The engine note of the British Eagle Bristol Britannia changed as it started to descend towards the heat-haze and the landscape gradually took form. In the far distance, the snow-clad peak of Mount Kenya became visible, just a few miles from the African equator yet shrouded by perpetual snow. Lower still until spread before me were Robert Ruark's 'Miles of Bloody Africa' that I would come to know and love. Miles of sun bleached bush, studded with thorn bushes and scarred by the vivid red of unpaved roads snaking towards infinity. The final turn, a glimpse of the distant city, the airport perimeter road, upturned faces, a waving hand, the rumble of wheels on tarmac and we were there. Welcome to Nairobi Airport, and the realities of service life. Clearing customs we clambered on top of our luggage that had been thrown in the back of an open three-ton truck. During the eleven-mile journey over potholed roads to RAF Eastleigh, red dust seeped into every crevice, mine and the vehicle's. Our squadron billet was like nothing I had seen; a cluster of irregular sized wooden buildings, perched upon brick piers and linked by raised walkways. Once the terminal buildings of what had been Nairobi's airport, now home for the next few years. The fact that Ernest Hemmingway, Ava Gardener, and Stuart Granger, together with countless others, had once passed this way failed to impress, as I spent my first restless night listening to various species of African wildlife scavenging beneath the building.

I had served five years in the Royal Air Force when I was despatched on this my first overseas tour of duty, assigned to number twenty-one squadron, equipped with Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneers, suggesting more a flying club than a squadron. From the experimental station at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, I travelled 6,000 miles to a land that time forgot. From the cutting edge of technology, trials on the SS11 wire guided missile and microcell rocket pods, to aircraft that almost exceeded 150 mph in a dive and sported a pair of WW II vintage 303 Browning's, 25 lb fragmentation bombs, 3.5 inch flares or tear-gas grenade clusters. Removing the aircraft's door, through which a tripod mounted Bren Gun fired could provide an additional sting. Thankfully this option was never used due to the possibility of an over enthusiastic gunner shooting off the aircraft's tail, embarrassing if in flight.

In theory, the squadron's role was to act in support of British Army units operating within the colony. In practice it was at the beck and call of whosoever could come up with a plausible reason for its use. It carried assorted High Commission staff on dubious 'official' duties. At the behest of the Kenya Parks Service we conducted an aerial census of the elephant population in Marsabit game reserve. Transported a baby rhino to an animal orphanage; even relocated crates of baby flamingos from the shores of a soda lake to their usual fresh water hatchery. Each year one aircraft was proudly displayed at the annual show taking place at 'Wilson's Field', a small airstrip on the outskirts of Nairobi. The show, a major social event and attended many colonials and Ex-Pats who, as well as visiting the agricultural displays, came to see what they were getting for the British taxpayer's money. "Oh Gawd", exclaimed one old colonial on seeing the canvas seats down each side of our aircraft's fuselage, "Its like the inside of a Kikuyu bus". Obviously a gentleman used to better things. It was soon apparent that there was absolutely no social intercourse between the colonials and us. Even in close proximity they would discuss loudly how the military presence lowered the tone of Nairobi bringing Kipling's words on one 'Tommy Atkins' to mind. Thankful to leave that aspect of Nairobi life behind me, the squadron deployed to Isoilo, an up country bush strip, for the counter insurgent exercise 'Sharp Panga'.  Ten days of operations followed a month or two later by operation "Instalment ", an internal security exercise conducted in Kenya's Northern Frontier District (NFD). On each occasion we lived under canvas, government 'compo' ratios supplying our every need. Never before have I opened a tin to discover a tube of wine gums, two brown cigarettes together with a dozen sheets of toilet paper. Talking of which, the latrines dug down wind promptly attracted every fly and cockroach in northern Kenya. Hardly the life for a gentleman, but in the not too distant future, the squadron would be called upon to the put into practice the lessons these exercises taught.