Aidan Hartley Aidan Hartley

Wild life | 23 April 2015

Even if he did have Simply Red playing in the operating theatre

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issue 25 April 2015

 Laikipia

When I was a boy in Devon we had an orchard. On a string of autumns, as the fruit ripened, the orchard became a battlefield of apples between my two brothers and me. My older siblings could launch apples at me with such force they fizzed like bullets through the air. A hit with an unripe Russet or Pippin could hurt like hell, so I became adept at dodging incoming missiles.

A childhood of scrumping came in handy this month when a mob of Samburu tribesmen attacked me. In what has become a routine activity at home these days we were attempting to prevent trespassers flooding into our farm pastures. I called the police, while the three spearmen I encountered phoned their cohorts. Quite soon about a dozen young bloods had surrounded us and instead of chucking spears they began throwing rocks at us.

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