Mad Mike Hoare dies at age 100

It's amazing, a dare-devil par excellence that lived on the edge all his life and must have had a 100 or more lives made a 100.

Met him once in Maritzburg (he was actually well spoken and educated man) where he'd become a stock broker and was into Wealth Management). He lived in Hilton.

His life is one of the most interesting and whether you secretly admire him for his courage, was a bit of "skelm" in some ways but he was a type of man that one cannot help liking.

Gerry Hawksworth who became headlines in the British newspapers in 1973...sole survivor...the others were executed because they were Rhodesians and Gerry was a British citizen, captured by terrorists in Rhodesia in NE (Mt Darwin) in 1973 and marched all the way to Tanzania and held in prison at Dares Salaam was an old friend of mine.

Gerry knew Hoare well and had served under him in the Congo whilst recruited by Tsombe (and the Belgium government) to fight the rebels there in the late sixties.

I knew Gerry and his brother Reg from Somerset West in the Cape when they both worked at " The Dynamite Factory" AE &CI that was based between that town and the Strand. Both brothers were from Kenya whose family had lost their beautiful farm (at the foot of Mt Kenya) at Kitale and were forced to leave and find work in SA. Two nice guys and we became friends despite the age differences. Later on the family moved to Rhodesia at Glendale (near Mazoe). Gerry's father who had been a Brigadier in the British Indian Army died of heart attack before that due to all the trauma and stress in living greatly reduced circumstances but the mother and 2 sons lived on. The life they once lived is very difficult to understand unless you knew Kenya in the glory days and I guess the best idea you can have is in that outstanding movie "Out of Africa".

Anyway he told me many tales about the Lt. Colonel Hoare and one of them was when they leaving the Congo after some incredible success, he and another 3 mercs were asked by Hoare to carry an army trunk and load it onto the plane. These 4 guys were certainly not weaklings and they struggled to even lift it but eventually after busting a gut or two they managed. They drew the conclusion there is only one thing that can be so heavy...I'll leave that to your imagination. If I remember correctly I think Mike Hoare settled in Spain for a while.

There is a lot more I can add but I'll leave that.

Gerry later married an Australian girl and is living there to the best of my knowledge. We lost touch sadly.

These are interesting people that belonged to another era.

Seb

Kenya was used as a place where they sent the errant children of the upper classes in the UK  and was paid a  "pension" by their parents and other relatives,  They settled mainly in an area called Happy Valley and let a profligate life.  One regular visitor before he met Mrs Simpson was the later King Edward VIII - the Duke of Windsor,   

Being related to other aristocratic families in Europe - there were other families like Karen Blixen, who followed suit and settled in Kenya as well.   Karen - who was Danish married a son of a cousin of her father - a Baron Blixen from Sweden.  An uncle of Karen  bought a farm in Kenya and the newly weds moved to Kenya to settle on the farm.   Karen's husband was a scoundrel and got involved with a Somali women who had syphilis and through him got the disease as well.  She later divorced her husband and he married another of the Happy Valley residents    Blixen in 1928  married the British aristocrat Jacqueline Harriet "Cockie" Alexander.     

While working in Pretoria in the 1960's I met a family who left Kenya and they told me that the latter lady was still living in Kenya and they saw he getting onto a yacht in Mombasa and her fingers were literally covered in diamond rings.   They also confirm the  Duke of Windsoer story.

As to another famous story that was a well-known murder in Happy Valley which I also discussed with the couple - basically the story is as follows:-

"After causing a society scandal due to their marriage – she was twice-divorced, notoriously unconventional in many ways, and eight years his senior – Hay and his wife moved to Kenya in 1924, financing the move with Idina's money. Their home was a bungalow on the slopes of the Aberdare Range which they called Slains, after the former Hay family seat of Slains Castle which was sold by Hay's grandfather, the 20th Earl, in 1916. The bungalow was sited alongside the high altitude farms which other white Kenyans were establishing at the time.

The Happy Valley set were a group of elite, colonial expatriates who became notorious for drug use, drinking, adultery and promiscuity, among other things. Hay soon became a part of this group and accumulated debts. Hay had inherited his father's titles in 1928 and his wife divorced him in 1930 because he was cheating her financially. Hay then married the divorced Edith Maude ("Molly") Ramsay-Hill on 8 February 1930. They lived in Oserian, a Moroccan-style house on the shores of Lake Naivasha and his new wife succumbed to the hedonistic lifestyle of Happy Valley.

