A description of their early years formed part of the book 'The Flame Trees of Thika'.    

Nellie - He did not hunt, and was not at heart a country-lover, nor yet a townsman either; his heart was in the Highlands of Scotland, where his clan had dwelt for centuries among the heathery braes and glens of Inverness. Like so many Scots he was a wanderer. After the Boer War, in which he had served in the Royal Scots, he had stayed on in S.A. 'looking round', and in Rhodesia had fallen in with an Irish peer who had convinced him that a fortune was to be made from a potential diamond mine in Portuguese EA. .............. sandy-haired, wide cheek-boned, blue-eyed, well set up, in those days slim and strong. ......... He was a gentle, humorous, dreamy, impractical and most unaggressive man, with a faith in human nature sometimes carried to the length of gullibility. Like Nellie he was shy and, at heart, diffident. There was something very lovable about him. ..... Instead of taking up a serious career - he had been intended for the Diplomatic Service - he gallivanted about the world, bought motor cars and got involved in the African diamond mine. This did eventually produce diamonds (three to be exact, according to Nellie), which were set into her engagement ring. ........ To Nellie he could offer no position in the world and no established home, only insecurity. ...... Jos bought 500 acres of land at Thika from Jim Elkington who had been at Eton with Jos. .......Appointed military attaché to King Alfonso in Madrid. ....... 1919 - back to Kenya and Thika. After Nellie was given Gikammeh at Njoro, he went off to Tanganyika to make his fortune on the promised land there in the southern highlands! He and Nellie bought a bit of land from Mick Billinge, Nellie's cousin who had come up from Rhodesia some years before. Jos was going to grow Turkish tobacco but it was a disaster. .... (he still had some pieces of shrapnel embedded in his chest, left over from WW1) ...... Later (1930/31) tried, with a partner, a hotel on Mombasa island. The partner swallowed the hotel and Jos lost all the money he had borrowed to invest from his sister-in-law.   After he died on 7th April 1947 Nellie wrote - 'Poor Jos, things never went right for him. He longed to get into the Indian Cavalry - Bengla Lancers - but a bee stung him in the eye and impaired his vision. Then came the Boer War, and dysentery which really impaired his health for keeps. He adored his mother, hated his step-mother, and was frightened of his father. ..... Jos really was a soldier at heart, and a dyed-in-the-wool Highlander.'

Midday Sun - 'Nellie wrote after his death 'He was really a soldier at heart'. Yet he was the gentlest of men. Once, half exasperated and half amused by some display of non-agression, Nellie had demanded: 'Are you a man or a mouse?' After a pause for reflection, pulling on one of the small cheroots he favoured, he replied: 'I'm never quite sure.'   

Golf - Well known golfer at Njoro in 30's  

Obituary - Kenya Weekly News 11-4-47 - The death occurred on Tuesday after a long illness, of Major Josceline Charles Henry Grant, a greatly respected member of the older generation of Kenya settlers. Major Grant who was born in 1874, was the eldest son of Sir Charles Grant, KCSI, one time Foreign Secretary of the Government of India, and Ellen Baillie of Redcastle. Major Grant spent his childhood in India and he was educated at Evelyn's and Eton. In 1898 he went to Rhodesia and on the outbreak of the South African War he joined the Royal Scots and served with the Regiment throughout the campaign until he was invalided home with dysentery in 1902. A year or two later he went prospecting in Portuguese East Africa. In 1906 Major Grant married the Hon. Eleanor Grosvenor daughter of the first Lord Stalbridge and their daughter, Elspeth - now Mrs Gervais Huxley and a distinguished writer - was born in 1907. Five years later Major Grant came to British East Africa and bought a coffee farm in the Thika District. On the outbreak of the First German War, Major Grant joined the King's African Rifles and took part in the operations along the frontier of German East Africa until the December of 1914. Then he went to England to rejoin his old Regiment, the Royal Scots, and served in Flanders until wounded in November 1915. In March of the following year he was appointed Military Attache at the British Embassy in Madrid, a post which he held until 1918. Early in 1919 he returned to Kenya and took an active and distinguished part in the political life of the Colony. In 1925 he moved his home to Njoro and, later, he spent some time in the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika. On the outbreak of the Second German War Major Grant at first replaced a younger man on a farm and then joined the staff of the Somalia Gendarmerie. Early in 1942 he was transferred to Movement Control which entailed service in the Belgian Congo, Northern Rhodesia and the Middle East. The climate of Egypt adversely affected his health and brought on the illness which eventually caused his death. He was invalided out in 1943 and returned to his farm at Njoro. Major Grant served his country nobly, in 3 major wars but his determination to do so when nearly 70 years of age exacted a heavy price. In addition to his wide interests in the politics and development of East Africa, Major Grant was a great supporter of the Caledonian Society and largely instrumental in staging the Highland Games, held at Nakuru in 1938, in aid of the Society's Bursary Fund. A man of great personal charm and many lovable qualities, Major Grant will be sadly missed by scores of friends. Knowing full well that his days were numbered he faced a long and trying illness with rare courage and that calm composure which springs from inner strength and the faith and bearing of a great gentleman ....….                                                    

Red 25 - President, Thika District Association

Red 22 - Justice of the Peace - Fort Hall District

Gazette - 7/4/15 - Liable for Jury service, Fort Hall

Gazette - 26/8/1914 - Appt. - Captain J.C.H. Grant, Commandant Railway Protection Troops, to be Captain, to date August 6th 1914

Gazette - 23/9/1914 - Appt. - Commandant, Railway Protection Troops - Captain J.C.H. Grant, 3rd Battalion Royal Scots, to date September 3rd 1914

Gazette - 4/11/1914 - Appt. - To be attached to the KAR Eton (1892) - Passed for Sandhurst; now preparing for Diplo. Service; son of Sir Charles Grant of Singleton, Sussex.

Soldier Settlement Scheme after WW1 - Class B - Major J.C.H. Grant, c/o Hon. Mrs Grant, 49 Bridge Street, Cambridge - Farm 911

Gazette - 29/10/1919 - Register of Voters - Ukamba Area - Josceline Charles Hervey [sic] Grant - Farmer, Kitimuru, Chania Bridge

Gazette - 27/8/1929 - Dissolution of Partnership between Major Josceline Charles Henry Grant and Captain Guy Walter Repton carrying on business as coffee planters and farmers under the style or firm of Grant and Repton at Chania Bridge. Business to be continued by Guy Walter Repton

Gazette - 9/5/1933 -Application for Liquor Licence - Restaurant or Café - Azania Hotel Mtongwe, Mombasa - Major Joscelyn Grant