overweight middle-aged men. They had a fund of knowledge, not only to do with house building, but a whole range of subjects. During their tea breaks we could talk about anything, so I wondered why they were building drains for a living. Not that drain building isn't a very necessary and skilful thing to do well, but nevertheless I thought they could do better. I found myself looking forward to our chats at morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. Slowly it began to emerge, they'd grown up as close mates on the same street, they'd been to the same school, they'd married the girls next door. While sitting around evening after evening talking about what they wanted to achieve, and all the things they'd like to do with their lives, they began to realise, that from their background, there was such a small chance of getting anywhere. They must accept their lot or do something that would make a lot of money quickly. But what? Slowly, a flicker of an idea began to emerge at the back of their minds. They couldn't say who actually thought of it because it was such a dim, faraway light in the distance. It became brighter as they unknowingly got closer and closer. Then, suddenly, it was there, a brilliant, beaming lighthouse, showing the way. They would become professional criminals. They had friends who were making quite a good living. The risk, of course, was getting caught and going to gaol. They weighed up the pros and cons and came to the conclusion with the potential gains the risks were worth taking. One really big one and they could retire. The morality of the decision didn't figure, even when I posed it as an idea, they just looked baffled. ‘So why did you stop?' ‘We were in prison for the fird time, and the sentences were getin' longer and longer. We were sitin' opposite each uver, splitin' a match in two, and we look up at each uver, and almost togever said, this ain't working is it? We decided to stop and go straight.' So they learnt a trade while in prison, which was how they were here now.

Towards the end of their contract, I got an offer of a small part on a series called ‘The Regiment'. The tiny scene was to be shot in Morocco, as it required a Boer,
me
, being captured by the British while galloping across the South African Veld. It would take a week. So it was a great opportunity for us both to have a little holiday at the BBC's expense. Imagine the cost of that 30-second shot. Three actors, the whole crew and props, probably twelve of us altogether, in an hotel in Marrakech for a week. Then the airfares, and a Moroccan crew, with horses, two were called for but six were there, all for thirty seconds on the screen. I suppose it must have helped, many of the horses and crew we were using were from the enormous set of ‘Young Winston' being shot on the other side of the dune, with Simon Ward. The leads in our series were John Halam, who later became successful, and Christopher Casanove, who tragically died of septicaemia recently.

One evening we were invited to a small party given by a crew member. We hadn't been told it was a ‘grass' party. Not that I would have known what ‘grass' was, other than the obvious skirt. The party congregated in a shabby two roomed flat not far from the hotel. The rooms were filled to overflowing with bleary-eyed, unkempt, slightly smelly people, lolling all over the place.They were on the sofas, the armchairs, leaning against the walls, all very friendly in a spaced-out sort of way. A space on the floor, leaning against a shrinking wall, was made for us and a hand-rolled cigarette passed our way. I've never been able to smoke anything, so I passed it on, I think my wife must have done the same. Then came a simply dreadful glass of Moroccan white wine followed by a plate of very tasty, crisp little biscuits. I took a few, a handful, to disguise the awful taste of the wine. I must say, the biscuits were very nice indeed, I had some more. I said to the unwashed, straggly haired, wan girl leaning against the wall on my right, ‘These biscuits are delicious, what's that taste in the background?' She sleepily half laughed, ‘They're hash cookies of course.' I half laughed back knowingly, as though the question had been were rhetorical. God, I felt a fool. But they were good, I had another. I was beginning to feel quite merry. Not drunk but merry, happy. I looked at my wife. She didn't look very happy. I said, with a giggle, ‘How are you feeling?' She said, ‘not like you, obviously.' I giggled. I don't know how long we were there, but on the way back to the hotel I felt I could do anything. I jumped up and walked on the high walls, I spread my arms wide and laughed. ‘I can't tell you what a fool you look,' said my wife. I laughed again. At the front desk I asked, in fluent French, how they all were, how were their families, did they have far to go to get back home. ‘Can I please have my room key please, thank you, thank you very much indeed, good night, good night, I hope you all sleep well.' I even surprised myself how well I spoke French. I giggled myself to sleep. That was the first and last time I have ever used mind-enhancing drugs, other than antidepressants given to me by a doctor at the Nairobi Hospital, soon after the accident.

Meanwhile, back at the house, our jailbirds were in charge. On our return we could see, straight away, everything ‘was shipshape and bristol fashion.' The following morning, I was half the way downstairs, with virtually nothing on, when the older and fatter one opened the front door to come in. He looked up and saw me on the way down, and he said, ‘My goodness me sir, you do have beautiful legs sir.' So ironical, if you could see my legs now, thin sticks of bone, smeared with white, sickly, old, parchment-like semblance of skin.

