Aidan Hartley is the Spectator's Wild Life columnist.
Laikipia The principal of the local polytechnic was waiting for me in the kitchen. Frequently in the kitchen there is a chief or a surveyor, or geese, or the cats Omar and Bernini, the dogs Jock, Sasi and Potatoes, foundling lambs or calves gambolling about hoping for milk, or stockmen with news of a sick
The Farm, Laikipia I realised the worst drought of this generation was at last over this morning when two Samburu gentlemen arrived on the farm, asking to buy rams. My nomadic neighbours sense very well when it’s time to put a tup in with the flock. In just this month a full moon and the
On the lengthy train ride to Kyiv I read my Plokhy as we trundled through seas of mud, passing villages with blue timber churches topped by golden domes gleaming in the spring dawn. A metastasis of Putin’s atrocities against Ukraine has been the entrenching of Russian influence, powered by guns and agitprop, across my home
When Wilfred Thesiger arrived in the port of Al Mukalla after his foot crossing of the Empty Quarter desert with the Bedu in 1948, he wore only Arab clothes. My father lent him a pair of trousers and a razor so he could get cleaned up before going to dinner. A friend of mine this
Rwanda The mineshaft is dark, the air humid and starved of oxygen. I follow Marcus Edwards-Jones out of the muddy tunnel towards a window of light and at last we emerge into the evening. The sun is going down over Rwanda’s green hills, dotted with banana groves and eucalyptus stands, with a river snaking away
Kenya My father-in-law Gerry Taylor is 91 and walks daily on our Kenya ranch among herds of buffalo, giraffe and zebras. A few days ago he inadvertently came within 20 feet of an elephant and the both of them pretended not to see each other. He says he enjoys highland Kenya for its open spaces
Kenya Tonj is a war-battered settlement on a river that eventually feeds into the White Nile, in South Sudan. When they are not feuding over livestock, Dinkas from remote cattle camps, dressed in garish jalabiyas, saunter down the dusty main street. For months at a time, tropical deluges turn the surrounding mud hamlets into islands,
Kenya Greetings from Africa, my beleaguered cousins. I’ve written before about how in 1973, Uganda’s Idi Amin telegrammed Queen Elizabeth, promising to send shiploads of bananas to feed her subjects after ‘following with sorrow the alarming economic crisis befalling on Britain’. Now that you rival Burkina Faso in the number of times you’ve changed your
Laikipia, Kenya No portrait of Boris Johnson hangs in the hall of Balliol, his old Oxford College. Hardly a surprise, since serving prime ministers do not have their pictures painted and he has moved on only recently. But as things stand, it seems pretty clear that Boris will never go up alongside this distinguished Oxford
Laikipia Plateau, Kenya Until only a few years ago, the constellations blazed across the sky above the farm at night and there was not a single electric light on any horizon. On many evenings I found myself with my rangers sleeping on the tracks of cattle rustlers heading into Kenya’s wild north with no fences
As the Union Jack was run down the flagpole at Kenya’s independence in December 1963, Prince Philip said to Jomo Kenyatta, ‘Are you sure about this? It’s not too late to change your mind.’ Our founding president let that gaffe pass, which was quite amazing only a few years after the British suppression of the
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In this week’s episode: What has Rishi Sunak revealed about the lockdown decisions made behind closed doors? Fraser Nelson, Katy Balls and Kate Andrews join the Edition podcast to discuss (1.14). Also this week: From aid to trade: when will the West start to deal with Africa on its own terms? Spectator columnist, Aidan Hartley
Kenya Suddenly all the great powers are courting Africa. Like emissaries to the 14th-century Malian monarch Mansa Musa in his adobe Timbuktu palaces, foreign officials from West and East compete for attention in multi-country tours across the poorest continent. Recent visitors include the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken leading caravans of Washington officials, Moscow’s
Kenya After two years of no rain, all colour has drained from the landscape on the farm so that by the time we boarded the bush plane to leave in the bright sun it was as if we were all snow blind. From the air the highlands were waterless and dead until we descended over
In Kenya’s latest general elections, ‘The Hustler’ William Ruto has been declared our new President after a narrow victory against ‘Baba’ Raila Odinga. Last night as the announcement was made, politicians threw chairs at each other, allegations of rigging flew and a returning officer turned up dead. Dancing broke out in some streets, while in
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Aidan Hartley is a writer and entrepreneur. Born in Kenya, he grew up in Africa and England and has worked as a reporter for Reuters all over the world. Aidan has also written The Spectator’s Wild life column for the past 21 years. On the podcast, Aidan talks about spending his younger years on safaris
Laikipia You know things are bad when the zebras are thin. Even during most droughts, zebras are like matrons at the gym in stripey spandex stretched around plump buttocks. Pastures vanished long ago and our plains resemble Sudan’s Batn-el-Hajar – the Belly of Stones desert – so that I cannot even recall what they were
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On this episode of Spectator Out Loud, Hamish Badenoch says he’s married to his political hero. (00:32) Martin Vander Weyer asks whether we should fire the boss of Heathrow. (05:57) Aidan Hartley looks at why country music is so popular in Africa. (14:14) Douglas Murray wonders if the Tory party has a future. (22:03)
Kenya Life in the poorest continent is so hard you get a lot of knowing laughs with the joke: ‘What happens when you play a country and western song backwards? Your wife comes home, your children suddenly respect you, you get sober and your dog wakes from the dead.’ In Kenya and other parts of
Kenya As late as the 1920s, it was believed that Africa’s tropical sun would boil a European’s brains. ‘The direct ray of the sun – almost vertical at all seasons of the year – strikes down on man and beast alike,’ Churchill had written on his visit to East Africa. ‘Woe to the white man
