Africa’s empty vastness has vanished under the concrete of the present day
Kenya When I was a child in Kenya, the road from the Indian Ocean up to Nairobi was still…
Our farm is a haven for lost souls
Laikipia He was turned out in a crisp bush ranger’s uniform and handled his assault rifle like a man hardened…
With tourists absent, the teeming marine life has returned to the sea off Malindi
Malindi, Kenya Beneath the Indian Ocean’s surface, I wondered if the pandemic had turned out to be a good thing…
Is today the day I become a Kenyan citizen?
Nairobi Since my father first caught sight of Mombasa from his ship in late 1929, at least some of my…
How WhatsApp mums saved Kenya’s castaway children
Kenya In March, Global Britain signed a new, post-Brexit trade deal with Kenya. This was a welcome agreement for my…
Thirty years ago, I saw the rebels take Addis Ababa
Kenya The evening before the assault on Addis Ababa, my guide Girmay and I ventured into a complex stuffed with…
Did I catch Covid from a naked-rumped tomb bat?
Laikipia Until I promised to slaughter a fat-tailed sheep with a goat thrown in for a feast, the farm cowhands…
Why I’m investing in sheep
Laikipia In the past I had a low opinion of sheep. During my first forays into farming I saw them…
The healing power of sweat
Laikipia In one of Kenya farmer Karen Blixen’s short stories, a character says: ‘I know of a cure for everything:…
The art of mourning well
Malindi, Kenya I’ve learned that mourning must be tackled ever so gently. As a younger man, when friends were killed…
Eccentric, artist and storyteller: in memory of my mother Doreen Sanders
Indian Ocean coast ‘I love you’ became just ‘love’, and that was the last word Mum was able to say…
The many good things to come out of lockdown
Laikipia I was drinking in the fresh air on the high earth wall of my farm dam last week, when…
The perils of being a Kenyan farmer’s wife
Laikipia As the train pulled into Victoria my wife Claire, back home on the farm in Kenya, revealed that a…
Ethiopia is slipping into civil war
Civil war is breaking out in Ethiopia
Back to Exmoor, scene of prep-school rides on rough ponies
Exmoor I am heading to Exmoor for the first time since I was last there in 1977 — and as…
My Aunt Beryl’s zinc-lined trunk revealed extraordinary family secrets
Bexhill-on-Sea My Aunt Beryl taught me to love books and paintings. When I’m at a loose end in London, lonely,…
What a relief it is to be back among level-headed Kenyans
Kenya I stood under huge skies in the open country of our farm in northern Kenya and, after months of…
Solidarity in Soho: running a coronavirus testing centre
London Simon, proprietor of the sex shop opposite our Covid-19 testing centre in Soho, insisted on popping a pack…
How two children vanished for a week en route from Africa to London
As we all know by now, the pandemic distorts time like a concertina. Life before March is a world that…
The intense pleasures of lockdown
I used to live in Mogadishu for months at a time, cooped up in compounds behind fortified walls. Venturing on…
Another plague is enveloping the world – locusts
Another plague is stalking Africa
Why we’ll all be fleeing to Nigeria
I keep thinking what I’ll do when we regain our liberty — and I picture that beer at the end…
Virus deaths may not be the greatest challenge ahead for Africa
Virus deaths may not be the greatest challenge ahead
Our exile in NW1
Laikipia The sweetest sound to me now is the dawn chorus of birdsong at home on the farm. I lay…
Africa’s invisible epidemics
Africa ‘Ah, Africa,’ the French scientist sighed contentedly. This was 1995 and all around us was an Ebola epidemic…
