The Last Day

This is a miserable picture for it shows my brother and I saying goodbye to the house servants on the last day of our last holiday in Mombasa, shortly before we set off to catch the overnight train to Nairobi. They were, from left to right, Mlalo the garden 'boy'; Saidi the head 'boy'; Ouma the cook; and Kitetu the dhobi 'boy'.

They were grown men whom we boys called 'boys'. They had to put up with us even when we were pesky nuisances; they washed, cleaned, cooked, served at table, acted as babysitters when our parents went out to a party and did anything else which, within reason, we asked of them - all with good humour. They were the black me I knew best, and I loved them to the extent that, at times like this, I was sadder to say goodbye to them than to my parents who, after all, were responsible for the decision to send us away to school in England.

I loved them all but I had a particular soft spot for Mlalo. He had his own little kingdom in the garden, tending the miserable lawn which fought a hopeless battle against heat and drought, keeping the birdbath topped up with water, maintaining an almost perpetual bonfire round the back of the house, and drawing our attention to all sorts of beasties and creepy crawlies that passed through his domain. But I think it was his reticence that chimed with me; he was a loner, the bottom of the pecking order, a deeply reserved man - and I respected him for these characteristics.

After my parents left East Africa later in that year, 1961, they kept in touch with the 'boys', all except for Mlalo. He, characteristically, faded from our lives.