October 1984, RAF Wildenrath, Germany.
"Can you get your kit packed ? You're wanted by UKLF [United Kingdom Land Forces] to head-up a Repair Team in Nairobi. 9 (Para) Sqn. RE have busted just about all the plant over there !".
Kenya in winter - why not ? This could be fun . . .
Catching the next Crab Airlines [RAF] flight back to the UK - I was based in Waterbeech, Cambridgeshire - I gleaned what I could from the handful of signals I'd been handed before I left.
I had 48 hours to unpack, repack get briefed and inoculated before I was due to meet the rest of my team at RAF Brize Norton, HM Forces gateway to the Sun ! The good news was I could take one of our own Sergeants, Jock Campbell, with me. Jock had an uncanny knack of keeping me out of trouble, although at this stage neither of us knew just how stretched he was going to be . . .
Jock and I met the rest of the team - 5 of them from all over the UK - at the Departure Lounge. We were complete strangers to each other, so here was the first challenge, melding this band of gypsies into a cohesive unit. The usual catalyst, beer, wasn't an option, so we had to rely on "So, where have you served then ?"-type chat. By the time we left, some 4 hours later, I was fairly happy with my lot, who had already adopted the title 'The Magnificent Seven' !
The flight into Nairobi was uneventful, and we were met at Moi Airport by Cpl John Whitehead, REME. It turned out that John earned his crust by pulling pints in the bar at Kahawa Barracks, when he wasn't busy collecting troops from airports. He proved to be an invaluable source of 'intelligence', pointing out various nightclubs as we negotiated the streets of uptown Nairobi.
My first surprise, on arriving at Kahawa, was the Warrant Officer to whom I was to answer for the next however-long. Dougie Sutton and I had served together in Osnabruck in the mid-seventies and had been good mates until various postings had seperated us. The second surprise was that Dougie was being initiated into the Royal Antideluvian Order of Buffalos that very night ! I had been a member of the RAOB since I was 18, so naturally I was entitled to be there - a hectic night lay before me . . .
Having briefed Jock and the lads I joined Doug for the drive out to his place. Doug was out there for 2 years and had a married quarter twenty minutes drive from barracks.
Joyce's face was a picture when she saw me getting out of Doug's car ! The early evening was spent remembering various events over a splendid meal of local fare, cooked by Joyce's arma.
The Lodge night and Doug's initiation posed a problem for me. I don't remember much of it but I will never forget it, if you follow . . .
The following day we got the usual brief about local customs, Dos & Don'ts, etc. Intended to keep the lads out of either the pokey or the Medical Centre, preferably both !
A daily routine quickly established itself as we made inroads into our objective; repairing a considerable amount of plant, used to construct things like the Nanyuki Showground.
At the end of that first week, Doug came over to our site and said "There's a couple of Land Rovers, a trailer, rations and fuel available to you. you may never get this opportunity again. Why don't you guys spend your weekend up country ?" What a star player !! That weekend saw us on camera safari down the Rift Valley, and it set a precedent - we were up country every weekend [bar one, read on] for the whole time we were out there ! Marvellous.
The low point of the tour came about two thirds of the way through.
We were told to pack as much kit as we could carry and make our way North into Ethiopia. Operation Bushel, the Ethiopian famine relief Op', was under way and there was insufficient maintenance support for the fleet of supply trucks.
Crab Air were doing a grand job dropping palletised grain and Med' supplies into the improvised DZ, which were being broken down into manageable loads for the truck fleet to transit to the various Dispersal Points [DPs], where they were broken down even further before onward transit to the Local Distribution Points [LDPs].
My abiding memory is of a young woman, stick-thin and carrying a baby. Every so often she would bend down to pick up maybe a handful of grain that had been spilt off the trucks and put it in a goatskin pouch on her belt. The idea was she would hopefully collect enough grain to make a crude porridge that would get her through the cold night in one piece, so she could start all over again.
