The nuance of Kenya

On Remembrance Sunday in Nairobi nearly a decade ago, an ancient Kenyan veteran told Sam Mattock, a British ex-cavalry officer, that he had lost his second world war service medals. Could Sam help replace them? In a culmination of Sam’s personal efforts, King Charles III, on his visit to Kenya with Queen Camilla next week, will present medals to four veterans who fought for the empire in North Africa, Madagascar and Burma. The youngest of them, Kefa Chagira and Ezekiel Anyange, are 99. John Kavai is 101 and the eldest, Samweli Mburia, is 117 and served as a corporal in Burma.

One hundred thousand African troops fought the Japanese in Burma’s jungle, in a theatre that became known as the Forgotten War. In his superb memoir Warriors and Strangers, former King’s African Rifles officer Gerald Hanley told how he met an elderly Maasai many years later who produced a Japanese officer’s sword, which he had taken as a trophy in hand-to-hand combat.