Aidan Hartley

Laikipia A Christmas gift of perfume smelling of chocolate caused my wife Claire to burst into tears. ‘I have never received such a lazy present!’ she wailed. ‘Hang on,’ I reasoned, ‘it’s popular in Japan. That’s what the girl at the shop said.’ Claire growled, ‘Maybe among schoolgirls!’ Claire is wonderful at Christmas. She begins buying and secretly hoarding presents in July. Every gift is thoughtfully chosen, beautifully wrapped. I am hopeless at giving in return. One year, she nearly brained me with Le Creuset cookware. Kinky lingerie bombed. Neither a Garmin eTrex GPS tracker nor war history books (read only once) did the trick.

When the Sun ran a story saying that a council in London’s East End will investigate whether a Somali immigrant, Dahir Kadiye, scammed on his housing benefits, the point did not seem particularly newsworthy. That this was the same immigrant who had helped secure the release of Paul and Rachel Chandler after 388 days of being held hostage by pirates in Somalia — now that certainly strikes me as news. Britain’s 300,000 or so Somalis are a particularly unpopular Muslim community. Somalis are often seen as a drain on the state. They form the hardest inner-city gangs. They mistreat their women. They chew the drug qat.

Kenya Our surfing gang — average age 50 — are out in the bay again, dodging sewage, bull sharks and even, earlier this season, a pirate’s corpse. The waves are terrible, that never improves. Yet our tight-knit gang persists in trying to stay fit enough to surf. There’s nothing else left to delay old age and give us our kicks. But this year Abo announced, ‘This’ll be my last season, boys.’ I stood there on the garbage-strewn beach with others — Mudprawn, Surfer Tony, James and Daudi, who works in the Guernsey financial services industry — and we shook our heads in disbelief. Surfing is a matter of life and death for our group.

Laikipia, Kenya My cousin Charlie Williams is a young Irish Guards captain about to deploy in Afghanistan. The other day he came to stay on our farm in Kenya’s highlands and I got a glimpse of what he’s about to go through in an exciting yet poignant way. Charlie brought the British Army along. In fact, they ‘attacked’ us in an airborne assault. The evening before, I was astonished when a British officer pointed at Celestina and said, ‘You’re a suicide bomber.’ In reality, Celestina works on the farm with me. ‘And you, Aidan, are a truly horrible man. You’re the Taleban boss of the suicide bombers.’ At night, we were told reconnaissance teams were scouting the farmstead and eavesdropping on our radio communications.

South Africa Rarely is Jonathan Clayton, the Times man in Africa, far from the front lines — but this month when I stayed at his Johannesburg house the battlefield came home. My visits tend to cause distress to Christiane, Jonty’s German wife. Christiane hasn’t trusted me since I got her husband drunk at a Christmas Eve lunch in 1993, when he was my Nairobi Reuters bureau chief. I recall how, just before he downed his last bottle of champagne, he had revealed that all his German in-laws, together with his parents, were staying in Kenya for the holidays. En route home I had put him in a health club sauna, expecting the heat would sober him up. Instead he became dehydrated, passed out and remained unconscious through Holy Eve.

Tanzania Here’s this Chinese guy in the midday sun. Straw hat, faggy in his mouth, bright eyes, tanned face. I feel like crying. We’re in the middle of nowhere and he’s building this fantastic road through the Tanzanian bush. He’s fit, young, staring into the future, like one of those Mao-era posters. I give him the thumbs-up. ‘Keep up the good work, mate!’ He ignores me and I don’t blame him. As I zoom down smooth tarmac through wide-open spaces, I think about how my family has been associated with Tanzania on and off for 81 years. My British forefathers in Africa had purpose, a devotion to duty. Hardship or loneliness did not scare them. They came here to advance themselves and their nation. That’s what the Chinese are doing now.

Colombian jungle The first day I was in Bogota I saw a big yellow bus speeding by, full of old-aged pensioners dancing Salsa. I knew I was going to like Colombia. They say there’s a jungle plant here called burundanga. If somebody spikes your drink with burundanga you lose all free will. You hand over your wallet, car keys and do what you are told, however absurd the order. I avoided the plant poison but I have been seduced by this place. I love the forests. I like the beer. The people are incredibly charming. They tend to drink chocolate rather than coffee and they do not smoke cigarettes much. I like Roman Catholicism.

Laikipia ‘That elephant is almost human,’ my wife Claire said. ‘That,’ I replied, ‘is the problem.’ I called him Stomper. Like people, elephants are sly and voracious. When I bought a farm I became set against elephants. I love big trees. Elephants are to Africa’s fine trees what gales are to England’s oaks. When a 200-strong herd passes through the farm, they bark-strip trees for fodder. Then they bulldoze them for fun. They may assist with the germination of young trees, but they leave the landscape resembling the battle of Passchendaele. When Britain had mammoths, I bet there were no old oaks. When I planted a garden our greatest enemy was the elephant.