Jean Alison Holmes: Notes from Her Younger Daughter
A Guest Post by Janet E. Green
Jean was born on 29th January 1927 in Nakuru, Kenya. Her parents, Gertie and William Robb were among a number of intrepid pioneers who were encouraged by the British Government to go out to Africa to develop one of their colonies – Kenya, British East Africa.
There was no aid given by the British Government, so those who decided to seek a life of adventure and hopefully a better life than what was on offer in Britain at the time, had to rely on their own resources. Some of the people were wealthy – there were a number of rich British aristocrats who moved the Kenya at that time, who subsequently behaved very badly! (White Mischief). But the majority of people didn’t have a lot of money and had many challenges with which to deal when they settled and made a life for themselves in that beautiful country.
Jean was an only child and she was born when William was working in the Muhoroni area. There was very little infrastructure there and Gertie had to go and stay with friend in Nakuru when her due date got close, because there was a decent enough hospital there. After the birth Gertie and Jean went back to Muhoroni.
It wasn’t a very healthy area in which to live and Gertie often succumbed to Malaria, whereas William seemed to be immune. Kenya was full of wild animals in all areas in those days, but Muhoroni was known for snakes, and very poisonous ones at that! One of William’s colleagues was caught by a python when walking out in the bush. Pythons aren’t poisonous of course, they catch their prey and constrict the life out of them and then swallow them! The man who was caught managed to grab the tail of the python and hung onto it for dear life, so it couldn’t squeeze the life out of him, and he yelled for help. A couple of hours later someone heard him and came to his rescue. He survived, but according to the story, there wasn’t an inch on his body that wasn’t bruised and he was hoarse from shouting!
Jean was about two years old when she got malaria and she very nearly died because it was a bad bout and there wasn’t a lot of medical help in Muhoroni. It was not very long after that when they decided to move to a more healthy environment and ended up in Ol Joro Orok for a couple of years. It was when Jean was about six years old that they moved to Ol Viron. William was tasked by his employer to develop a farm out of the virgin land and they lived in a shack while a little wooden house was constructed for them to live in. (William had to build that as well!)
Jean was about six years old by then, and remembered the place clearly. They lived in a thatched wooden house with an outside loo of course. It was all very basic, they grew their own vegetables, and William had to shoot for the pot to keep them going. And then there were the normal challenges of that period – people had to be very careful that their dogs were not taken by a leopard while out walking, or, more commonly, taken off the veranda at night. During the hours of darkness their dustbins were often raided by hyena, and they could be quite aggressive (especially if you met them when going out to the loo!). Jean also remembered that when the cows were brought in from where they were grazing, sometimes a buffalo would get caught up in the herd and arrive on the farm, where it would cause a bit of chaos before running back to its own kind!
But it was a wonderful place in which to have her childhood. She could run free and wild in all the space they had, and the Subukia Valley, part of the Great Rift Valley, was the backdrop to their farm. And there were beautiful birds and Colobus and Sykes monkeys in the trees; while you almost always saw game while out walking – antelope of many varieties, zebra and giraffes.
Later William and Gertie bought Ol Orien Farm, which was very close to Ol Viron, and they developed it from scratch. After Jean married Reg in 1948, they took over the running of Ol Orien. They all lived on the farm, in two houses that William and Reg built. (It was on Ol Orien where I was brought up together with my siblings, Margaret and Jim).
They settled for a short while in Rhodesia, and then Reg was offered a job with FAO in Iraq, so they set off for the Middle East, and to a life as different as you can imagine from farm life in Kenya!
When they returned from Iraq they settled in Botswana for a while where Reg had secured a job in the dusty town of Selebi Pikwe, looking after machinery that was used for the mine. After that they moved to Swaziland and ultimately on to South Africa where they lived for many years.
They eventually bought a plot of land at Monteseel in Kwa Zulu Natal, overlooking the Valley of a Thousand Hills. (Not as majestic as the Great Rift Valley, but very beautiful, nonetheless). They camped on the plot while they built a house for themselves and Jean created a beautiful garden. They lived there for many years and only moved to England after their three children had left for Britain.
They bought a house in Darlington not too far from their son, and settled down to life in England, very different to anything they had previously experienced! After Reg died Jean continued to live in Darlington for a while and then she came to live with me in Minster Lovell.
We moved together to Truro in Cornwall and lived there for ten years, before finally moving to Bidford on Avon.
In every place she lived, Jean made a home, a garden and then energised the place with her indomitable spirit and vigour. Like so many of the other Kenyans of her generation, she was tough and feisty and worked pragmatically through all adversity. She had a wonderful sense of humour and loved her cats, dogs and every animal that came to her. She was a voracious reader and read anything she could get her hand on. When she was younger and her eyesight was still good, she used to knit a lot. Jumpers and jerseys for everyone! She used to read and knit at the same time while listening to the radio, because for many years she had no access to a television! And there was always a cat on her lap and a dog by her feet!
Featured Image: Flamingoes, possibly pictured at Lake Nakuru
