I remember feeling a bit nervous myself as we prepared to leave England for Kenya. It wasn’t the journey itself that bothered me (although I don’t like being scrunched up to fit in the luggage. It gives me a bad back for days afterwards!). But I was a bit worried about Martin, and how he would cope with a new home and a new country.
We went up to London by train, to Heathrow Airport. My human was very excited – I think it was the first time he had travelled by train, let alone by plane! And then we boarded an East African Airways plane for Kenya.
A bit of history might be needed here. British East Africa comprised what are now the republics of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. At the time we went there, the new republics had already become independent from their colonial masters in London, but there was still “East African Airways”, “East African Harbors”, “East African Rail”, etc. (Ironically, in the 21st century an East African Community has been re-established with its own Legislative Assembly, and the countries are moving back towards greater unity. Martin says that is typical of human politics).
Martin did change when we moved to Kenya, and became a bit more withdrawn, although not completely. In fact, I noticed that he started to spend a lot of time in a fantasy world. He loved dinosaurs – he had a book about them, and soon familiarized himself with the names of the various dinosaur species and the eras such as Mesozoic and Cretaceous. And for a while he had an imaginary pet stegosaurus, named (rather unoriginally) Steggy.
Later on, he would imagine himself as a superhero like Superman, or the Doctor from Doctor Who. And sometimes he would also imagine that (like Truman in the film made many years later) there was a huge audience watching his every move on television as “the Martin Murphy Show”.
MARTIN: Looking back on it now… seems like delusions of grandeur!
FERDINAND: Martin’s father also stimulated his imagination by telling bedtime stories, which often featured a giant and a dwarf named Hughie and Tiny —Tiny being, in fact, the giant! Vince had (and still has) the Liverpool talent for verbal humor, which I think, helped in stimulating my human’s lifelong love of words.
We lived in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital city. Martin attended a Catholic school run by the Loreto Sisters…
MARTIN: They were mostly Irish nuns, from memory. And very strict! They ran a tight ship, those ladies!
FERDINAND: …and he had his first confession and Holy Communion at Nairobi cathedral.
MARTIN: Yes, but I wasn’t given the sacrament of confirmation until a few years later, in Australia. That was standard practice at the time. I believe that in more recent times, Catholic kids are confirmed about the same time as their first communion.
By the way, the Loreto sisters taught me how to pray the “Hail Mary”. When I came to the line, “blessed is the fruit of thy womb”, with a child’s literal mind I would imagine a bowl of magical fruit (bananas, apples etc.) and I would wonder where those “blessed fruit” are now. I thought they might have them in the Vatican…
FERDINAND: We lived on Ngong Road, a major road out of Nairobi. From time to time Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, would come down the road in a motorcade complete with police cars and motorbike outriders, which provided some excitement. Once Martin waved to him, and was delighted when he got a presidential wave back!
While we were there, a very popular politician named Tom Mboya was assassinated, which led to widespread rioting and disorder. Martin, I’m afraid to say, found it all very exciting, and he would stay up late to watch police and military vehicles trundling down Ngong Road. He and his parents attended Mr. Mboya’s funeral (one of the first times Martin went to church without me).
At school, Martin had a particular friend named Rahul, who came from an Indian background and whose family owned a farm. Martin visited Rahul at the farm at least once, so my human certainly did not become completely withdrawn or isolated.
Incidentally, most of our British friends and neighbors at that time had African servants, who were referred to as “boys” or “girls” whatever their age. We did not have our own servants, but Martin became quite friendly with one elderly African servant called Absalom who taught him a few words of Swahili, the local language.
By today’s standards, of course, this all reflects a lot of entrenched racism, but this was just the way things were done in the British colonies and ex-colonies at the time, and nobody questioned it.
Our stay in Kenya lasted for about two years, and then Vince announced that we were moving again…. to the “Land Down Under”…Australia. This was because several of Mum’s relatives had already moved there, and Mum and Dad wanted to visit them and have a brief stay in Australia before returning home to England. That was the original plan, but, as you have probably guessed, we never did return to England except for brief visits!
MARTIN: I have a vivid memory of looking at Australia on the map after I heard we were going there… Looking at this vast, mysterious looking new continent and feeling a bit scared, to be honest.
FERDINAND: We began our journey to Australia by taking the train from Nairobi to the seaport of Mombasa. It was a long (overnight) train ride, and when the sun rose, Martin looked out of the train windows, excitedly pointing out giraffes and other animals on the Kenyan plains.
At Mombasa, we stayed at a hotel close to the beach. There were monkeys in the trees and Martin had a staring contest with one of them.
Now, on the first night at the hotel, Martin became very agitated when his parents were about to go to dinner. He had already eaten, and the plan was for him to go to sleep early while they went off to have their meal.
But that night, for some reason, Martin did not want to be left alone. He kept asking his parents to come back, as they tried to leave to go to dinner; he would find some excuse, whether his bed was not tucked in properly, or it was too dark, or whatever.
Eventually, his Mum and Dad got the message that he did not want to be left alone, and they took him with them to the restaurant, where he was at least able to sit with them as they had their dinner.
MARTIN: Yeah, I’m still not sure what triggered that episode of anxiety – maybe the monkeys spooked me, I’m not sure. But years later I would develop a fear of abandonment, and this almost seems to have been a very early instance of that fear flaring up.
FERDINAND: After a few days in Mombasa we boarded a ship to cross the Indian Ocean. This was the Straat Luanda, a Dutch cargo ship, with room for a small number of passengers. She (ships are traditionally female, I understand; this is another one of those odd human traditions I can’t quite figure out) was carrying a cargo of molasses, a lot of it in barrels tied up on the deck. We had a few days of rough seas in which some of the barrels went overboard; luckily, none of the passengers did!
Martin became friendly with a few of the ship’s officers, was allowed to visit the bridge, and very briefly steered the ship. He says that even to this day, the smell of tar takes him back aboard that ship.
We stopped briefly at the island of Mauritius; according to Martin’s Dad, this wasn’t a planned stop, but they put in there for a while because of the rough seas I have mentioned. While we were there Martin bought a Tintin cartoon book, and we both had tremendous fun as he read it out to me. I particularly liked the dog Snowy, and the way he so faithfully supported Tintin, rather as a teddy bear would!
Then it was on to Perth in Western Australia, where we settled down for a while in the port area of Fremantle.