To the Beach!

My mother loved swimming, as did Richard and I, so we jumped at any opportunity to go to a good beach - and Mombasa's beaches were superb. However, when we lived on Mombasa island we had a problem: my mother didn't drive and the best beaches were some distance out of Mombasa, leaving us with a choice between the two places we could reach by bicycle.

One was the so-called Chini pool, which was below the Mombasa Club overlooking the Old Town anchorage. It was okay but, as can be seen from this picture, we loved doing things like snorkelling which wasn't much good in a pool.

The other was the Swimming Club which we could reach by cycling down to the Old Port and hiring a couple of  men in a rowing boat to take us across to it. While the Old Port was always interesting as, in those days, dozens of dhows of all shapes and sizes came in to it, the crossing to the Club could be a bit scary if a strong wind was blowing.

That she didn't drive was because my father's cars were all company cars - he's seen here with 'our' Morris Oxford, KAA 694 - and she wasn't allowed to drive them. She had a licence, obtained when she was working in Zanzibar, and owned at least two cars while there for....

....in her 'Life' she wrote, "I had changed my good little Morris purchased from Ian Rutter for a larger Morris 10 which gave infinite trouble as on any long drive it heated up and would stop until it cooled down."

The picture above may be of her, right, with one of them.

Towards the end of our time in Mombasa the problem was at least partly solved by my father's promotion to general manager of the African Mercantile which brought with it an important bonus, a chauffeur called Gabriel. By that time my father had a Rover 90 - seen here - which was a very smart car but had the same problem as most cars in those days - it was black so absorbed heat. If Gabriel and the car were available, we could then be driven out to a really good beach in (rather warm) style.