Life can surprise us if we’re willing to work hard, take risks and refuse to give up.
Optimism and finding opportunity in adversity
Life can surprise us if we’re willing to work hard, take risks and refuse to give up.
Above is a picture of me, Roy Whittet, in the arms of my mother who is standing next to my godfather, Roy Whittet. No relation but clearly, I was named after him.
When the photograph was taken, the old man had been in Africa for over sixty years and for me is a role model for optimism and finding opportunity in adversity. He started life as a clerk on the London Stock Exchange and then joined the Royal flying Corps in the First World War. He was shot down somewhere in Europe, evaded capture and made his way, on his own, through Russia to Sweden from where he was repatriated.
On demobilization he was diagnosed as having tuberculosis and advised, that if he was to have any chance of surviving more than about nine months, he should seek a warmer climate. Roy took a ship to Mombasa, the train to Nairobi and having bought a bag of coffee seeds and a mule, went a few miles to Thika and started a coffee plantation. This failed and so did some other attempts he made at business. In the Second World War he enlisted in the King’s African rifles, saw service in Burma and won his Military Cross. Eventually he became prosperous and married at the age of 50. A few years after that, his weak chest started catching up with him – some 60 years after it was supposed to have killed him – and he moved again to Mombasa for the softer climate.
He came up by train for my christening but died not long after in Mombasa hospital. And although we never really knew each other, he left me a few shares in East African Breweries, a small gentleman’s dressing case and the belief that even when things seem hopeless, life can still surprise us if we’re willing to work hard, take risks and refuse to give up.