On a visit to England in 1934, Lord Erroll joined Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and on his return to Kenya a year later, became president of the Convention of Associations. He attended the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937 and was elected to the legislative council as member for Kiambu in 1939.[4] On the outbreak of World War II that year, Lord Erroll became a captain in the Kenya Regiment and accepted the post of Military Secretary for East Africa in 1940.

On 13 October 1939, Lady Erroll died. At the Muthaiga Country Club in 1940, Lord Erroll met, and subsequently had an affair with, Lady Diana Broughton, the wife of Sir Jock Delves Broughton, Bt. (and, ultimately, Baroness Delamere).[5]

Murder[edit]

Delves Broughton learned of the affair and after spending a night with Lady Delves Broughton, Lord Erroll was found shot dead in his Buick at a crossroads on the Nairobi-Ngong road on 24 January 1941. Sir Jock was accused of the murder, arrested on 10 March and stood trial from 26 May. There were no eyewitnesses to the killing; the evidence against him proffered in court was weak; and his barber was also foreman of the jury. Sir Jock was acquitted on 1 July. He committed suicide in England a year later.

Lord Erroll is buried in the graveyard of St Paul's Anglican Church in Kiambu, Kenya, next to his second wife, Molly.[6] His earldom and lordship of Hay passed to his only child, Diana, by his first wife, while his barony of Kilmarnock passed to his brother, Gilbert, who changed his surname to Boyd in 1941.[7][8]"

According to the couple the situation was hushed up and the murderer was ndeed Broughton.

There is alsoa movie White Mischief dealing with the Happy Valley life style of the time.  

Yes Mike I've read a lot about that "White Mischief:" in the Happy Valley and it was a well-known SA barrister, KC who got Broughton off the murder charge...can't remember his name.

I met a lot of old Kenyans in Durban when I was a student...they used to gather at the old Edward pub in the corner. They were very interesting people. The one old guy that I liked a lot and got to know, Norman Molyneux Fogg was an aristocrat who was at university at either Oxford or Cambridge. cannot remember , was a buddy of "Dickie" or "Bertie" the prince of Wales who later became George VI...cannot also remember, but probably "Bertie," Norman was a qualified barrister but never practised and was sent to Kenya when he was a young man...maybe a "remittance man" who had disgraced the family or got a young lady into trouble.

He was a very upright and distinguish man and never bullshitted us,,,I actually was shown his photo album...sure enough there he was on a green playing golf with the late king (Elizabeth and Margarets father). When he settled in Kenya (Thomson's Falls) he took to be a gentleman farmer. He eventually became destitute in Durban as he had lost all his wealth and his family in England had disowned and disinherited him.

He lived in one of those tumble down private hotels near South Beach and they discovered him dead in his bed after he had locked the door and drank himself to death. For a few days he lay there until other residents complained of a smell..they eventually found him there ...he had been dead a few days. An  old school friend of mine who also knew him, told me this ending...it so tragic it will bring tears to the hardest heart...Chris was there at the time, I wasn't, being in the Cape. They wanted to give him a paupers burial but Chris would not have it and although just a student with a little money got him buried with a decent tombstone at Stellawood cemetery in Durban. I was very upset when I heard.

He was indeed a very distinguish nobleman...always upright and stood straight and he was loved by people, my ex-wife burst into tears when she heard this .RIP Foggy...you were a good man.

Incidentally there was a very old lady around the watering holes of Kloof, Hillcrest who was in the Happy Valley group, a few years ago...a real naughty +90 something who had a twinkle in her eye, and still full of sparkle. Often came to "The Hungry Duck" and she had a few stories to tell. I find these people entertaining...they had a zest for life. She must be well dead now and probably been older than Mike Hoare.

Mike if you;re interested there's an article in Tatler why aristocrats are drawn to Kenya although vastly different to what it used to be, they still keep on coming...didn't William and Kate spend their honeymoon there?

British aristocracy in Kenya: Corruption & Jack Marrian case | Tatler

A guy who was a mercenary in Kinshasa and the Congo under Mad Mike related the operational instructions prior to entering any town.

No one is to enter any bank or jewelry store. Off-limits to all except 2 I/C and Mike.

I for one never wondered why...........