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Name: HUXLEY, Elspeth Josceline, Mrs

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Nee: Grant, daughter of Nellie and Josceline Grant

Birth Date: 23 July 1907 London

Death Date: 10 Jan 1997 Tetbury, Glos

Profession: Author, broadcaster

Area: Thika, Njoro

Married: In Kensington 31 Dec 1931 Gervas Huxley (6.4.1894 Paddington-2.4.1971 Chippenham)

Children: Charles Grant (10 Feb 1944 Chelsea-19 Oct 2015 Blandford Forum)

Author: 'Nellie - Letters from Africa' (1980), The Flame Trees of Thika, numerous books

Book Reference: Nellie, Lytton, KAD, Joan Considine. Biog by C.S. Nicholls

School: Reading University, Cornell

General Information:

Lytton - 'Elspeth was about 16 when I met her during a polo week at Makuyu, and I soon discovered that she kept her own handicap ratings for Kenya polo players. Quite a number of players, including myself, regarded her as shrewder and more up-to-date than the official handicappers, though it is mortifying to recall that on the day when I heard that my handicap had been raised from 0 to 1, Elspeth answered my enquiry about her rating of my own play as "a good nought but definitely only nought". Almost at once the officials reduced the handicap of everyone in the country by one, and so there I was back at nought again - but a good nought, of course!'
Appreciation by Joan Considine - "In the mid-1950's the winning entry in a competition to select a title for Elspeth's history of the Kenya Farmers' Association and of Unga was submitted by Mrs Dan Long of Thomson's Falls. 'No Easy Way' was chosen from about 600 entries and must have been words from the heart. These words would have been equally pertinent to the lives of many of the farmers, and indeed some of the townspeople, of Kenya, including those of Jos and Nellie Grant, and of their daughter Elspeth. Details of her life and writings were given in the Obituaries published on January 13th, and in her books. But to the members of the EAWL (UK) she was a much valued Honorary Member, keenly interested throughout 53 years in the work of the League. She also remembered with admiration the splendid work done over the years by the EAWL in Kenya, especially at the time of the Depression in the early 1930's when many farmers had lost all crops to drought, disease or locusts and were existing on very little.
Elspeth went out to British East Africa in 1913 to join her parents who had by that time moved from their tents into bandas built in the traditional way with sticks, grass and mud. She described her education as 'non-existent' but in fact was taught by her parents and certain neighbours. One neighbour was supposed to teach her Latin, but was more interested in Rugby football at the time, so inevitably Elspeth became more knowledgeable about that than about Latin. In 1915 she and her mother returned to England as her father had rejoined his Regiment in France from the Reserve List, and her mother was engaged in war works. Elspeth became a boarder for a time at a school in Suffolk which was her idea of hell, but was resourceful enough to go 'agin the government' in various ways, mainly by backing horses and running a book on the Derby. This, she stated with glee, was enough to get herself sacked, so she was able to escape the cold, the chilblains, and also the need to eat her toothpaste when she was so hungry.
In 1919 Nellie returned to East Africa, Elspeth following soon afterwards, where work on the farm near Thika had to be started again after the neglect of the war years. Although she never met him, Elspeth's firm ally on the education front was 'Mr Playfair, the Bank Manager', as he controlled the overdraft and would never have sanctioned spending money on sending a girl to an English boarding school. However, she did spend a short time attending the Government School in Nairobi, staying with friends during the week and going to Thika by train at the weekends.
Mary Gillett (neé Beaton) remembered her at this time as 'hopeless at hockey, but, my goodness, she could write.' Elspeth started a two-year Agricultural Diploma course in 1925 at University College, Reading (as it was then) after which she very much wanted to go to America - it was the vibrant place at that time, full of life and ideas - but again there was no money available. However, a relative had offered to buy her a horse, a singularly cumbersome gift for a student, so she persuaded him to commute the horse into the passage money for her year at Cornell University. Her parents had hoped that she would take over the farm after obtaining her diplomas at Reading and Cornell but this was not to be. In 1929 Elspeth was employed as an Assistant Press Officer for the Empire Marketing Board in London and one of those interviewing her for the post (shades of 'Shauri ya Mungu?') was Gervas Huxley, whom she married in 1931. As the marriage bar applied at that time she had to leave the Empire Marketing Board on her marriage, but in the event the EMB was closed down in 1932. Fortunately Gervas was offered the post of Director of the Ceylon Tea Propoganda Board and for about five years they lived in suitcases, travelling to many places abroad to set up offices for this Board. As far as her writing was concerned, her first earnings were in 1921 from articles she submitted to the East African Standard under the pen-name of 'Bamboo' about Polo Competitions in Makuyu and district. She took particular pleasure in writing comments such as 'Grant played a poor game at No. 1' (referring to her father) but was able to keep the author's name a secret until the editor of the EA Standard, Rudolf Mayer, met her father in Nairobi one day and congratulated him on the articles which he thought had been written by him. Mayer was astonished to find that the author was in fact Jos Grant's 15 year old daughter.