I wonder how they fared. I wonder if they ever achieved any of their dreams. A more pleasant a pair of criminals you could never hope to meet.

***

It's getting closer and closer to the disaster. We said goodbye to my Uncle and Aunt at Gatwick airport in June 1973. We only had three more years of freedom.

If the accident that caused me to be writing my life's story, were bound to happen, you'd have to believe in fate, which I don't think I do. However, the indelible picture of my wife kissing my Aunt Carmen goodbye, with large dewdrop tears suddenly welling up and rolling down her cheeks, must be the first moment that created a chain of circumstances that eventually led to my accident.

My Uncle and Aunt were devoted to one another, so it's especially cruel my aunt had to die of Alzheimer's disease, with all the awful, hurtful symptoms its progress goes through to meet its inevitable, devastating conclusion. My Uncle never wavered, he was by her side until the moment of her death. He rang us from her bedside and said, ‘Carmen has just died.' I said, ‘Oh Peter, I'm so sorry.' Some of the people he told would say, as words of comfort, ‘I'm so sorry, but it was for the best.' On hearing them say those words, he would put those people out of his life. He told me he would cherish any extra moment he could have with her. My wife arranged her funeral to the minutest detail. Every flower had a significant meaning to my Uncle. It was beautiful. To this day, the book of remembrance is open every year, on the date of her death, now with my Uncle's name beside hers, and his ashes, with hers.

Passion for Kenya

Another great friend was given the task of expanding the passion fruit juice industry throughout Kenya, from small holdings to large holdings. A modern juice extraction plant was built, at enormous expense, by a Swiss investment company. It was an excellent idea. Passion fruit is a delicious fruit. It grows quite prolifically in a wide range of climates.

Kenya and the whole of East Africa, Uganda and Tanzania. Right down through Mozambique, Malawi and Botswana, Zimbabwe and into South Africa; could produce enough food, of all description, to feed the world with their range of climates, if organised properly. But to give Africans with very meagre holdings enough incentive to grow a cash crop, rather than subsistence farming is difficult, and to change an understandable mindset even more so. They must be given individual attention so their welfare becomes your responsibility - a big job and long-term investment.

So growing a passion fruit plantation, seemed to us, to be a very pleasant occupation in which to take part. The size of the financial reward depended entirely on the size of the financial input, as with anything. With any farming venture, there is always the added, dreaded factor, of the unknown and the least expected. My father never wanted me to be a farmer of any description. He'd been a farmer all his working life and he maintained farming was littered with disaster, destitution and bankruptcy. He'd lived through the Great Depression, and the first farm he owned had been abandoned by its previous owners. Nevertheless, with the exuberance of youth, it seemed to us, the way of life it offered was far better than living in London with no money.

My father gave us all the land we needed, the river gave us the water, and our house in Clapham and a bank in Nairobi gave us the finance. There were three markets for the fruit. The biggest and the best looking were packed into little boxes surrounded by tissue paper and sent to Europe by aeroplane. They were in the supermarkets all over Europe, at the same time as being consumed by the residents of Nairobi, who were the second market. The third, and possibly the most important, because it underpinned the whole venture, was the pressing of the fruit for their juice. No waste. What could be better?

It took a year to set it all up and to build ourselves a little wooden house near to the plantation. The wooden house was prefabricated by the sawmills our great friend Gwynne's father owned in the forest directly above us in the Highlands. Each prefabricated piece was 7ft high x 10ft long, with door or window spaces as you wished; it was possible to build a house, or room, as big or small as you liked. To make it look as though it was not prefabricated, my wife and my mother thought of turning the whole thing inside out. Then we nailed bark planks, which had been cut off the trunks in the first place, to the outside. It looked as though it had grown up out of the land.

Years before, between the two wars, there'd been a European house built nearby, and in their garden were planted a little group of five jacaranda trees. Here we were, more than fifty years later, doing exactly the same thing, starting from scratch. Those jacaranda trees were beautiful, they glowed a deep, blue-purple in the evening light, and a soft, mellow, inviting shade all through the harsh, heat of a dry African day. They represented to us, a symbol, a beacon of hope and continuity. As it turned out, they were a bright, bright flashing beacon, not of hope and continuity, but of doom and disaster.