As we drew up to this pathetic figure I told my driver to pull over, having already opened some of our ration packs. I gestured to her to come over, which hesitantly she did, and I showed her the powdered milk and oatmeal blocks [biscuits]. I mixed up some milk with water and gestured to her that it was for the baby - it was too much. She let out a wail then started crying uncontrollably. It turned out that her baby had died 2 days ago but she knew a nursing mother could expect better treatment.
Just how do you explain to someone like that who Victoria Beckham is ?
Jock and I took 5 young lads into Ethiopia and brought out 5 old men, and we were only there a week . . .
The high point of our tour was a weeks R&R on Malindi Beach, 30 kms South of Mombasa, on Kenya's coast. Largely due to Op' Bushel, there were not enough planes available to bring us the last few critical spare parts.
"It will be at least 10 days before your spares will arrive, Staff" said Captain Munro, 1st Battalion the Cheshire Regiment, who was Second-in-Command at Kahawa. This was the man who eventually sanctioned our week off, complete with 2 Land Rovers fitted with long range fuel tanks, 2 trailers carrying our rations for the week and 1,000 litres of fuel in jerry cans !
The accomodation was already sorted out. Going back to Doug's initiation night, I had been introduced to a character called Marshal Muir. Marshal was an elderly ex-pat who lived with his wife and son on the outskirts of Wilson Airport. Marshals wife Georgie is worth a mention. Do any of you remember a TV program in the 70s called Tenko ? It centred around a Dutch woman and her young daughter,along with a few other women, living in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during WW2.
Well, Georgie was the 9 year old Dutch girl !
Dougie had taken me over there on a number of occasions at Marshals invitation and it turned out that Marshal had a beachfront villa on Malindi beach, which he was happy to hire out to us.
"I can do you a better deal if you can pay me in Sterling" said Marshal who, like all the other ex-pats, had no faith at all in the stability of the Kenyan Shilling. This was all highly illegal, so before the deal was concluded, Marshal disappeared outside, returning some 5 minutes later. "Just making sure there were no unwanted eyes or ears outside the windows" he explained.
We set off a few days later, crossing the Tsavo National Park and arriving a few kms North of our destination in the early hours of the following morning. A bit of kip was definitely required, so we turned in for a few hours, only for me to be woken at 06:03 with "Hey boss, coming for a swim ?"
The lads had found the shoreline, hidden by a few dunes, and were skinny dipping in the lukewarm Indian Ocean - at this hour of the morning !!
"Sod it" Tipping Jock out of his maggot [sleeping bag] I raced down to join the lads for what became our daily morning ritual for the next week . . .
I suppose at this stage I should explain that, being between marriages as it were, I felt it quite reasonable to make the acquaintance of one Denise Hopkins, Capt. Munro's P.A.. Denise was a twentysomething daughter of the ex Chief of Police in Nairobi. Her father had been sacked in 1961 and re-hired as a Police advisor on a renewable 12 month contract. Denise had lived in Kenya all her life and was an invaluable source of information, especially as she spoke Swahili like a native !
Anyway, getting back to the plot; the morning after we had arrived on Malindi Beach I was summoned to the adjoining hotel to take a phone call.
"I've just arrived at Mombasa Airport, can you collect me ?" It was Denise, who had expressed an interest in joining us, and now she had !
Later on that same day I was summoned to the hotel again. It was Capt. Munro.
"Is Miss Hopkins with you, Staff ?"
"Yes sir, she arrived this morning"
"Staff, I'm ordering you and your men back. Miss Hopkins was expressly forbidden from taking the leave she applied for as I can't spare her. You're obviously complicit to this, so I want you back here"
It took all my 'people skills' to persuade him that a) I had no idea Denise would do this and b) it really wasn't fair on my lads, especially as they had put in a sterling performance, not only in Kahawa but in Ethiopia, too.
The rest of the week went without a hitch, in fact it was better than that . . .
On arriving at the villa, we noted the mileage and fuel used to get us there from Nairobi. A few simple calculations revealed that we had a surplus of 500 litres of fuel.
This is where Mick White comes into it. Mick was a 75 year old ex RAOC [Royal Army Ordinance Corps] Colonel who ran a small fleet of fishing boats for the tourists. All these boats had petrol engines and local prices on the pumps were about 7/- a litre. The chance to 'beat the system' and get 500 litres for 6/- a litre wasn't something that Mick was inclined to miss out on.
