Scram From Kenya!
From colony to republic 1946-1963
James Franks

James Franks has been interested in Kenya since boyhood when, like many boys at that time, he read Patterson's 'Man-eaters of Tsavo' - an account of his part in the construction of the railway between Mombasa and Nairobi at the turn of the 19th century. The main theme was Patterson's battle with the lions which were taking his Indian workforce.

In 1947 he found himself, as a young subaltern in the Royal Engineers, on detachment with his troop at Tsavo. There was the water-tower on which Patterson's man-eating lions sometimes sat between meals!

He was taken by Mahmoud Hassain, proprietor of a local business with whom he became friends, to meet Simba Mbili, an Indian (now he would, presumably, be a Pakistani) who owned a small hotel at Mtito Ndei. His fame came from shooting two lions (Simba Mbili) with one bullet. Schoolboy fantasies became reality when Hassain and Franks went shooting for the pot around Tsavo. After supper they would sit talking of this and that and the commonality of the Koran and the Bible; the first time Franks had read the Koran.

His experiences in Kenya made such an impression on him that he planned to settle in the country once he had qualified as a chartered surveyor.

In the event it was to be 40 years before he returned. On that visit he read an interview about the self-styled Field Marshal Mwariama, a Mau Mau leader, which became the catalyst for further research in Kenya and elsewhere, and which led to the writing of Scram from Kenya!

He is the author of four other books and numerous articles and occasional papers.