When I was about nine, Charles Newton, his brother Brian and my father decided to build a boat each. They chose very different designs and worked on them every free hour.
Some distance from Eldoret there was a small lake or maybe it was a dam, known as Sergoit Lake. I think farmers owned land bordering two sides and the far shore was Native Reserve. The three got permission to sail on this little lake and with their newly built boats they formed the Sergoit Yacht Club. Many Sundays we trailed the boats to the Lake and had happy times racing round the lake. Several outstanding features were given names; First Rock, Second Point, Mariner’s Doom and the Elgeyo shore, which was a bleak muddy stretch where the Elgeyo tribe watered their cattle. I crewed for my father, Michael for his father and Brian sailed single-handed or later, as I remember, Ethel’s sister Eileen who had come out to stay, sailed with him. The family picnicked and sat on the shore at the starting and launching point, known as Bullrush Bay.
I have to admit that Rene was not a sailing person and did not really enjoy these activities, but she and Ethel played along. On one occasion I was crewing for my father and wearing my school hat which blew off and landed in the water some fifteen yards back. My father refused to turn the boat about because we were winning. Having won the race we went to retrieve the hat but never found it and I remember how cross Rene was. Eileen and Brian fell in love and married I suppose. Nora disappeared off the scene (she’d never been much on it) and Eileen joined in with everything. My father’s boat was called Puffin, a beamy little dinghy, but often the winner. Charles sailed his Shearwater – the sleekest of the designs and Brian sailed his Pintail. We all had a good time and often brought friends out as well. Paddling was always followed by endlessly pulling off the many leeches that attached themselves to one’s legs. If you put salt on them they dropped off comparatively easily and the wound was less likely to bleed.
Best Beloved 