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BOOKS: Engaging memoir of colonial Kenya
Saturday December 7 2019
Kenya Matters: 1955—1969' by Ralph Palmer. The memoir offers a personal insight into government administration half a century ago. PHOTO | TEA
In Summary
Historical record: 'Kenya Matters' is an unpretentious memoir of a historic period that Palmer, 85, believes is important. He has written crime fiction. 'Rough Justice' was nominated for the 2009 Dublin Literary Awards.
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By KARI MUTU
Many books have been written by former settlers but a new memoir, Kenya Matters: 1955—1969 by Ralph Palmer, offers a personal insight into government administration half a century ago.
Palmer came to Kenya in 1955 on a 2-year work contract and stayed for life. Kenya Matters focuses on his years serving both the colonial administration and the post-independence government.
Born in the UK in 1934, Palmer trained with the Royal Air Force in the Cold War years but never flew a plane. As a young man he came across a newspaper advertisement about jobs in the colonies, applied and was offered a position.
At just 21 years he was made an administrative assistant heading revenue collection in the far flung regions.
He writes in proper English but in an uncomplicated and entertaining way, presenting a sequential record of his government career.
With amazing detail he recollects places, people and events over 50 years ago. “I did not rely on hearsay and it is from memory because when I did anything it made a mark on my memory,” says Palmer.
The book takes us through numerous road trips during official duty to places no mzungu had ever been, at a time when Kenya was “blessed with 131 miles of tarmac outside the townships.”
Numerous anecdotes are infused with dry wit, whether it is in chasing a baboon out of his car at night or how pomp and pageantry in the old days was kept to a minimum “to save the taxpayer’s money.”
He crossed paths with key political personalities including Jaramogi Odinga, Kenya’s first vice president, Mwai Kibaki who became Kenya’s third president, and slain politician Tom Mboya.
Of the Emergency, Kenya’s independence struggle of 1952—1959, Palmer remembers the situation as “posing little threat to civilised society.”
This aspect of his historic recollection seems naïve or reveals the psychological denial of the settler community. One regret he expresses is not interviewing Dedan Kimathi, Kenya’s most famous freedom fighter, who he met in a hospital soon after his capture.
Engaging chapter
There are first-hand views of historic events such as the 1957 Kenya Legislative Council when the first Africans were elected to national governance. An engaging chapter covers general elections of 1963, the year of Independence.
Palmer and his team drove for days conducting the voting exercises in far-off towns, hobnobbing with chiefs, camping out in the open at night and collecting more votes on the roadside.
“Illegal maybe and not gazetted, but who was to know?” he poses. The book cover photo is from this episode.
Also described are jovial scenes of Independence Day celebrations on a rain-soddened night in Nairobi and the festive ball at City Hall attended by Indira Gandhi and a youthful Aga Khan.
British rule was coming to an end and Palmer accepted the wind of change, pointing to inherent adaptability and an affable nature.
African colleagues helped him secure employment in the new government and access to lively parliamentary sessions were “the most exciting aspect” of his 13 years of state duties.
Palmer, who still resides in Nairobi, takes an active interest in current affairs and laments the erosion of strong work ethic and professionalism in Kenya’s civil service.
“The honesty was about the same level but the dishonesty didn’t go all the way up the line so you could control the finances,” he says.
A man of decided views, Palmer comments severely on modern British foreign policy such as overseas aid or cash settlements for Mau Mau atrocities for which he was summoned to give an official statement.
Questionable claimants of torture, gluttonous lawyers and do-gooders in Britain are castigated in a lengthy assessment of colonial reparation.
Kenya Matters is an unpretentious memoir of a historic period that Palmer, 85, believes is important to record. “But it is also important to get people to read it. Few people read these days,” he says.