Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

Photo: Westminster College: View from Mount Carmel As my mother lay in bed, the day before she died, unable to speak, and we were flying down on an A40 jet that Chris had practically commandeered, my father read this to her twice and he told me she smiled. "Where my parents live is the most gracious and beautiful dwelling place I know. Australia doesn't sit well with me, though I once dreamed of the dark green mountains of New Zealand on the edge of the sea. The last time I visited Matumi was mid winter, there was such a light diffused among the trees and plants. It was as if everything was shining in the embrace of some giant invisible luminous being. Matumi shone with revealed meaning. The leaves, the grass, the rocks and flowers. Distances were shortened. The mountain across the vally was as clearly defined as the giant aloes in the driveway. My mother, with the spare and masterly strokes of a zen master, has crafted Paradise out of a mountainside. Reluctantly, she rubs out

Mom chose this poem "The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed I am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, it flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fiber your blood. Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you. From "Song of Myself", in "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman

  Photo: eboat.org: Slipway from East St Helen's Street When we came to England everything changed, but not necessarily for the worse. It was just different. The weather was different. It always seemed to be cloudy and it was never warm enough for a white African. What struck me most, coming from Kenya , were the autumn colours. I fell in love with autumn when it eventually came. We lived in an old five storey house at 61 East St Helen's Street in Abingdon. It was narrow. It had one room on each floor, a damp brick basement and one afternoon the ceiling fell in leaving a black hole. Our teacher at primary school was  Mrs Burt. She was about 60.   She  had triangulated bombs for the  RAF.  As we sat in the classroom we heard, and sometimes saw, the twin-fuselage aeroplanes maneuver in the sky - Mosquitoes , I think. Mrs Burt lost her temper quickly and once clonked me on the head with a heavy textbook because I couldn't focus. I can still

I did not notice myself but a friend knowing of my Kenya connections directed me to the obituary in the Guardian newspaper for Eve Hall, dead at 70. Eve was once women's editor of the Nation. I do not know how many Kenyans would remember her, but they should, for she was one of a number of the newspaper's staffers who suffered in the cause of freedom. The child of a Jewish father and a German mother, Eve was raised in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. Her father happened to be visiting South Africa when the war broke out and his wife and their half-Jewish child were left in Europe to cope as best they could. Eve's mother refused to pin the yellow star of David on her daughter's clothing - a highly provocative gesture -- but the pair somehow survived the Nazis and left for South Africa when the war ended. Eve enrolled in Witwatersrand University, where she met her future husband, Tony Hall. The day after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, Eve joined Mandel

Message recieved, January 31st at 8.17 pm (10.17 pm South Africa time) Hello all me darlins . Lovely weather here. Swam this afternoon. Got your little note, Phil. This Kenya thing is so sad and so bad and there's nothing much I can say except delve into past history which gives no lessons. But I sort of will browse through my past. I don't know where or how it will fit in, but still. There's nothing I can say or suggest about it, it's just so sad. Old Chris he went to Naivasha you know and within 24 hours of his leaving there, if you like. Naivasha also had some rampaging killings going on. So he might be one of the last foreigners to see Naivasha before the fall. Shame! It's a pity isn't it Are you all well? I am missing you all and speak to you soon. Lots of love, Bye.

Tomorrow I leave Matumi. In good hands. Gazani and Ponani packed all mom and dad's photos and statuettes and pictures and personal items away to be stored in the cottage. Still the house is full of things. I still have to email everyone with thanks and send them on our addresses and phone numbers in London. I donated all mom's medicines to Mary at the hospice and I swam in the pool in a storm about half an hour ago. I've cooled off a bit from the heat, but I'm getting a little tense now, for some reason. Tomorrow the stone masons come and fix a large plaque to a huge, strategically placed, flat sided stone. Then I am off with Leigh to the airport. * * * I wandered around the house for nearly a week. I found some lines dad had written on the fridge. Dad's lines seemed to sort themselves out into two poems. Mourning in fridge magnets We have arisen from our cooling bed. Together we dressed. We are powerful And robed for our departure Feeling Languid We await