Authors: Paul Spicer
There was a set of compelling reasons and coincidences for writing about Alice de Janzé.
One of my first encounters with Alice’s story was through her erstwhile husband, Raymund de Trafford. I was a schoolboy, living with my family at Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight. It was wartime—shortly after the Battle of Britain, the famous aerial conflict between British and German forces that took place in the skies above the southeast coast of England during 1940. One of the UK’s largest radar stations was located on the Isle of Wight, at Ventnor, and as a result, many thousands of tons of bombs had been dropped on the surrounding area during the conflict. On one occasion, a “stick” of bombs narrowly missed our home, destroying the house next door. Later, I witnessed a German ME-109 shot down on the farm opposite, and I bicycled to the scene. The German pilot survived and was taken to nearby Parkhurst Prison.
Parkhurst was where Raymund was incarcerated throughout 1940. When he was released the following August—his sentence had been reduced due to good behavior—he made immediately for our home at Yarmouth, where he knew he would be welcomed by my mother, his friend Margaret Spicer. It was six in the morning when he arrived at our door. My father had sent a car for him. The cook and maid were up early and gave him a very good breakfast of toast, eggs and bacon, and coffee. I was at home from school for the summer. I remember Raymund’s gray-looking, badly shaven face. He talked and talked. He spoke as if delivering a monologue, rattling off the names of numerous people from his Kenya days, describing his prison life, and complaining about being left out of the war. He also spoke about Alice. This was a name that was familiar to me because it often came up in family conversations—my mother and Alice having been friends from their Kenya days. Although Raymund was divorced from Alice by the time of his release, he was evidently still in contact with her, because I distinctly remember him describing Alice’s fury at the entry of Diana Delves Broughton into the tight-knit Happy Valley circle.
Before his departure at around eleven that morning, my mother asked him, “What are you going to do now?”
“I have written forty-five hundred words about my life in Parkhurst Prison,” Raymund replied. “And I shall offer it to the
Sunday Dispatch.
But my family will pay me more not to publish. So that will set me up for a bit.” Even as a young boy, I could detect Raymund’s aggression and toughness. He did not take much notice of me and concentrated such charm as he had on my mother. I do not think he liked my father.
As can be imagined, the appearance of an ex-convict at the breakfast table was extremely exciting for a young boy, and I can still picture Raymund puffing out his cheeks before exhaling his cigarette smoke. After breakfast, Raymund announced he was off to nearby Cowes, where he would stay with his old friend Poppy Baring, the banking heiress, at her family’s country seat. It was Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight and the annual yachting regatta was taking place despite the war. Raymund would doubtless have enjoyed the magnificent vantage of the Barings’ Nubia House, with its views onto the silvery waters of the Solent, where, even in war time, hundreds of boats had gathered for the regatta. Many years later, while researching this book, I met Raymund’s nephew, Sir Dermot de Trafford, who told me that after Cowes Week, Raymund had traveled to London, returning to his club, White’s, to see if he could locate any familiar faces. Raymund’s contemporaries, however, had all been called up for the war and the club’s venerable elder members refused to acknowledge this recently released prisoner. The story goes that Raymund went up to an elderly and extremely bald senior member of White’s, who was sunk deep in his chair, with his
Times
held high in the air. When the man refused to as much as look at him, Raymund smacked him on his bald pate and declared, “Hoity-toity!” The room broke up with laughter.
Although I remained fascinated with Raymund, it was his appearance at my family’s home that marked the point when my mind became concentrated on Alice’s existence. Later, as a young man, I had my own firsthand glimpse into her world. It was 1950, and I was stationed in Kenya for two years to work for the British oil company Shell. The Erroll murder was almost a decade old, but it was still a subject of fascination for those I encountered, and I became intrigued. One day, I decided to motor up to Kipipiri, on the peak beside the Wanjohi Valley, to see if I could find Idina Sackville at Clouds. I had already heard tales of Idina’s infamous house parties during those early days in Happy Valley, so I approached with a degree of curiosity mixed with trepidation. When Idina opened the door, I introduced myself. She was then in her late fifties, and had a strong upper-class English accent and an impressively girlish figure. She greeted me with great enthusiasm and questioned me closely about my mother and my father, whom she remembered. She also wanted to know whether I was related to the Spicers of Spy Park in Wiltshire, into whose family her sister, Avice, had married (in fact, we are distantly connected). When Idina invited me to stay the night, I accepted.
That evening, the moon was serving as an overhead lamp; a cool breeze swept down from the Aberdare Mountains behind the house and dinner was served at 11:00
P.M.
