Product Description

In this memoir, the author tells of a childhood set in two very different worlds. In 1936, at the age of ten, he arrived in England, destined for middle-class life in a Midlands rectory. Behind him lay an unconventional childhood of running barefoot in Kenya with his African friends.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #176778 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 227 pages

From the Back Cover
The first thing Aunt Edith did when she collected ten-year-old Tenniel Evans from the London docks was to take him to D.H.Evans and replace his lightweight tropical outfit with English winter gear and woollen gloves. It was November 1936. Ahead of him lay middle-class life in a Midlands rectory with four unknown cousins. Behind him was an unconventional childhood running wild (and barefoot) with the totos amongst his hand-to-mouth, tumbledown family, scratching a precarious living on the fringes of Kenyan society.

It was the winning of a scholarship to Christ's Hospital school that took him for ever from his halcyon youth at Porgies - a mud-and-wattle bungalow facing the blue hills of the Trans-Nzoia - to Allesley Rectory, a big dark house run by the wonderful, horse-faced Cousin Ailie. In England he learned that life was extremely serious and that chilblains itched just as much as tropical jiggers. But he learned too that his second family at the rectory was just as loving and idiosyncratic as the parents and siblings he had left behind, and whom he was not to see again for twenty years.

About the Author
Tenniel Evans
Tenniel Evans was born in Kenya, and educated at Christ's Hospital, St Andrews University and RADA. He has been a professional actor for fifty years, and a non-stipendiary Church of England priest since the mid-eighties. He thinks preaching in Canterbury Cathedral is more frightening than any first night - especially because you can't blame the author for the script. However, he would recommend an actor's training for any clergyman. Both his children are in the theatrical business, and he now lives with his wife Evangeline in a village in Buckinghamshire. Apart from some short stories for the BBC, and the odd magazine article, Don't Walk in the Long Grass is his first published work.

Customer Reviews

Maybe I am fascinated with Arfica
Maybe I am fascinated with Afirca or is it hearing about other peoples lives especailly ones I shall never experience. I found this book a very pleasing, informative read. Along with other books like Peter Godwins White Boy in Africa, and Kuki Gallmann I Dreamed of Afica, they take you away to experience another life.

Reminiscing about Africa
This book is such a marvellous read, reminding you of simple pleasures. I found myself mesmorised by this story of Tenniel Evan's Childhood adventures / experiences, as well his move to England in the Inter-War years. Needless to say this book is reminiscent of a world that has long since gone, but I never tire reliving it via a good book.