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Name: OWEN, Harold Alfred
Short Name: bro of Leslie Richard Owen
Birth Date: 1903 Hornsey, London. bapt. 7 Mar 1904
Death Date: 24 June 2001 Cape Town
First Date: 1929
Last Date: 1965
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' adopted as a newborn in Nairobi in 1942
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 bought his own farm, Hilltop farm, on the Kitale to Turbo Road close to Kitale aerodrome. 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 1965, when he and Olive moved to South Africa. 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.