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Name: BARRAH, Jack E. OBE

image of individualimage of individual

Photo Source: William Cherry

Nee: son of Jack Enoch Barrah

Birth Date: 4 Apr 1929 Nakuru ?Nairobi

Death Date: 15 June 2013 Karen, Nairobi

Nationality: Australian

First Date: 1929

Profession: Game warden

Area: Rongai, 1930 Olabanaita, 1979 Ololua Ridge, Marula Lane, Nakuru

Married: 1957 Patricia Patterson d. Jan 2013

Children: Jack; another son; one dau.

Book Reference: Red 25, Red 31, Hut, Pembroke, Kingsley-Heath

General Information:

Pembroke - 'the youngest (boy) ever accepted being one Jack Barrah aged five (he maintains  on account of being of above average intelligence, though his contemporaries suggest that it may have been because he was uncontrollable at home!)
Pembroke No. 147, 1936, Box 1446, Nairobi.
Kingsley-Heath - Long-time game warden in Kenya who stayed on as a wildlife adviser for some 20 years after independence. Most approachable and kind person to all professional hunters.
Kenya Regiment 3627
Sitrep XLIII 1948 worked for Kenya Vet. Dept., Kenya Regiment in 1950s, 1955 became DO at Narosurua, and colonial officer in charge of Maasai moran. 1956 joined Kenya's Game Dept. OBE 1976.
Telegraph 28 Oct 2013 Jack Barrah, who has died aged 84, was a well-known game warden in Kenya and a key figure in preserving the Maasai Mara, the internationally famous wildlife sanctuary. The Mara, now one of Kenya’s most important sources of tourist revenue, is on the Serengeti plains and home to lions, cheetahs, elephants, leopards, black rhinos and hippos; for about three months of the year its northern range supports a famous wildebeest and zebra migration, often described as one of the wonders of the natural world. It opened as a national park in 1964 after Barrah had spent many years helping in negotiations with the indigenous Maasai people. He also successfully opposed a massive wheat-farming project by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), which would have involved ploughing up two-thirds of the entire area; and he helped to create the Shaba and Samburu game reserves as well as the development of Amboseli as a national park. Jack Barrah was born on April 4 1929 and brought up on the family cattle farm at Nakuru in the Rift Valley. His father, who was Australian, had been mustard-gassed at Gallipoli and bet his war pension on the winner of the Epsom Derby. With the proceeds, he bought two farms in Kenya, which he kept 10 until the Second World War. He then started buying cattle to provide bully beef for the Allied troops in North Africa. After being sent as a boarder to Pembroke House in Kenya at the age of four, Jack went on to Michaelhouse in Natal, South Africa. During his summer holidays he bought cattle from the Maasai for his father and drove them back across the Rift Valley to Nairobi. In 1948, he went to work for the Kenya Veterinary Department, and two years later joined the Kenya Regiment. Barrah served during the Mau Mau rebellion, which broke out in 1952, rising to the rank of lieutenant, and was involved in a number of encounters with insurgents. He was one of the first soldiers to arrive at the scene of the Lari Massacre of March 26 1953, in which around 75 loyalist Kikuyu followers were slaughtered by more than 600 Mau Mau. On one occasion, having captured and interrogated a terrorist near Maguga, Barrah knew that there was a Mau Mau gang holed up in the rough of Muthaiga Golf Club preparing to attack the clubhouse. Without informing his superior officers, he drove to Muthaiga police station where he collected a couple of Bren gunners before flushing the gang out of the rough. Eight insurgents were killed, including General Mwangi Toto, commander of the Mau Mau in Nairobi. This incident took place on a Saturday afternoon - much to the disapproval of the club secretary, who complained that there had been golfers on the course at the time of the battle. Barrah, feeling somewhat under-appreciated by this reaction, replied: “Don’t worry - next time I’ll shout 'Fore!’ before firing the first shot.” In 1955, Barrah was seconded from the Regiment to become District Officer at Narosurua and the colonial officer in charge of Moran (Maasai warriors). He cleared up pockets of remaining Mau Mau with the help of the Moran, whom he armed with shotguns. The following year he joined Kenya’s Game Department, one of only two men selected from 800 applicants, and served as an apprentice under George Adamson (husband of Joy Adamson, the author of Born Free) and JA Hunter. Among his roles was game control in settled areas, and he accounted for more than 5,000 buffalo, primarily in the area around the Mt Kenya wheat fields, and alongside Hunter, some 700 black rhino on potential farmland to be occupied by the Wakamba people. By 1972, Barrah was Chief Game Warden; but the post was then “Africanised”, and at the request of the Kenyan government he was retained as special adviser to his successor. What was intended to be a twoyear appointment lasted twenty! Barrah acted as the official hunting and photographic guide for the government’s guests in Kenya. Among those he escorted on safari were President Tito of Yugoslavia, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and members of the British Royal family. In 1977, he accompanied Prince Bernhard on a two-week safari with the aim of hunting a buffalo with a horn-spread of more than 50in. In the event, the Prince shot only a single Coke’s hartebeest to keep the camp supplied with fresh meat. The expedition was chiefly memorable for Bernhard’s prodigious consumption of garlic, the smell of which he insisted was a deterrent to insects, particularly ticks. The stench in the safari vehicle, when the windows were closed against the early morning chill, was not pleasant for his companions. 11 During this safari Barrah persuaded Prince Bernhard, then head of the World Wildlife Fund, to purchase for the Kenya government a farm at the south end of Lake Nakuru, which became a game park and a productive breeding area for both Black and White Rhino. After his retirement in 1992, Barrah continued to lead photographic safaris, and as an honorary game warden sat on many committees helping to secure the future of Kenya’s wildlife. He was the Dulverton Trust’s adviser in East Africa until his death. Jack Barrah was appointed OBE for services to conservation in 1976. He married, in 1957, Patricia Patterson, who died in January 2013; they had two sons (one of whom died in childhood) and a daughter.

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