In 1932 she was invited by the widow of Lord Delamere to write his biography - with typical modesty Elspeth suggested that her name was put forward because his widow could not think of anyone else to write it. As fair and impartial as possible in all her works, she included a note regarding the title of the biography - White Man's Country - that it was not meant to be taken in a political sense as meaning the 'country of the White Man' but in the biological sense as being a country where it was possible for white people to live. She later felt that it would redress the balance if she published the novel 'Red Strangers', nothing anthropological, just a chronicle of an ordinary family, about the life and customs of the Kikuyu tribe and the impact on them of the arrival of the "white" men. In order to do adequate research she lived in a camp near Karatina, with the permission of Chief Murigo, for about 3 months so that she could talk to the older men of the tribe and listen to their stories.
The long sea journeys when travelling with Gervas on the service of the Tea Board were useed to write her crime stories - she found the general occupation of bridge too boring. Anxious not to be typecast as only being able to write matters East African she also wrote of other journeys in West Africa and in Australia - 'Four Guineas' and 'Their Shining Eldorado' - as well as biographies of Captain Scott, Florence Nightingale, David Livingstone and Sir Peter Scott, the latter being published when she was 86. Elspeth emphasised frequently that 'The Flame Trees of Thika' and 'The Mottled Lizard' were novels, although it was inevitable that much of the framework was autobiographical. More details of her life can be found in 'Nellie: Letters from Africa' and 'Out in the Midday Sun', in which she told of the hardships endured with courage and humour by Nellie and by so many of the Kenya settlers.
Although she had not had a home in East Africa since 1925, Elspeth made several visits to obtain material as part of her research. It was a sign of the value of her research, of her amazing memory, and of the respect that people had for her fairness of comment, that up until the week before she died she was continually being asked for guidance on salient points regarding East Africa. Though frank in her comments, she usually tempered 'uncomfortable' remarks with something positive as she believed that credit must always be given for any good that has been achieved.
Frequently asked to write forewords by authors, she was most generous of her time and her knowledge. Her turns of phrase and evocative descriptions are among the joys of her writings. Who else would describe the Norfolk Hotel, Nairobi, in the early days of BEA as 'the solar plexus of the life of a settler'? She was as likely to quote from Edward Lear as from the classics, and on one occasion agreed to her editor's request for a particular amendment, forever after referring to the change as the 'arse into bottom transmutation'.
Elspeth tended to keep her family life separate from what she called her 'work in the scribbling trade'. Gervas Huxley was a very special man, the epitome of Chaucer's 'verray parfit gentil knight', and they had 40 years of very happy married life, sharing a special sense of humour, living in Oaksey in Wiltshire. She was enormously, if rather quietly proud of her son Charles, and of her three grandsons who were realistically encouraged and enjoyed as witness comments in 'Gallipot Eyes' such as 'Thank you, Jos, for telling me that Hugh has been sick on the floor'. A kindly and generous hostess, Elspeth cooked delicious and original dishes with the minimum of fuss (and recommended cream, a little brown sugar and a dash of sherry with the grenadillas). She often described her garden as a torment but she loved it and was a very knowledgeable gardener. A keen birdwatcher, her knowledge of birds she said 'got better as they got bigger'. Most occasions on which friends gathered at her home became times of hilarity and great joy, her humour often having an impish, tongue-in-cheek aspect.
Oaksey church was full on March 8th when the Memorial Service was held and on the altar were flowers from the Flame trees at her old home in Thika, flown over especially as a gesture of the affection of friends in Kenya, in liaison with Kathini Graham. Elspeth's grandson, Alexander, read an enchanting poem he had written after her death, lessons were read by her son Charles and grandson Hugh and her grandson Jos read de la Mare's 'The Scribe'. A kindly and gently humorous address in which Elspeth's serenity of spirit and complete lack of conceit were acclaimed was given by Canon Robert Miles, a nephew of Tich and Dolly Miles, friends of Nellie's. He also read a tribute from Kathini in which she emphasised Elspeth's gift of being able to communicate with anyone of any age on almost any subject and also her ability to show those she spoke with that they had her total interest.
In 'The Mottled Lizard' Elspeth reminds us of how she felt when she was about to leave Kenya to go to Reading University. She wrote -  'I set out to walk for the last time along the forest boundary. I wanted to smell the fresh cedary daybreak air, to hear the plantain-eater and the rain-bird, to watch the chestnut bushbuck shake dew off their coats, to see the dikdik step across the path with the precision of a ballet dancer, to watch the roughened bark of olive-trees stained with gold by the glory of the rising sun, so as to carry all these memories away with me as sharply and indelibly as the human mind allowed'. And because she remembered what she felt she was able to put it in writing for those of us who do not have that skill, although we have those memories. Elspeth has left us so much to treasure. Some words she wrote about her mother when 'Nellie' was published could also be applied to Elspeth - 'She was such fun to be with. She is missed so much.' J.M. Considine, Oxford, UK. 1997

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