, as was customary in the carefree world that Idina had created for herself. After dinner was over, my hostess then turned to me and said, “After I go to my bedroom, I shall wait ten minutes and then switch off the generator. So that is all the time you have in which to undress and go to bed.” In my room, I found a new pair of silk pajamas laid out on my pillow, together with a bottle of brandy, a glass, and a lighted candle on the bedside table. I lay in bed and watched for the electric lights to dim. Ten minutes later, as I was dozing off, I heard the door handle turn. Who could want to enter my room at such a time? Was it to be Idina herself? I pulled up the sheet to my neck and waited in dread anticipation. It was not Idina, but Jimmy Bird, Idina’s live-in companion. That evening, he was obviously worse the wear for drink and had possibly mistaken my bedroom for his own; I told him to leave, which he did quickly, and I locked my door. That night, I learned that when in Happy Valley, a locked door is a valuable defense against late-night intruders.
Later that month, I visited Thomson’s Falls and went to the hotel there for lunch. (Thomson’s Falls is not far from the road entrance to the Wanjohi Valley.) While waiting in the lobby, I was approached by a man of medium stature, whose faded fair hair, almost orange in color, was brushed to both sides over his ears in elegant quiffs. He introduced himself as Fabian Wallace and asked if I happened to be Paul Spicer. He said he had heard from Idina that I was in the area and asked if I were free for lunch. I gladly accepted and followed him in my car to his nearby house, which was set in a well-kept garden. There was a river at the end of the lawn, swept by weeping willow trees and bamboo. I sat on his veranda sofa, which was covered in newly laundered white linen, eagerly awaiting the luncheon. I was very hungry. I remember the menu, because the first course was a hot consommé with a superb flavor. A servant wearing white gloves and dressed in a long white
kanzu,
or robe, topped by a tall red hat called a
tarboosh,
served us. The second course was blue trout cooked in the French style, the fish having been caught from the stream below. After lunch, we sat back on the veranda sofa and drank coffee. Fabian produced a thick white carton of cigarettes with a “By Appointment” insignia on the lid; inside were one hundred perfect hand-rolled cigarettes imported from St. James’s Street, London, each unusually fat cigarette containing Fabian’s favorite blend of Virginia tobacco. I was young, earning very little money, and readily impressed by the delightful comfort of the surroundings in which I found myself, if a little concerned that Fabian might make advances toward me (in fact, he did not). Unfortunately, we did not speak of Alice during that memorable lunch, although Fabian had been Alice’s neighbor and had known her well in the years immediately preceding her death.
The world that Fabian and Idina inhabited would change irrevocably during the course of the 1950s. Land disputes had already become a source of increasingly bitter conflict between the local Kikuyu and white settler farmers. While a small number of Kikuyu landowners consolidated their farms and ingratiated themselves with the colonial administration, by the early 1950s, almost half of all Kikuyus had no land claims at all. Such glaring disparity led to division among the Kikuyu and extreme resentment toward the settlers. Oath-swearing ceremonies took place throughout Kenya; those participating believed that if they broke with their promises, they would be killed by supernatural forces. In the beginning, tribe members swore to acts of civil disobience, but as time went on, their rituals demanded that they fight and kill the Europeans. In 1952, the Mau Mau rebellion began in earnest and the British administration declared a state of emergency. Settlers took to carrying loaded revolvers wherever they went, placing them out on the table at dinner, the time of day when many attacks took place. Spurred on by reports of extreme violence and brutality, the British government sent troops to assist the colonists, although by the end of the conflict, the numbers of native Kenyans killed far exceeded that of the European casualities. When the core Mau Mau leader, Dedan Kimathi, was captured in 1956, it signaled the end of the rebellion and victory for the British. The brief era of Happy Valley, however, was most definitively over. What’s more, the days of British rule in Kenya were also drawing to a close. The first elections for Africans to the legislative council took place in 1957, and when the Kenya African National Union, led by Jomo Kenyatta, formed a government in 1963, the stage was set for Kenyan independence.
During the Mau Mau period, which coincided with my first visit to Kenya, I also got to know Derek Erskine and his family. Derek was a neighbor of Jock and Diana Delves Broughton in Nairobi. I met Derek through his son Francis, who befriended me on my arrival in Kenya and who was later awarded a Military Cross for his bravery while fighting the Mau Mau rebellion in the forests of the Aberdares. Derek was a businessman, and his grocery firm, Erskine & Duncan Ltd., handled several exclusive accounts from the UK, including Marmite and Bronco toilet paper. I remember the daily teatime assembly at Derek’s house, Riverside, where toast and Marmite were the preferred fare. After tea, Derek and I would ride out across the Kikuyu Reserve, on the same route that Jock Broughton had once taken on his hacking sessions. I had purchased an Arab polo pony called Rashid el Haroun from Juanita Carberry. (Juanita would later publish [1999] a memoir of her childhood in the Wanjohi Valley, entitled
Child of Happy Valley.
