Earlier this year, in April, the Mau Mau came to Britain, or rather we were visited by its ghosts! It was symbolic of the symbiotic relationship existing between the old imperial power and its ex-colony that manifests itself in so many different ways all the time. Rarely does a day or a week pass by without a mention of Kenya in our public discourse, in the media, tv documentaries, holiday programmes, in private conversations, in business circles, and any number of other arenas. Even so, the appearance of the Mau Mau veterans, who came to present their case to the High Court in London was a significant moment. Suffice it to observe that the event rekindled a string of memories and recollections spanning more than half a century.
After leaving school in 1958, I came here to continue my education. The Mau Mau emergency was then in its terminal phase under Governor Baring. Kenyatta was still in prison. The Hola massacre was about to happen. During my time in Britain of those days, whenever Kenya was mentioned, people instinctively referred to both the Mau Mau and Kenyatta in the same breath, in not very complimentary terms either.  But when I returned, on 11 December 1963, on the exact eve of independence, I can truly say that what I witnessed was that Kenya had undergone such a radical transformation that it felt like a new country! That homecoming was so indelibly imprinted on my mind that more than 30 years later I was able to write a vivid account of it in Robin Neillands` "A Fighting Retreat: The British Empire 1947-97" (ISBN 0 340 63520 7 - 1996 - Hodder & Stoughton at pp 4-5). This is what I recalled:

"When the plane landed in the brilliant sunshine of Nairobi on that warm morning, what stood out most vividly were the bright colours of the flags, bunting and balloons and other decorations ... [t]he whole place was vibrant with activity and bustle, noise and excitement, albeit controlled, patient and pleasant. Quite apart from the cheerful African faces, it was the comings and goings of the foreign dignitaries and their entourages, and of pressmen (in those days) which made a profound impression"

"The journey from the airport to and through Nairobi reinforced ... a holiday atmosphere everywhere ....  Kenya ... was on the brink of a new dawn and what lay ahead was a mixture of uncertainty and promise ... [but] there [was] no escaping the mood of celebration ...".
The most striking evidence of the change was that Kenyatta`s portrait, in his smart attire with a piercing stare and a knotted tie in Kenya`s independence colours, was to be seen everywhere. He who had been denounced as "a leader to darkness and death" by Sir Patrick Renison only two or three years previously was now being feted as an iconic figure, as Mzee Jomo Kenyatta!

In early 1959, before departing for England, I had gone on a grand tour - a familiarisation trip - of East Africa with a friend, in his Fiat 500, accompanied by his sister. Remember, this was at a time when most trunk roads across the whole region were made not of tarmac but murram, which during the rainy season turned into muddy and treacherous tracks. And we were driving a rather basic vehicle. My friend was the official driver. I should not have been driving at all. Even so, my friend allowed me to take over at Voi and within barely a couple of miles out, with more bravado than common sense, I failed to negotiate a railway crossing on a bend, and the car careered over and crashed into a bank. Fortunately, none was injured (no seat-belts then) but the car was damaged, putting one of its headlamps out of action. We struggled along in failing light through the Tsavo National Park but then had to seek refuge at the Manyani Mau Mau detention camp. At the gate, we were allowed in, and referred to a European officer, who in turn directed us to his Asian colleague who then put us up in his bungalow overnight. As simple as that. It would not have happened had we been African, seeking shelter at what was Kenya`s equivalent of Guantanamo!  For me this was to become a talking point in the years that followed, especially in Britain where I could boast of having spent a night at a Mau Mau detention camp! The next morning, after breakfast, we carried on to Nairobi where we had the vehicle repaired and where another friend, a more experienced driver, joined us. I was just 17; the others were around 20 or 21.

One other incident during that trip - right across Kenya and into parts of Uganda and Tanganyika - that always stayed with me was when, again at dusk, on the road from Eldoret to Kitale, our car got bogged down in a muddy tract. As happens in Africa, literally from nowhere a crowd of locals appeared, and began to push the car, but to not much avail. Then a European farmer type came along in his truck, also in some difficulty himself. He came out and said to us something like, "I will help you if you help me"! Even then, this sounded to me a bit strange, because what crossed my mind was, why does he think that we would not do that! At any rate, both the cars managed to get through, with the wholly voluntary assistance of the locals. We were completely covered in mud and then had to weave gingerly through mist and rain all the way to Eldoret. It was only much later that I learned about the `kaburu` settlers of that (Uasin Gishu) area and could identify the farmer`s speech as having a South African twang.