***

During that year, we lived in a wing of my parent's home, which was exactly where I was brought up all those years ago. I had come home. Not only in the sense of where I lived as a child, and brought up through adolescence, but a spiritual home, somewhere I belonged, a profound sensation of satisfaction, being contented with myself. I don't remember ever discussing our situation with my wife. I never asked her if she was happy, if she was happy with the same things that made me feel so contented. I don't think anyone would have done so. Only your behaviour would signify how you felt. We both loved dogs; we had an assortment of five of the most adorable four-legged friends imaginable. Whenever I drove the five minute drive to the plantation, they'd never asked if they could come. They'd fling themselves into the back of my open one-ton truck, all eagerly looking forward over the sides, long pink tongues hanging out, tails wagging. Then, without fail, at the end of the short avenue of old pepper trees, planted by the same people who'd planted the group of five jacaranda trees, they'd hurl themselves out of the moving truck. They'd dash in front, leading the way down yet another drive, built by the same people, to the plantation. Quite often, while dashing along, one of them would pick-up a thorn in their pad. He or she would come grinding to a halt, pick up their paw and look back at me, tongue falling to one side. I'd have to stop the truck, get out, kneel down, all the others shoving their wet noses in my face, take out the thorn. I'd rub the pad better, as Ahdiga did for me, and they'd all charge off before I'd had a chance of getting back in the truck.

During the fruiting season, three times a week, I'd take a ton of fruit, packed in little boxes with tissue paper, to the shipping agents in Nairobi. They'd take the load, with many others, to the airport. I'd also make other journeys into Nairobi with full sacks, to the fruit market, to the grocers around the city, and to the juice factory. Often, after the deliveries, we'd go to the cinema, then to one of the many excellent restaurants. Sometimes we'd drop in on our great friends, Peter and Jo in Karen, or to Gwynne, in Limuru. Limuru stood at 7500 feet so we often drove through deep fog and darkness on the way back to our little wooden house on the floor of the Great Rift Valley. Then the greeting ceremony, with our joyful, laughing, four-legged army of the most faithful friends, all dog owners would know about.

On the way in to make my deliveries I'd always pass the main house, where my parents lived, say hello and drop off whatever fruit they needed. It was after one of these occasions, My mother told me later, she'd said to my father, ‘Surely you must agree he's doing well now.' He said, ‘Yes, but I've seen it all before, something unexpected will come along, and knock him for six.' Oh Dear, Oh Dear, how right he was. In a few weeks time, not only would I be knocked for six, I'd be knocked out of the game entirely.

We'd lived exactly a year in our little house, and apart from my childhood up to the age of nine, I've described earlier, that was the best year I can remember I'd ever lived. I can't speak for my wife because I now know she never wanted to leave England in the first place. That indelible picture, that clear crisp snapshot of shining round, rolling tears, welling up in her dark-brown eyes, and flowing down her cheeks, when saying goodbye to my Aunt at Gatwick Airport, will always remain with me till the day I die. What was about to happen would knock most people off course forever.

***

The first event, however, was not the car crash. The car crash was a calamity of its own... what was about to happen, would set it up.

We were late back home, our usual evening out, and on opening the front door, a sea of jumping, smiling, laughing, licking, pink-tongued dogs confronted us. My mother's four, as well as our own. In the middle of the sitting room was a mound of the most extraordinary collection of things; clocks, silver teapots, cutlery, copper-ware, ornaments, a mad burglar's hoard, bundled-up in a carpet. Our cook-house-man suddenly appeared, looking fraught and worried. He said in Swahili, ‘Your parents had to leave their house, your lorry is full of their things and they're staying at the club in Nairobi.' There was so much to ask him, but he couldn't articulate what was going on. It was obviously too late to go to the club now, we'd go first thing in the morning.

They were in the dining room, peacefully having breakfast together. My father, reading the newspaper, my mother mixing her honey with the butter, as she always did, before covering a torn-off corner of toast. My father said, ‘Oh hello Mennit, what are you doing here?' I just looked at him, jaw hanging. He went on, ‘We've been chucked out, I'll ring Gichuru, next thing.' James Gichuru and he got on really quite well. I'm not sure why, or what had brought them together in the first place, but James Gichuru had been the Minister for Defence in Jomo Kenyatta's first cabinet. Most unfortunately, he'd fallen for the lure of that delicious amber liquid, usually distilled in Scotland. Although no longer actively a Minister, he was still well respected, but any business, other than chit-chat, had to be conducted before 11 o'clock in the morning.