"How soon can I have it?" he asked, as he slowly necked another bottle of Tuskers, courtesy of the Magnificent Seven.
"Tomorrow if you like, but you will need your own containers"
The following morning was spent decanting the fuel from MOD jerry cans into an assortment of containers provided by Mick. It was a pleasure doing business with him !
All too soon we were making ready to return to the wrath of Capt. Munro, however it would be an exageration to say we left Malindi with a heavy heart - a thumping head, yes. Heavy heart ? Na . . .
Being so close to the Equator, you can set your watch by Sunrise and Sunset; 06:00 and 18:00 respectively. We were about 70 miles from Kahawa and it was approaching 16:00 - time for some grub before it gets dark. As we were sorting out the cooker one of my lads sidles over and says, quite nonchalantly, "Don't look yet boss, but on your 4 o'clock, about 250 metres off, are two Masai eyeing us"
"OK, let the others know to just carry on, but be aware"
When we had arrived in Kenya we were told, amongst many other things, not, under any circumstances to point a camera at the Masai. They belived that the image you took was part of their soul, and they were quite within their rights to kill you in order to get it back !
Over a period of about 15 minutes these two got closer and closer. Always resting on one leg and their assegais, and always about 30 metres apart. Eventually they were close enough for me to gesticulate to them, which I did by holding up a pilchard from its tin and offering it to them. Whether it was hunger or curiosity I'll never know, but it did the trick. We sat there amazing our 'guests' with the stuff you can pull out of a tin - cheese, chicken supreme, steak and kidney puddings [affectionately known throughout the Army as 'Babies Heads'], salmon and biscuits. Wayne and Derek, as they were dubbed, tucked in with relish and thoroughly enjoyed washing it all down with a few beers that we produced from our 'fridge' - a Medic's 'blood box' full of alternating layers, ice and beers, with a few 'softies' for the drivers. As the Sun began to set, I made my way around to the front of the vehicle and got my camera. Having asked Wayne and Derek if we could take a few photos, with me in them as well, we sat back as they went into a bit of a frenzy, jabbering at each other like men possessed. They were caught in the horns of a moral dilemma; they had shared food and drink with us and were honour-bound to return the favour if they could. The upshot was a few snapshots, which you can see in my Gallery !
Before we set off again, I gave Wayne and Derek a 10 man ration pack to take with them, having first demonstrated how to open the tins with the service tin opener provided.
Twenty minutes later, as we negotiated the dark trail leading to Nairobi, I burst out laughing.
"OK boss, what now ? "
"I'm trying to imagine the scene when those two Masai get home. The women will no doubt use the pomme [mashed potato powder] as make-up and I've just imagined their faces when they start chewing on the tea bags . . ." We had to stop for a moment, or we would've lost our vehicle !
30 kms from Nairobi the lead Land Rover ran out of fuel ! Luckily, the second vehicle had a larger fuel tank fitted and we managed to tow the empty one and its trailer the last 30 kms into Kahawa Barracks. To have had to abandon it would've been a gift I wasn't prepared to make to Capt. Munro - we'd rather have pushed it back . . .
On arrival back at camp, the lads returned all the stores, then washed and refuelled the Land Rovers, then met me in the Bar as arranged. The only thing left to do was share out the proceeds of the fuel sale. Cpl Whitehead looked on incredulously.
"You guys have seen more of Kenya in 2 months than I have in 5, you've blagged a week off in Mombasa and you come back with loads of money. What the f*ck's going on ?"
"I promise you John, I will tell you one day mate, but not now, eh?" was my reply.
It was on the M2, three years later, what a sight it must have been. Two motorists stood on the hard shoulder killing themselves laughing. I'd spotted John as he passed me, I managed to catch up with him and flag him over . . .
There's so much more I could tell you guys, but that will have to do for now - my keyboard's melting ! Thanks for taking the time to read through all that, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed remembering it all !!
"Mazewa ye mama ni tamu"
