I have added an exact copy of a White Paper my father was given about the second tier of oath taking ceremonies the Mau Mau introduced when they started to get attrition in their ranks It will be interesting to see if it stays there I was born in Kenya but left in 1955 to go to Navel College The bull about how badly the settlers treated the Africans is sadly misplaced Sure there were some pigs amongst the whites mainly amongst the Boars and some of the ignorant smart ass red necked British administrators However the settlers I knew and went to school with were generally very caring for their workers My father went to Kenya in 1926 and when he left in 1966 he had many of the same families working for him We still communicate with some of them As I recall only a handful of settlers were killed and most of those because they were looked up to by the Africans such as Dr Ruck If they had been such a despicable mob surely more would have been attacked My father was in the top 10 of a Mau Mau hit list that was seized Yet because he respected and loved us our houseboy Gashia disappeared until after the emergency because he had been oathed to murder us There is also a lot of bull about the whites taking up land that was being farmed by the Africans According to UN estimates the national total population rose by 28 from 6 416 000 in 1950 to 8 189 000 in 1960 by 37 to 11 253 000 in 1970 by 46 to 16 466 000 in 1980 by 36 to 22 400 000 in 1987 and by 24 to an estimated 27 885 000 in 1995 About 75 of the population lives on only 10 of the land In the 40s and 50s there certainly was no evidence that Africans had farmed or even grazed large tracts of East Africa because Lord Delemare injected his family wealth into trying to find out why apparently good grazing land could not sustain herds of cattle and sheep After a lot of research and observation he found that it was simply the need for simple salt licks containing essential minerals As I recall most of us wanted the Brits out just as much as the Africans In fact I believe if Jomo had not initiated a change the settlers would have