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

The record of events leading up to the end of the British Empire in Kenya as experienced by people involved.

When Queen Victoria's 60 glorious years of reign over the empire 'where the sun never set' came to its end in 1901 the Great British Empire was, to quote Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, 'the greatest power in the world' with India the jewel in the imperial crown. Yet the British Empire was growing still and Kenya was a new protectorate in equatorial East Africa. 40 years on the world was at war for the second time in the 20th century at the end of which, to quote historian A.J.P. Taylor, 'the British did not relinquish their empire by accident. They ceased to believe in it'. Between 1946 and 1963 Kenya transformed from colony to become a republic. Scram From Kenya provides a balanced account of events with the people at the centre of the narrative.

Why Write Scram?

In 1989 Eliud Waweru, the author's Kikuyu driver
in Kenya, shared experiences and copies of
Daily Nation. The newspaper contained an
article about veteran Mau Mau leader Mwariama
and his execution of a British soldier.
It was Eliud who suggested that an objective
and balanced account of the post-war years
leading to Kenya's independence had
yet to be written.
Scram from Kenya! is an attempt to
fill the gap he saw.