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Name: FORRESTER, Calvert Allen

image of individual

Nee: son of Henry George, brother of Alton Clyde, William John 'Jack', Percy Cromwell, Harry Clement and Richard Raymond Forrester

Birth Date: 7 Dec 1893 Peddie, S. Africa

Death Date: 16 July 1970 Rumuruti

First Date: 1922

Profession: South African - unmarried and lived in a rough banda on the Lower Narok and ran cattle. Merchant, Rumuruti

Area: Farm 563, Highlands Farm, Rumuruti, 1919 Nyeri

Book Reference: Mrs Mary Hoey, KAD, Red 25, Red 31, Hut, Red 22, Sheardown, Gazette

General Information:

Red 22 - Honorary Permit Issuer - C.A. Forester, Lower Narok, Rumuruti
Sheardown - Photo of 'Calvie Forrester's old Model 'A' Ford box bodied truck with upholstery and curtains made from lion skin.
Sheardown - Rumuruti - "….. The dirt road became worse as we went along it and we had travelled over 20 miles when a dilapidated looking wooden shack came into view. Could this be the house of the owner of a 24,000 acre property? Or was it, perhaps, the abode of some eccentric hermit who had tucked himself away out in the bush? I think the answers to both of these questions should have been in the affirmative, for Calvie, bless his heart, was capable of filling both of these roles. But this was something which we were to find out in the future. Or were we? All the signs should have been there from the outset. Not that it mattered to us. His little quirks were absolutely without any harm and he had a heart of gold.
As we drew up outside the house a rather gaunt figure emerged. Over six feet in height, he was clad in the usual rancher's costume of tartan shirt and khaki drill slacks with ringer's boots at one end and a wide brimmed sombrero at the other. At his belt was a holstered revolver set just right as to be ready to hand in an emergency ………. Calvie, for this is who it was, bade us enter the place. On the walls were prize heads of oryx, buffalo, eland and impala, whilst on either side of the fireplace reposed a pair of very large elephant tusks. I later learned that these scaled as 98 pounds and 102 pounds respectively, two very useful chunks of ivory in fact. …….
The internal walls of this unusual dwelling appeared to be unlike any others that I had ever seen and I was later to discover that they were made up entirely of lion skin, as was the upholstery and the side curtains of the old Model 'A' Ford box-bodied truck which we used as our rough transport about the place. …….. I was to have a very nice stone-built bungalow with two bathrooms and all modern cons. It transpired that he had built this for himself but, at the last minute, could not bring himself to leave the old place in which he had spent the previous 20 odd years. Had he a wife the story might have been a different one, but he was a confirmed bachelor and, as he later was to inform me, one of the main reasons for his remaining in this state was that he then had only himself to suit.
I was to spend some time with the old boy, who was as decent a sort as one could ever meet, until such time as we both began to get on one another's nerves, as can happen in an isolated situation such as this ……. [more]
Calvie's other pet aversion was still with him though - the (to his mind) fiendish wood-boring beetles which were systematically devouring the house about his very ears. These insects, which are quite a large type of beetle, rather resemble a bumble bee in flight except that one is about twice the size of your average bumble bee and proceeds on its way making an extremely loud buzzing noise. Calvie, who had been a demon tennis player in his time, would lie in ambush for these things, armed with a superannuated tennis racquet, the gut of which had long gone and had been replaced with copper wire - no wonder he played such a devastating back-hand stroke. Alas he seemed to be fighting a losing battle against the beetles, for his dwelling became more dilapidated by the hour.
Gazette - 7/4/15 - Liable for Jury service, Nyeri - C. Forrester (British) Settler
Red 25 - Honorary Permit Issuer.
Hut - Soldier Settler, Highlands Farm Rumuruti
Gazette - 26/9/1923 - Voters Register - Kenya Province - Calvert Allen Forrester, Farmer PO Rumuruti
Gazette 26 Mar 1971 probate

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