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Name: HUNTER, Leslie Oliver

Nee: son of John Alexander Hunter

Birth Date: 20 Aug 1921 Nairobi

Death Date: 3 Apr 2010 New Zealand

Last Date: 1961

Profession: Draughtsman, architect

Area: 'Clairmont' Kiambu, Hunter's Lodge

Married: Marie T. b. 1923

Book Reference: Sitrep 2, Childhood

War Service: Kenya Regt.

School: Prince of Wales School, Nairobi

General Information:

Childhood - Leslie Oliver Hunter went on to the Prince of Wales School from 1935 until 1937. In the opinion of the Headmaster, Capt. Nicholson, he would best make a future in Drawing and Design and joined Harold E. Henderson, a firm of architects in Nairobi. WW2 intervened and he and his brother Gordon joined the Kenya Regt. And served for 6 years in the armed forces. After the war he returned to the same firm and qualified as an ARIBA in 1956. He designed Hunter's Lodge for his parents and his brother David supervised the construction with local labour. The Lodge was known to many as a welcome hostelry on the Nairobi-Mombasa road and when his father died it was sold to a hotel group. His mother and David then bought a place to live at Diani on the coast south of Mombasa. He and his wife left Kenya in 1961 in a Land Rover and drove to New Zealand via Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. They eventually settled in Christchurch.  The Clairmont family home was sold and became a nightclub during WW2, frequented by the Earl of Erroll before his murder in January 1941.
Pre-war volunteer to the Kenya Regiment (KR 716)
Naturalised a New Zealander 6 July 1971

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