Source: Marjorie Morse (daughter)

Staff 39 - Male Mental Nurse, Mathari Mental Hospital, Medical Dept., Kenya in 1939, appointed 1919. Originally Warder 1919

Dominion - Medical Department - Warder, Mathari Mental Hospital - 1930

KAD 1922 - Warder, Lunatic Asylum

Gazette - 13/8/1919 - Arrived on 1st Appointment - Medical Department - S.J. Bosch - 31/7/1919

Letter from Marjorie Morse 15 June 1994 My father and mother arrived at Mombasa about 1920 to take up their duties as superintendent and matron of Mathari. They left South Africa separately and met up in Mombasa where they were married on 6 December. They both trained in Grahamstown. My parents were given a house in the grounds of the hospital and that is where we all lived until the outbreak of the Second World War. There were five children, among them two sets of twins. Harold and John were both haemophiliacs and died, Harry at one year old and John in Durban whilst on holiday at the age of 15. The three of us went to schools in Nairobi. Charles left at 15 to take up an apprenticeship with a Nairobi firm of radio dealers/repairers. My sister Hilda and I attended the Kenya High School for Girls until the Italians entered the war and the school was evacuated up country. Meantime my father and mother gave their all, the running etc of Mathari. The hospital was in fairly large grounds which my father laid out to lawns and flower beds. He had hedges put in and shrubs to enhance the gardens - some of these shrubs were all pretty flowering varieties. He was particularly keen on the bougainvillea and these were put to great effect. He made the grounds attractive for the patients and their visitors. The main block was of the usual colonial type of building, i.e. one story with a veranda going almost around the entire building. On the werandas the patients would sit and face the gardens. Our house was inside the main hospital complex and we had a thick kei apple hedge surrounding our house and garden. The hospital catered for Africans, Asians, Arabs and Europeans - each housed in self-contained blocks. The African patients were allocated various jobs around the hospital, such as sweeping the grounds, weeding and tending the gardens and any job which would be suitable for them to do. One Arab who roamed freely in the grounds was the decorator - he was always busy whitewashing the drive stones, sheds and outhouses. I remember him as a cheerful sort  - he was always singing or whistling and his work was immaculate and so was his person. My mother looked after the female patients and supervised the kitchens, only the European kitchen as the Africans and others had their particular foods and their own cooks. A registered doctor would call about two or three times a week to attend to those who needed medical help: one such doctor was eccentric and used to bring his lion cub and great dane, called 'Oh Be Joyful', on these visits - the lion cub, called 'Oli of Judah', and the dog were let loose in the grounds and they created a certain amount of havoc. On one occasion the doctor brought a huge large python - everybody scattered when he let this out of its cage. The doctor was soon replaced by another more conventional man. Mathari took in-patients from all over Kenya and during the war some soldiers were admitted having been at the front in Abyssinia. When possible they were repatriated back to their own countries. Mathari was well established and my father and mother were praised for their dedication to duty. They retired in 1942 and my father bought some land in the Limuru and built a dairy farm from scratch. This was a great success and when Uhuru was imminent my father sold the farm as a going concern to the Kenya government and he and my mother returned to Grahamstown and settled there until their deaths - my father in 1982 and mother in 1991. My brother was injured in the war and invalided out and he resumed his position at the radio shop and remained in Nairobi ever since. We had a happy and carefree childhood and plenty of leisure time. In the early 20s my father played cricket for the Nairobi team and he was also a keen Bisley shot - he had  many trophies. My parents did not run the Mathari hospital on their own - there were two other couples (European) and the supervision of patients et cetera was worked out on a rota system with my mother and father on call if their services were required. We were never afraid of the patients but we were not allowed full freedom of the hospital grounds under any circumstances.