Bwana - George Adamson, Hugh Grant and Roger Courtney started a trading business on Lake Baringo buying goats and sheep from the Njemps and then selling them in the Highlands. ...... Roger was a ginger-haired stocky rugger player, had been an unsuccessful gold miner.

Argosy - Author very ill with bilharzia and malaria, working in the mines 20 miles from Lake Victoria. Nursed back to health by a tall, dark girl called Joan who had just arrived from England. Author fell for her and fought another suitor over her. Joan flown to the mine to look after him ......... Later Joan wrote to say that, after a whirlwind courtship, she had promised to marry the best-looking farmer in Kenya. ....... Author broke, decided to travel down the Nile in a rubber canoe ........... In Kisumu meets Joan with her new husband Bill ........ Offered a job by Mr Blumberg - 3 months' survey work in the Mountains of the Moon. ........ arranged to stay on the farm of Jonathan Hubbard - 3 hours from Kisumu in the Nandi area. ......... when he eventually reached Egypt he went to Palestine and joined the Palestine Police.   

Greenhorn - in 1921 became a subaltern in the Defence Force in England - then to EA and job as a clerk in a Nairobi store. ...... A big Australian came into the store one day, and mentioned in my hearing that he needed an extra hand to help in a saw-mill and to assist on a ranch he owned up-country. ..... later, I learned that there had been a long procession of beginners on the ranch, and none of them had been able to stand the life. As a result it had the reputation of being one of the roughest and rowdiest camps in the country. ....... 2 day journey by mule cart. We reached the lumber camp in the hills, and I found myself ringed in by a half dozen hefty Australians, all roaring and cheerfully drunk, a state in which they had been for some days. ......... learnt to look out for himself in every way. ........ after a year or more, came to the conclusion that the lumber camp tough though it was, did not fit the bill ......... working for a Kenya lady farmer ....... accepted a job as manager of a  saw-mill and timber concession further up-country - Nandi country ........ most of the time in charge of the timber estate in the hills, saw little or nothing of other white people and as a result got into a rather bad state. 'Going bush' it is generally called, and is a recognizable affliction among lonely settlers in the country ......... gold rush ......... filming of 'Trader Horn'

Fleming - At Lathbuiry's I met an old friend of mine, whom I had not seen for a year or more, in the shape of Roger Courtney, the author of many good books on hunting in Kenya. He was an ex-white hunter, explorer, ivory poacher, and was playing at mining. He even had a lamp attached to his sweating forhead as he came up from "down the 'ole" - ….. I first met Roger Courtney in the bar of the Salisbury Hotel, Nairobi, when we were both staying there in 1934. He was a large, well-built man, bronzed and weather beaten, with a rather round, cheerful, bright face, and a pair of fearless blue eyes. He was hail-fellow-well-met and full of life, with a magnetic personality. His usual greeting was "Watcher blokes!" and that was frequently followed by an invitation to a drink. He undertakes the most amazing tasks: such as his trip alone along the whole length of the Nile, from Uganda to Cairo, in a tiny rubber boat, which he describes lightly in one of his books. He did not go to Kenya until he was about twenty, but he has become part of it just as much as the giant trees that grow on the slopes of Mount Kenya.

Kingsley-Heath - Professional hunter in East Africa before the 1939-45 War. Major in the Royal Marines. Author of 'Claws of Africa', 'Palestine Policeman', and others. Married Evelyn Cottar of the famous Cottar family. Buried at Hargeisa circa 1948.

Chandler - Courtney had a brother who was actively involved in the Temperance movement and thus was nicknamed "Sacred" Courtney. Inevitably Roger, quite fond of the bottle and other earthly pleasures, became known as "Profane" Courtney. When he died of blackwater fever in the NFD, a funnel was built into his grave so his friends could pour him a drink from time to time. The local Africans, whose religion forbade the use of alcohol, would pour in milk.

Web - MC - 'Captain Courtney carried out a daring recce in enemy territory on night 2-3 April 1941. He swam ashore from a submarine and carefully recced about half a mile of enemy defences and strong points. He experienced difficulty in returning to the submarine and exposed himself voluntarily to considerable danger and physical hardship for a period of 4 hours.' (L.G. 21-10-41)

Web - was influential in the establishment of the UK Special Boat Service. When WW2 began, he travelled from Africa (where he was big-game hunting) to England to join the Army as a "commando folding kayaker". When his ideas were rebuffed he joined the King's Royal Rifle Corps as a Rifleman. Soon promoted to Corporal he was commissioned in November 1939. Courtney became a Commando recruit in mid-1940, and was sent to the Combined Training Centre in Scotland. He was unsuccessful in his initial attempts to convince Admiral of the Fleet Roger Keyes and later Admiral Theodore Hallett, commander of the Combined Training Centre, that his idea of a folding kayak brigade would be effective. He decided to infiltrate the HMS Glengyle, a Landing Ship, Infantry anchored in the River Clyde. Courtney paddled to the ship, climbed aboard undetected, wrote his initials on the door to the captain's cabin, and stole a deck gun cover. He presented the soaking cover to a group of high ranking Royal Navy officers meeting at a nearby Inverary Hotel. He was promoted to Captain and given command of 12 men, the first Special Boat Section.

Red 31 has R.J.A. Courtney, Londiani,

Hut the same but Roger

Gazette 14 Feb 1950 probate required by Dorris, widow [but divorce?]

Tom Lawrence He serves with No. 8 Commando of King’s Royal Rifle Corps (Unit Histories website). He was the first to use two man canoes, and proposed a canoe raiding and reconnaissance force this in July 1940. To prove his point, he boarded a ship in the Clyde, stole a gun cover, and presented it to the captain who was at a conference ashor. This resulted in the recruiting of eleven men for the Folbot Troop attached to No. 8 Commando in Arran. The Folbot Troop moved with 8 Commando to the Middle East and were renamed the Special Boat Squadron and started training at Kabrit on the Great Bitter Lake (COPP Survey website). Suffering from ill health, Courtney returned to Britain in 1942. Here, he took up an administrative post and worked on the establishment of 2nd Special Boat Section. This unit saw service in Europe and the Mediterranean, where it assisted in Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa. Later in the war, the unit was despatched to the Far East (NAM website).