The whole issue of land ownership, in all newly independent countries in Africa, is a very sensitive area for anyone to tread, even if you'd owned land legally for years. Jomo Kenyatta, before he became president, and the British Government both realised, the change from European to African ownership must happen quite quickly but in an orderly fashion. The British Government would compensate farmers for agricultural land but not for cattle ranching. Ranching was much less sensitive an area as most of the tribes, primarily, wanted their agricultural land, and ‘The White Highlands' in particular, given back to them. The Europeans had taken it from them, as they saw it, and they wanted it back. They weren't going to pay anything for it, it was theirs. If the British Government wanted to pay something to the British farmers, then that was up to them. All the agricultural land had good regular rainfall and was fertile. The ranching land, the plains, had no permanent source of water. Nobody then, other than perceptive, imaginative and entrepreneurial Europeans, such as my father, could make any use out of it.

So that's how my father still had his land. He'd brought water to it from a long way away. No one but him would have thought of bringing water to his ranch from the source he did. Water is a very precious commodity anywhere in Africa, so to move it from one piece of land to another requires a strictly observed water permit. The Officer arrived to see the source from which the water was to be taken. He just laughed at my father's scheme, and gave him permission there and then. The source was a small swamp of about five acres well within the boundaries of the forestry commission and unused by anyone other than the forest animals and birds. He found it completely by chance; it was his exploratory instinct that took him there.

The very first thing he did was to build a hide for us children to come with him in the evenings to watch the forest animals. Waterbuck, Buffalo, small diker, a profusion of bird life, and even on occasion, although it must have happened every night, a leopard. How exciting it was to be with him. The Cook was told to make sandwiches and little buck steaks, a thermos of tea, and then we'd set off in single file. No talking, as quietly as possible, through the forest, to the flat plateau above, that so unexpectedly contained the small swamp. Then into our beautiful newly constructed, almost invisible, little hide.

All this incredible excitement could only happen three days a month, before, at, and after, full moon. So it was only once in a blue moon, all the conditions were perfect. The water he took from the swamp made no difference to the conditions of the marsh in any way and he was able to water, through a system of enormous round stone tanks, thousands of his cattle all over the ranch. Each herd, of around two hundred head, mustn't graze too close to each watering point, as too many cattle gathering together in any one place creates a dust bowl. All this development required careful management and had been going on ever since I could remember. And yet my brother and I were sent away to school, away from something we loved, away from where we belonged.

***

By this time, the late 1970's, Jomo Kenyatta, was getting old. But being the ‘Father of the Nation', replacing him was impossible to contemplate. However, there were rumblings, and sometimes the rumblings were more than just a tremor. He dealt with them ruthlessly. But it was after one of these rumblings, he, Jomo Kenyatta, made a rabble-rousing tour of the whole country. His speeches weren't thought through, they were off-the-cuff, saying whatever the people wanted to hear. Does that sound familiar, about any politician anywhere? Of course it does. I don't think he really meant to use the phraseology that was construed to mean the Europeans should now be forced to relinquish their ranchlands for 50 shillings an acre, less than 50p now, about £2 then, but that's how it came about. My father was approached by a Cooperative based in the town of Limuru, in the heart of Jomo Kenyatta's tribe land, to sell his home ranch to them for £11,500. He hadn't thought about it, let alone approached anybody. As far as they were concerned a refusal wasn't an option. They'd collected the money from all the shareholders and The President said they could have it. The Chairman told all the shareholders he had paid Mr Mayers the money, so they could now occupy the house and farm.

So to return to my parents peacefully having breakfast at the club. My father spoke to James Gichuru before 11 o'clock. ‘Disgraceful,' he said with real anger in his voice, ‘I'll speak to Charles immediately.' Charles, was Charles Njonjo, The Attorney-General, a very clever and powerful man. But even he found very quickly that he had to tread extremely carefully in this particular case. We had an appointment to see him in just a few days. In his outer office waiting with us, was the entire cooperative committee, dirty clothes, hands in pockets, leaning against the walls, lolling in the armchairs, with an air of insolence. My father and I and our lawyer were called into the main office. The whole committee shuffled in with us and loosely settled themselves in all the available chairs in the same insolent manner. Charles Njonjo came in from his inner office, he looked at them for a moment and said with a voice that could cut-glass, ‘Get out.' They straightened up, hands from pockets, momentarily looked awkward, briefly turned to each other, and quickly shuffled out. He looked at my father and said with real feeling, ‘I'm very sorry about what has happened.' My father said ‘Thank you.' Njongo then said, ‘I can get your house back for you, but I'm very sorry to have to say, although it's completely within your right to refuse, if you don't let them have your land,' he paused, looked down, then looked up, and said slowly, ‘you could be in great danger.' A long silence followed. He, looking at my father, and my father, looking at him. We all rose together, shook hands and filed out.