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Name: OWEN, Harold Alfred
Short Name: son of Henry John Owen, bro of Leslie Richard Owen
Photo Source: John Marshall Owen
Birth Date: 1903 Hornsey, London. bapt. 7 Mar 1904
Death Date: 24 June 2001 Cape Town
First Date: 1929
Last Date: May 1966
Profession: Farmer, Hill Top Farm (LO5389) near Kitale
Married: In Mombasa 18 Feb 1934 Olive Nora Underwood b. 16 Aug 1899 Kingston, Surrey, d. 20 Jan 1983 Cape Town
Children: Margaret Nora 'Peggy' (Johnson) adopted as a newborn in Nairobi in 1942 (d. 2011 Cape Town)
War Service: Kenya Regiment in WW2
General Information:
John Owen (nephew): Harold was the eldest of four children. He trained as an engineer but was not keen to follow in his father's footsteps in publishing and in 1929 he answered an advert from Lord Kitchener wanting someone to manage a sisal estate in Kenya. Harold had no idea where Kenya was, or what sisal was, but was interviewed and very soon found himself on a ship to Kenya. He managed the sisal estate near Moi's Bridge (then Hoey's Bridge) for one year, with Charles Dann (ex-Indian Army), after which he left the job and in 1931 bought his own farm, Hilltop farm, on the Kitale to Turbo Road close to Kitale aerodrome. As a result of writing descriptive and enthusiastic letters to his family at home, his brother Leslie and his father Henry John decided to go out to Kenya. His wife's mother Anna came to live with them in 1936 after the death of her husband. In 1941 Harold was conscripted and trained with the Kenya Regiment, and after admin postings in Nairobi was demobilised in 1942 and returned to his farm where he stayed until 1966, when he and Olive moved to South Africa. Before that he had been taught to fly at Kitale, gaining a pilot's licence. After Olive's death in 1983 Harold returned to UK for a number of years and lived close to his brother Leslie, before returning again to Cape Town in 1992 after Leslie died. From 1988 to 1990 Harold wrote copious notes about his life, much of it dedicated to his life as a farmer in Kenya.
Harold and Olive went to South Africa and lived and worked at odd jobs in different locations, notably East London, Cathcart and Bathurst. After Olive died in 1983 Harold moved to England and lived in a large mobile home on a caravan park in Cornwall, where my father moved to join him. It was there that he wrote his memoires, but he left when my father died in 1992 and moved to Cape Town where he stayed with Peggy. He died in 2002 aged 99 in Cape Town.
Peggy did not find out that she was adopted until she was an adult, and I believe was quite annoyed that she hadn't been told sooner. I last saw Peggy in England when she was in her early twenties and I was about eighteen. She went to Rhodesia to train as a nurse, then eventually on to South Africa. We kept in touch, and my daughter stayed with her in Cape Town In the early 2000s, but I never saw her again. According to Peggy's younger daughter she never found her birth mother, but there was some talk that Harold was a bit of a "Ladies Man" during his time in Nairobi during the war, and that it is possible that he was actually the father, and the mother was connected to the RAF in some way. There is nothing to back that up, and no mention in Harold's memoires about where the baby had come from, only that he and Olive his wife were overjoyed to have her.
Harold Owen Memoirs: At the end of the month (1930), Harold and Charles Dann made the long-awaited drive to the Nandi Forest to meet Lord Kitchener. It turned out he was indisposed and couldn’t see them; however, his secretary gave them his instructions and wages for the workers, saying that the priority was to clear land for the sisal planting. They bought all the required implements from the KFA the following day. They began to wonder why Lord Kitchener had not visited them once to see how they were, and Harold began to think there was something a bit odd going on and began to feel that he would not want to see the end of his contract out. They described to each other the strange interviews that they had with Lord Kitchener in England, and both thought he had behaved in a weird manner, but both believed he was genuine and were convinced that the figures added up. They wondered why Lord Kitchener was taking on two inexperienced men from the UK when a Neopara could have handled the job. However, they were both satisfied with their current situation...He and Charles Dann were also becoming more concerned with Lord Kitchener’s state of mind and plans. Whenever Charles collected the wages, he never saw Lord Kitchener; rather he dealt only with the Secretary who seemed to be running the whole project.
Nakuru North cemetery His father Henry John Owen b. 20 Nov 1875 Kennington, d. 23 July 1945 Nakuru. His mother Ethel Fanny Owen, née Bray b. 17 Sep 1883 Islington, died 16 Apr 1963 Nairobi, is buried in Langata cemetery, Nairobi. They married in 1902.