The road conditions in the late 1950s, then, were raw and the source of many adventures, accidents and exciting or frightening tales. It was not until after independence that a serious programme of improvement - bituminisation and tarmacadisation - began. The Mombasa-Nairobi road became a priority because the Mzee regularly used to travel down to the coast for health reasons. Even so, it was not until around 1965-66 that the whole length of it was completed. It was during this period that I began to gain firsthand experience of driving, not only along that route but all over up country as well. Apart from the usual run of safaris into the national parks and other recreational areas such as the Aberdares, in the company of others, I often used to drive solo to places like Kisumu, Nakuru, and Nyeri, on legal business. On those occasions, it was always a timed exercise: say an hour to Hunter`s Lodge, a further half-hour to Mtito Andei, a stop there for lunch, another hour from there to Voi, and a further hour down to Mombasa and so on. I was fortunate that driving alone in my Volkswagon, or later Mazda, I never had a puncture or any other kind of breakdown or mishap, and often wonder how I would have coped if something like that had happened. On the Mtito Andei-Voi stretch, I used to go past the Manyani camp site, though by that time it had ceased to exist, with only some bits of remnants left. There was also the hazard of elephants and other wild animals crossing or hovering near the road. Once I had finished my work in Kisumu by the evening and did not want to spend a second night at the local hotel, so I headed back to Nairobi at 6 pm - a rather foolhardy thing to do! Another time, I drove back from Mombasa through the night, alone, though I had done the same in daytime before. On another memorable occasion, circa 1967-68, I was driving my Volkswagon somewhere in the vicinity of Embu, with my friend Pheroze Nowrojee, en route to or from a local court there, when it was struck by a cow crossing the road, leaving a neat dent on the front wing! Pheroze who has a phenomenal memory remembered the incident, and even the number of my car (KKC 800), more than 30 years later during one of my visits to Kenya!  Again, this was to become an amusing anecdote in party chatter!

In those days, if one was flagged down by a police constable in the countryside, it did not signal trouble; more often than not a polite request for a lift either for him or for a third party. In Nairobi and Mombasa, one did hear of traffic cops harassing motorists, especially at stop signs, but in general there was a fair degree of professionalism evident right until the end of the 1960s. One particular incident is worth mentioning in this context. In December 1969, just before Christmas, I flew back from London. My plane landed at around 1 am. I took a taxi from the airport to my home in town. I got out, collected my luggage and paid off the driver and he left. Later, in the morning, I realised that I had left my overcoat in the backseat of the car. What could I do? I phoned Embakasi police station and spoke to the officer in charge. He asked me to go over to the station, and when I got there, both of us went to the airport taxi rank and he asked me to identify the driver or the car. We looked at the taxis that were there, and talked to the drivers, and eventually found the one in question. We looked inside the car but there was no overcoat, and the driver denied any knowledge of it. Then the police officer had a brilliant idea: he asked the driver to open the boot, and there it was, in a crumpled state. The explanation was that it had probably slipped into the boot from the backseat at some point. We were content to accept that. I think being an advocate who was used to dealing with police officers and procedures did give me an advantage, but more importantly it was the willingness of that particular officer to spend valuable police time in trying to locate a lost overcoat in these circumstances that was so remarkable and has stayed with me ever since. I had borrowed the coat from a fellow lawyer and was resigned to buying him a replacement!

While the road network was indeed being developed during the first decade of independence, what I have never understood is why the railway was neglected and remains so, even if the romance of train travel between the coast and Lake Victoria did continue to have vestiges of past glory!  In those early years, foreign aid was freely pouring in from diverse sources. Why was the idea of constructing a parallel second track along the arterial Mombasa-Kisumu route, or even as far as Kampala, never on the cards? Transport was to become a pressing issue as the economy of the region began to expand exponentially. Almost the entire burden fell on road haulage, and so we became accustomed to seeing huge articulated vehicles and petrol tankers as well as the more ordinary type of trucks criss-crossing the country, along just a basic two-lane single carriageway that formed the Mombasa-Nairobi highway, and beyond into the highlands, causing much mayhem. Even now, nearly six decades after independence, there are hardly any dual carriageway trunk roads, let alone motorways. Kenya`s transport infrastructure is thus woeful compared with that of countries of South East Asia or even the Indian sub-continent, but that is another story!
I could add much more detail to these remembrances, but I digress. Reverting to the Mau Mau, we know that after independence, Kenyatta was keen to distance himself from its tentacles. Under the new dispensation, the movement`s historical significance was to decline rapidly. And so its present resurgence, not so much in action as in litigation, is yet another reminder of that universal truth that the seeds of misdeeds planted in times past and pastures far afield, will sprout somewhere some day to prick and prod the conscience and the imagination of succeeding generations!

The fate of the case of Mutua & Others v/s The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is not known at the time of writing this, but I am hopeful of a satisfactory conclusion.  On the philosophical plane, it is a classic example of poetic justice because, again by one of those quirks of history, here we have old colonial subjects coming to the metropolitan powerbase of the now defunct British Empire to seek redress for past wrongs and, depending on the outcome, they will have either been denied or given it.  Let`s see.

As a footnote, let me give another illustration of how the British-Kenyan connection continues to impact our lives and culture. On 19 June, The Observer newspaper carried a long feature on the film "The First Grader", a British production profiling the story of Kimani Nganga Maruge, a Mau Mau fighter "who first went to school at the age of 84" because he had missed out on basic education during the struggle. It went on: "With its themes of triumph over adversity, of the force and importance of education, and of how the value of people doesn`t diminish in old age, `The First Grader` also touches on an air-brushed part of history - the cruelty of the British detention camps of the 1950s where Maruge was held". In the movie, the role of Maruge is played by the veteran Kenyan actor Oliver Litondo. For no reason at all, I was reminded of Mzee Pembe, another ghost from the past!

by  Ramnik Shah Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Ramnik (better known as RKD) Shah practised  as an advocate in Nairobi for 10 years from 1964, and was vice chairman of the law society of Kenya for 1973/74. After settling in Britain he practised as a solicitor  there for 30 years from  1975 and following retirement he continues  to write as a critic and as a commentator  in various forums and as a member of  the editorial board of the  London - based journal of Immigration Asylum and National Law.