'Animals in Africa'

Here's another book which has survived over six decades of travels and, more recently, what is called 'downsizing' - 'Animals in Africa', an A4-sized book of photographs taken by a lady whose professional name was Ylla.

I don't know who gave it to me but it is most likely to have been my parents, probably in the last days of a summer holiday in Mombasa as a gift to take 'home' to England, a gift which would remind me of Africa. That I was at Glengorse indicates it was in one of the years 1954, 1955 or 1957 - the summer holiday of 1956 was spent in the UK.

Black and white photographs are integrated into the test, which was written by LSB Leakey, the famous palaeoanthropologist who was then Curator of the Corydon Museum in Nairobi, while the colour photographs are stuck on to thin black card pages.

By today's digital standards Ylla's pictures aren't spectacular - not until one considers the cumbersome equipment she was using and the risks she would have had to take to capture them. What is impressive are the animals she pictured: elephants with magnificent tusks and rhinos with horns that probably don't exist in the wilds of East Africa today.

When I looked up Ylla on the web, Wikipedia stated, "Ylla (born Camilla Koffler; 16 August 1911 – 30 March 1955), was a Hungarian photographer who specialized in animal photography. At the time of her death she 'was generally considered the most proficient animal photographer in the world'."

Ylla's 'Animals in Africa' was the result of a 1952 trip to Kenya and Uganda, where she spent three months. The book was published in 1954.

In 1955, Ylla was fatally injured after falling from a jeep while photographing a bullock cart race in India.