autobiography

The Story of a girl fighting to save our earth. Greta Thunberg is an activist best known for calling attention to the devastating effects of climate change on our planet. From taking part in school strikes to crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a powerful stand against carbon usage, Greta is proving that everyone has a voice they can use for good, no matter their age.

Mary Seacole is now known for her medical work in the Crimean war, and as a brilliant woman who combated the racial prejudice she experienced in her lifetime. But for a long time her story was lost. From growing up in Kingston, Jamaica as the daughter of a doctress to helping soldiers in the war, discover the details of the amazing life that Mary Seacole led in this beautifully illustrated book with real-life stories, timelines and facts.

Thomas Allfree, Malindi’s Marine Fisheries Officer in the 1950s and early 1960s, called his autobiography Bluff, because he felt he had bluffed his way through life, succeeding in various businesses and activities, even though he had never formally been trained in any of them. Allfree first managed a farm in Kenya’s Rift Valley before moving to Malindi in about 1945 and becoming a partner in Lawford’s Hotel. He operated his own fishing business and then a dhow transport business between Malindi and Lamu, before taking on the job as a fisheries officer for the coast, basing himself in Malindi. Allfree wrote this book after he was diagnosed with cancer and finished writing it before his death in 1978. The book tells how he came to Malindi after World War II and then details his work as a fisheries officer from the 1950s through 1964. However, he said nothing in the book about the last decade or more his life in Malindi after he retired as a fisheries officer. This book contains an added epilogue drafted by Old Africa magazine after meeting and interviewing many of Malindi’s older fishermen and other residents who remembered Tom. Though written as an autobiography, this book also reveals forgotten history from the island of Lamu (with first-hand character sketches of District Commissioner Charles ‘Daddy’ Cornell and ‘Coconut’ Charlie Whitton), as well as hilarious insights on riding with some of the coast’s legendary country bus drivers, burials at sea, safaris in search of eel breeding grounds and much more. When you finish reading this book, you’ll feel like you were transported back to Malindi town and a way of life on the Kenya coast that has now disappeared.

Although not widely known, the Cole family have made their mark in many different fields over the past 400 years when King James 1 commissioned William Cole to found the town of Enniskillen in Ireland. His descendants, the eldest son of each generation having been enobled to the Earldom of Enniskillen, included distinguished soldiers, anthropologists and politicians, three of whom latterly settled in Kenya in the late 19th century. One married the third Baron Delamere, one married Eleanor Balfour, Prime Minister Arthur Balfour's niece and one remained unmarried, although all three siblings died early from various causes before the age of fifty. Eleanor Balfour's two sons became prominent members of Kenyan society; David Cole the eldest being a member of the pre independence Legislative Council and Arthur one of the first Kenya citizens of European descent. David became the 6th Earl of Enniskillen and returned to the family estate in Ireland at the time of Kenya's independence, and upon his death Andrew the writer of this book became the 7th Earl. This is his story of how the Cole legacy evolved from the foundations laid in Kenya by his grandparents at the turn of the twentieth century and spanning the years before independence to the present day.