Aidan Hartley is the Spectator's Wild Life columnist.
Buffalo are now living in the fens of Kent. Why – have we slipped into the metaverse of Lewis Carroll? ‘He thought he saw a buffalo/ Upon the chimney-piece.’ But these are not African buffalo, those fierce beasts that recently charged but narrowly missed killing my wife at home in Kenya. No, these are the
Yet again, millions of civilians across the Horn of Africa are starving. The world blames the crisis on drought and climate change, which nowadays is the way we excuse these countries for environmental mismanagement. But as ever, war is really the single greatest reason why people are killed year after year in this region. And
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In this week’s episode: How are the people of both Russia and Ukraine processing the war? Our Russia correspondent Owen Matthews writes in this week’s Spectator that he has been stunned at how easily some of his Russian friends have accepted the Kremlin’s propaganda. He joins the podcast to explain why he thinks this is, followed
The Russian atrocities against civilians in Ukraine have been met with silence from Dar es Salaam, Harare and Juba. Not a word from Addis Ababa, Maputo or Khartoum. On Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the Ugandan President’s son, lieutenant general Muhoozi Kainerugaba, is clear: ‘Putin is absolutely right!’ Nearly half of Africa’s 54 nations refused to
Delayed, on Southern Rail Home From the Hill is a 1987 documentary by Molly Dineen about Hilary Hook, an elderly colonel who after a life in Kenya and the Far East retires to a nasty flat in England. Poor old Hilary has never had to prepare his own food and now, in his twilight years,
Kenya During Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 I got a close look at Moscow’s troops and their kit. These contractniki were a ragged bunch with rotting teeth, bad boots and homemade tattoos, using weapons and vehicles that seemed like hand-me-downs from a failed state in Africa. I had expected them to be much smarter.
The alpine slopes of Kenya’s extinct volcanoes are the floral equivalent of Bordeaux. It’s there that the roses grow for the world’s weddings, funerals and Valentine’s Day bouquets. The higher the altitude, the larger your flower head, and roses raised in the shadow of Mount Kenya’s glaciers, or on the vast caldera of Mount Elgon,
Malindi, the Indian Ocean When I lived in Jerusalem a long time ago, I often visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the Catholics, the Greeks, the Syrians and Armenians had their separate territories within the sacred complex of Christ’s Calvary, tomb and Resurrection. (The Ethiopian priests were all unfairly banished to the roof.)
Kenya Wondering what this year will bring, at dawn this morning I stood in the waves in front of our beach house and watched two Swahili sailing dhows battling through monsoon surf, heading out to the fishing grounds. For 1,500 years mariners off our East African coast have voyaged in these lovely boats and now,
Laikipia Plateau, Kenya Our local chief Panta wore a government-issue khaki uniform with epaulettes, beret and swagger stick. On a pleasant stroll to our farm springs, he observed how plenty of blood had been spilled over this water. We sat on the glassy-smooth black rocks around the water pools and the chief retold for me
Kenya We were flown around the country, hovering low over mobs using machetes to hack each other up Each time I sit in St Bride’s on Fleet Street during the memorial of another friend, I look around at the crowds they’ve been able to pull in and feel terribly envious. Riffling through the order of
Kenya When I was a child in Kenya, the road from the Indian Ocean up to Nairobi was still a dirt track, with the way frequently blocked by a rhino or large herds of elephant. A few decades later, the route has two railways and the road is an unbroken column of lorries heading
Laikipia He was turned out in a crisp bush ranger’s uniform and handled his assault rifle like a man hardened in the field for years to take on bandits and elephant poachers. ‘Ah Mario, what a pleasure it is to meet you again after all this time,’ I said. His severe military face collapsed into
Malindi, Kenya Beneath the Indian Ocean’s surface, I wondered if the pandemic had turned out to be a good thing after all. I swam among corals blooming more colourfully and with more diversity of reef fishes than on any dive I can recall since my childhood. On the high-tide line in front of our beach
Nairobi Since my father first caught sight of Mombasa from his ship in late 1929, at least some of my family has lived continuously in east Africa until now. After Kenya’s independence in 1963, many Europeans opted to become citizens of the new country, but my parents did not. All my life, I never had
Kenya In March, Global Britain signed a new, post-Brexit trade deal with Kenya. This was a welcome agreement for my homeland, where the pandemic has caused tremendous economic suffering, but where comparatively few deaths have occurred among the fit, young population. Weeks later, on 9 April, the UK condemned its former colony to the red
Kenya The evening before the assault on Addis Ababa, my guide Girmay and I ventured into a complex stuffed with bombs, bullets and missiles that must have been booby-trapped. A few minutes into taking photos, I heard detonations, and a bunker on the hill above us exploded. We dashed away as the rumbles and bangs
Laikipia Until I promised to slaughter a fat-tailed sheep with a goat thrown in for a feast, the farm cowhands looked doubtful about going for their vaccinations. ‘Come on, it won’t hurt you,’ I cajoled. A panther-like man I’ve seen pursuing bandits with a rifle and reckless courage announced that he was frightened. The others
Laikipia In the past I had a low opinion of sheep. During my first forays into farming I saw them as creatures hell-bent on dying, with lung diseases, rotten feet or nasal maggots. Their legs snapped in ant-bear holes and hyenas tore them to pieces. To stem tides of oviform death we dipped, injected, dewormed
Laikipia In one of Kenya farmer Karen Blixen’s short stories, a character says: ‘I know of a cure for everything: salt water… Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea’. After two months on the Indian Ocean shore since Mum left us, I set off on the two-day drive back to the farm. At dawn in
