One of the original '500' men in the Kenya Regt. in 1937. (KR 153).

Women in Kenya - "Hobo" Swift was brutally attacked whilst painting in his studio on his farm at Subukia on December 4 1991, and died on 15 December. So ended the 82 year life of a man who loved life and the country and people of Kenya. Arthur Randall Swift was born in 1909 in England and was educated at Clayesmore School. At the age of 17 he was sent out to Kenya to help his uncle Randall on his farm at Mweiga. Having very little money and no transport he used to walk or thumb for lifts when going to visit friends. On one occasion an elderly motorist was heard to comment "who is that young hobo?" and the name stuck.

Having gone to work for a neighbour and being made redundant in the slump, Hobo went to UK on leave and returned jobless but was quickly employed on a temporary basis to replace a sick manager who later died. So started his career as a coffee manager on Thembigwa Estate, Ruiru for 13 years with 700 acres of coffee - hard work, hard play and hard years before the coffee boom.

He was called up for the Second World War, served in the 2/4th KAR in the East African Campaign in Northern Kenya and Ethiopia. It was during the long hours of waiting for action that he worked on his painting, encouraged by a brother officer, and so started his absorbing hobby. His marvellous paintings of the beauty of Kenya landscape and in particular the Northern Frontier District with its unique cloud formations, adorn many walls in homes throughout the world.

In 1943 Hobo was shot and wounded in the throat and had it not been for the quick action of his friend and loyal orderly, Gitau, he would have bled to death. Hobo has always been the life and soul of a party and before being wounded had a good singing voice and accompanied himself on a banjo - took part in amateur dramatics and formed part of the Ruiru Revellers dance band whose highlight was playing for Muthaiga Club's New Year's Eve Ball. On demobilisation Hobo returned to Thembigwa for a short while, then joined the Labour Department and two years later Charles Winnington-Ingram offered him the job of Farm Manager to General Wainwright on the Aberdares above what was then Thomson's Falls.

Later in life he became deaf and was unable to listen to music. He faced his deteriorating hearing difficulty with great courage and few guessed what an effort this was. Hobo married Olive Marian Armitage in 1949 and managed the General's farm until it was sold in 1965, whereupon he purchased Piribyat Farm in Subukia and lived there happily with Marian until he met his untimely death.

Wolseley-Lewis - 1930s - Charles Taylor next got me a job as stand-in for Hobo Swift on Thembigwa. Hobo, an old friend, had just had his engagement to a nice girl broken off and was in a bad state. ………. when Hobo Swift got back. Hobo was in his right mind again and had started painting in watercolours. He asked me what I thought as I had some reputation for being artistic. His efforts were not much better than a child's but he later became one of the best watercolourists in the country.

Wolseley-Lewis - After WW2 - Hobo Swift had been shot in the neck when he was sent to the Administration in Somalia, but came back and married Marian Armstrong and bought land in the Subukia Valley where he bred Jersey cows. He was best known for having become a very good artist in watercolours.

Hut has A.R. Swift 'Hobo' 1937 Thembigwa, Kiambu. Hut - Artist

Anne Spoerry, They Call Me Mama Daktari, 1997: Arthur Randall Swift was seventeen when he first came to Kenya to work on his uncle's farm at Thika, north of Nairobi. He had free keep, but his wages were minimal, and it took him a long time to save up enough money to buy a motorcycle. While awaiting mechanical transport he had to use shanks's pony and his prowess as a pedestrian earned him the name "Hobo." The nickname stuck, his real names were forgotten and I never heard his wife call him anything but Hobo. During the Second World War Swift served as a captain in the King's African Rifles. He fought in the Ethiopian campaign and said that, far from being "chocolate soldiers," the Italians were doughty fighters. Ethiopia was recaptured only after hard and bitter fighting on both sides. From Mogadishu, Swift crossed the desert and took part in the capture of Addis Ababa on 6 April, 1941. Fighting went on in the north, however, and in mid-May the Duke of Aosta, who commanded the Italian troops, tried to take refuge in the Amba-Alaghi massif, which rises to 10,000 feet. After a tough siege he was forced to capitulate with 7,000 men, but received full battle honours. During the fighting, Swift received a bullet in the throat, which he miraculously survived. His war was over and he was evacuated to the Military Hospital at Nairobi, where he spent his convalescence.

After his apprenticeship with his uncle, Hobo managed several farms before being able to buy himself the property near Subukia. Over the years he became an expert cattle-breeder and a specialist in growing coffee. One year, however, probably from being overwhelmed with work, he pruned his coffee bushes rather late, and his friends and neighbours shook their heads and issued dire warnings that he had made a ghastly mistake. As it happened, unexpected rain meant Hobo was able to bring in one of his best coffee harvests that year. He was not particularly proud of this incident, and would tell it to illustrate that agriculture in Africa is a lottery, as poor Karen Blixen had discovered to her cost on her Ngong Hills farm. Hobo liked to talk about his uncle, who he said was a splendid example of the mettlesome early white settlers in Kenya. Hobo owned a stable of magnificent horses. He was an accomplished horseman and his wife, Marian, was an expert in dressage. Hobo was a fine polo player, but his real hobby was painting, and when he retired this became one of his main sources of income. He painted wonderful landscapes of Kenya, many from just outside his own front door. Although he had lived there most of his adult life he never ceased to marvel at the amazing beauty of his adopted country. He was also passionate about every aspect of the world of nature. He loved animals, birds and plants and could identify plants of any specimen brought for his opinion. Stretching away from his house his land was shaded by tall trees where troops of colobus monkeys played.

With the approach of old age the Swifts retired on their 350-acre farm. They continued to watch over and help their African neighbours and could not envisage living anywhere other than Kenya, yet one day, in December 1992, Hobo was found unconscious on the floor of his studio in the middle of the afternoon with severe head wounds from an axe. He died a week later in hospital in Nairobi. He was loved, respected and admired by everyone, and no one could understand the reason for this terrible crime.