) During these evening rides, Derek talked much about life and business, explaining the difference between capital and income, how to embark on investment, and the workings of the gilt markets in London. Much to my fascination, he also spoke at length about Alice de Janzé. He remembered Alice’s hatred for Diana Broughton. He recalled that despite Diana’s infidelity, Jock and Joss were the best of friends—the two men would josh each other about whose turn it was to dry Diana when she went swimming nude in the pool at the Broughtons’ house in Marula Lane. It was Derek’s opinion that Jock had been a very good sport when it came to Diana’s affair with Joss.
A man of strong opinions in general, Derek was determined to promote a multiracial society in Kenya, which, sadly, made him extremely unpopular among the white settlers at the time. When I arrived in Kenya, Derek had recently befriended Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyuborn schoolmaster who would be arrested by the British authorities and unfairly charged with “managing and being a member” of the Mau Mau Society. Derek fought passionately for Kenyatta’s release, and in 1960, he traveled to London, where he joined the African delegates at Lancaster House to demand Kenyatta’s freedom and Kenya’s independence from the British. On Derek’s return to Nairobi, he was met by a group of angry settlers at the airport, and one threw thirty pieces of silver at him for his “treason.” Such opposition only strengthened Derek’s certainty about the rightness of the cause of African independence. In 1963, when Kenyatta became Kenya’s first president, the story goes, he wanted to pass two laws. The first law was to stop all beating at schools; the second was to make Derek Erskine a lord. Derek was later knighted by the queen, at Kenyatta’s request. I make these digressions to give a sense of Derek’s integrity and the likelihood that his recollections and opinions of Alice, Joss, Jock, and Diana were especially reliable.
It was through Derek Erskine’s daughter Petal—a Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts–trained actress—that I met Danièle Waterpark, wife of Lord Waterpark, who lived at Equator Farm in Subukia, Kenya. (I once went to stay there and acted as bodyguard to Lord Waterpark’s mother, Countess Enid Kenmare, during a Mau Mau skirmish in the district.) Many years later, in 1990, it was Danièle, a Parisian, who became a great provider of contacts in Paris as I undertook research into Alice’s life. Danièle introduced me to Alice’s grandson, Frédéric Armand-Delille, who is the owner of Parfondeval, the Normandy château where Alice spent much of her early married life. By coincidence, Petal had her own link to the Erroll case. She was married to Lee Harrigan, son of Walter Harrigan, the former attorney general of Kenya, prosecutor of Jock Delves Broughton for the murder of Lord Erroll, and possibly the man who had suppressed Alice’s confession note.
Later, in 1970, with Kenyatta still presiding, I would find myself living in Kenya for a second time. I had been asked to travel to Kenya to become managing director for an international group’s holding in East Africa. On this trip, I was accompanied by my wife, June, and our two children. The house provided for me by the company was in Marula Lane. It was the same house that Jock Delves Broughton had secured after his new marriage to Diana in 1940 and where they were living at the time of Joss’s murder. My wife and I immediately dubbed the place “Murder House.” A Swiss couple devoted to chamber music had originally built the house. The black cotton soil underlying the cement foundation was unstable, and therefore the whole structure was given to slippage, causing cracks at one end that had to be continually patched up. Much of the decor had been influenced by Diana, whose bedroom had an en suite bathroom done up with the pink tiles that had last been fashionable in the 1930s. My wife and I called it the “Brighton” bathroom, as it looked to us like the kind of thing you might see at the famously salubrious Brighton Metropole Hotel in England. (The Metropole was where errant husbands would go to stay with a prostitute, thereby giving “evidence” of adultery for divorce proceedings.) Jock’s bedroom was next door to Diana’s—it has been said that they never slept in the same room during their brief marriage. This room also had its own peculiar bathroom: The bath was surrounded on three sides by mirrors, and there was also one on the ceiling above the bath. The reasons for such self-imposed voyeurism must be left to the imagination. Downstairs were three main rooms and a cloakroom near the entrance. The sitting room was long and dominated at one end by a fireplace. It was here that Joss and Diana had had their last conversation before he was shot. Across the hall were two front rooms, a dining room and an extra sitting room. One dining room window looked out over the small round pool where Diana used to go skinny-dipping and which we filled with sand to provide a play area for the children. At the back of the house were servants quarters and a deep well, which provided fresh water for the house and was driven by a compression pump, or ram, as well as the stables, one of whose loose boxes was once used to accommodate Pantaloon, a piebald polo pony. The stairs in the house did indeed creak—as the police investigation had revealed—but only halfway down.