Aidan Hartley

Aiden Hartley is the Spectator's Wild Life columnist.

Like my father before me, I’ve found comfort in yoga

25 January 2025 9:00 am

Malindi, Kenya In 1967, Tanzania’s socialist rulers seized all my parents’ property – their ranchland, their home and their cattle…

Retracing the steps of slaves in Benin

14 December 2024 9:00 am

Ouidah, Benin On a free afternoon in Benin, I decide to walk the slave route in Ouidah, the port from…

The politics of glasses

23 November 2024 9:00 am

Africa Orientale Italiana ‘Where did you get those glasses?’ a stylish Italian gentleman asked me, gesturing at the acetate L.G.R.…

What the Delameres did for Kenya

26 October 2024 9:00 am

Kenya’s Rift Valley The story of Kenya’s Europeans such as the 5th Baron Delamere, who died recently, is one of…

Life lessons from a 2,000-year-old plant

28 September 2024 9:00 am

Iona, Angola East of the gulps of cormorants along the Skeleton Coast by the Ilha da Baia dos Tigres, Atlantic…

My hopes for Africa

31 August 2024 9:00 am

Lake Malawi As we speed southwards along the potholed road near Lake Malawi’s shores, I tell my colleague Helen that…

The joy of getting lost in the Congo

3 August 2024 9:00 am

Republic of Congo I’m sending this to you from the rainforest in Congo, surrounded by vast trees and jungle noises…

Nairobi’s streets are fizzing with violence – and I’m glad to be home

6 July 2024 9:00 am

Nairobi, Kenya Parliament and City Hall were burning under great columns of smoke and clouds of tear gas hung over…

My father vs the killer lion

8 June 2024 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya This month, in broad daylight on our Kenyan farm, a lioness mauled one of my bull calves. Before…

My battle with the dreaded ‘black cotton’

11 May 2024 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya By the time I set off from the farm before dawn we’d had 22in of rain in the…

Am I having a heart attack?

6 April 2024 9:00 am

Nairobi Some of our medical practitioners in Kenya advertise their services on street corners. ‘Bad omens, lost lovers, broken marriage,…

The nuance of Kenya

28 October 2023 9:00 am

Wild life

30 September 2023 9:00 am

Hassan still has no dhow to captain

2 September 2023 9:00 am

Kenya Hassan was our skipper. He’d take us in his dhow out on the Indian Ocean for trips along the…

A farewell to alcohol

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Laikipia Some are saved by Jesus and they are sober. For others, drunkenness is as natural as love-making, roasted meat…

The beauty of Boran cattle

8 July 2023 9:00 am

The Farm, Laikipia Outside the nightjars were calling and a zebra brayed in the valley. The constellations were still bright…

Progress is coming to our remote corner of Kenya

10 June 2023 9:00 am

Laikipia The principal of the local polytechnic was waiting for me in the kitchen. Frequently in the kitchen there is…

We survived the worst drought in a generation

13 May 2023 9:00 am

The Farm, Laikipia I realised the worst drought of this generation was at last over this morning when two Samburu…

How Moscow can pervert the course of Africa’s future

15 April 2023 9:00 am

On the lengthy train ride to Kyiv I read my Plokhy as we trundled through seas of mud, passing villages…