White Mischief’s Last Gasp
Another Murder Lays Happy Valley to Rest
The colonial experience in Kenya reached its notorious heyday
by the end of the Great War, from the 1920’s
to the onset of WW2 in 1939. It limped on for a further decade
before independence in 1963. An unsustainable policy of white
supremacy, the post-war influx of settlers from humbler backgrounds,
combined with the Mau Mau uprising and the refusal of the
British government, acting in conjunction with the major corporate
with interests in Africa to support the settlers, finally
put an end to the fun and games. A few settlers hung on, more
were driven out by corruption, taxation, increasing violence
and the active resentment of most Kenyans that so much land
was held by a few whites, land which they understandably felt
had been unfairly taken from them.
The final death knell of this doomed society has tolled with
the arraignment for murder of Thomas Cholmondeley, heir to
the 6th Baron Delamere. Last week Cholmondeley was put on
trial for his life having shot and killed two Africans on
his farm in little over a year. In 2005 he shot dead an undercover
wildlife ranger, who was in the process of arresting some
of his workers suspected of poaching. He was cleared without
trial on grounds of self-defence. The second time he actually
did shoot and kill a poacher taking off with an antelope.
This time Cholmondeley has been charged with murder and once
again pleads self-defense. The case bitterly divides white
and black Africans. Most Kenyans are incensed that Cholmondeley
got away scott free the first time and fear the influence
of Cholmondeley’s father, the 6th Baron Delamere who
retains powerful influence with the governing élite
in Nairobi, may get the son off again. Cholmondeley works
as Finance Director of the vast 50,000-acre Soysambu Ranch
in the Rift Valley, combining well-run beef and dairy farms
alongside a successful safari business.
The name Delamere is inextricably bound up with Kenya’s
colonial history. Today it still is, though that will surely
end with the passing of the 6th Baron. Most notable was Hugh
Cholmondeley, the 3rd Baron Delamere, who appears in both
the recent movies on Kenya, “White Mischief”,
based on James Fox’s novel on the real events of the
“Happy Valley” murder in 1941 of the Earl of Erroll,
and “Out of Africa”, taken from Karen Blixen’s
accounts of her time in Kenya, romantically centred on her
affair with the ubiquitous Denys Finch Hatton. The 3rd Baron
Delamere, or “D” as he was known, was an eccentric
and colourful character right enough. Fed up with his duties
in England he went to Kenya in 1903.
Over time he established himself as a successful farmer and
encouraged other aristocrats and wellborn young men to emigrate
to Kenya. Along with Sir Charles Elliott, the first Governor
of Kenya, he was responsible for the aggressively white supremacist
policies that prevailed until the 1950’s. He, and others
like him took the cool central highlands away from the Kikuyu,
the traditional owners, to create their farms and abundant
lifestyle. By the 1930’s the Happy Valley set, as it
became known in the English press, was renowned for the serious
scale of the gambling, drinking, drugs and bonking that went
on. “Are you married or do you live in Kenya?”,
envious Brits back home would jest.
The colonialist’s life was not all private planes, safaris,
idyllic beaches and the high life. At first it was not easy.
The 3rd Baron was much more than a hard drinking aristocratic
buffoon. It took an extraordinary effort to establish the
great farms in what became known as the White Highlands. Many
died from disease, so did their crops and livestock and many
lost their fortunes. However by the 1930’s all the hard
work had established a very successful agriculturally-based
society and economy for the white colonists.
The biggest scandal around Happy Valley was the murder in
1941 of Lord Hay, Earl of Erroll, upon which the events of
the book and film “White Mischief” are based.
Erroll was politically prominent in Britain and Kenya, he
was popular and guessed correctly that the British government
would ditch the colonists whenever they could.
He was an active member of the Cliveden clique, favouring
the appeasement of Hitler and a Mosleyite. A notorious philanderer
he had been publicly horsewhipped by an enraged husband on
the platform of the Nairobi train station. He was almost teetotal
and kept a pet chimpanzee, who stoned
visiting cars and smoked Balkan Sobranies. Involved in an
affair with Diana Caldwell, an adventuress married to baronet
Sir Jock Delves Broughton, he was found shot in the head in
his car on the eve of the British invasion of Somalia. Broughton
was charged with his murder but acquitted. Diana subsequently
left him to marry an American millionaire cattle rancher and
Broughton committed suicide in a Liverpool hotel room in 1943.
Mystery still surrounds the unsolved murder and suicide. Rumours
have it that Diana and Broughton were SOE agents, who had
instructions from Churchill to assassinate Erroll because
he had political dirt on Churchill. To come full circle, the
striking and obviously highly accomplished Diana Caldwell
married D’s son, the 4th Baron Delamere in 1955 and
returned to Kenya.
Another intriguing woman from Kenya, famous rather than notorious,
was Beryl Markham. As you might imagine, horse racing was
big with the Happy Valley folk and the colony more or less
closed down for Race Week. Known for fast women and slow horses,
it was an orgy of booze, drugs and bed hopping. By the age
of 24 Markham had become Kenya’s most successful breeder
and trainer of racehorses. Introduced to flying by Denys Finch
Hatton (who else?) Beryl was smitten, not so much by Hatton,
but by flying.
She became a bush pilot and in 1936 she moved to England to
be the first person ever to fly non-stop from East to West
(the hard way, Lindbergh had the wind behind him) across the
Atlantic. She wrote a best seller “West withthe Night”
in 1942 recounting her experiences, lived in America growing
avocados, was married many times, returned to Kenya in 1952
and died in 1986.
Kenya’s post-war story is not a happy one, if it ever
was for any but the colonists. Life appeared to go back to
“normal”, but it was not to last. The contradictions
of the society the colonists had created came home to roost
with the Mau Mau insurgency 1952-60. In 1948 a handful of
white settlers controlled 12,000 sq. miles or 80% of the fertile
highlands, while 1.25 million Kikuyu huddled on 2,000 sq.
miles. Reduced to tenant farmers they were obliged to provide
labour to the white farms. Worse yet, the settlers planned
to take the remaining Kikuyu land so they became labourers.
Britain tends to pat itself on the back when it comes to their
divestiture of Empire. In Africa, if anywhere, there is little
to be proud of. It was more cold hard calculation by the big corporations,
Rio Tinto and the like who would do business with the new
Africa and who did for the settlers. Their day was done. Least
of all can the British tout their record in Kenya. By the
time the Mau Mau uprising had ended, some 50,000 people had
been killed. Sixty-three British soldiers died, 60 settlers
were killed and over 1,000 rebels had been tried and hanged,
over half of them for crimes less than murder. A nasty record
in a nasty little war.
As for Thomas Cholmondeley, chumly fellow that he no doubt
is, even if Dad gets him off again, his day is done, his goose
is cooked. Colourful in a way some of them, but the Happy
Valley lot were a brutal and never very nice bunch and the
world is better off with their ilk as historical footnotes.
