and Lord Delamere. Although there is no actual definition of what constitutes a member of the Happy Valley set, it is generally agreed by writers that it refers to European colonials located in or around the area of the Wanjohi Valley, who were infamous during the 1920s–1940s period for a number of scandals, usually concerning infidelity and abuse of drugs or alcohol. Some of the most notable members of that clique are the following:
Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere One of the first British settlers in East Africa,
Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere (1870–1931),
K.C.M.G., is credited with helping form the Happy Valley set. Lord Delamere first travelled to East Africa in 1891 for lion hunting and returned yearly to resume the hunt. In 1894, he was mauled by a lion. As a result, he limped for the rest of his life. He is also credited for inventing the term "
white hunter". In 1896, he relocated to Africa and eventually settled in Kenya. In 1906, he acquired a large farm, the Soysambu Ranch, which would eventually rise to . Lord Delamere is also considered to have contributed significantly to the development of Kenyan agriculture. He quickly became well known among the European community in Kenya. He was active in recruiting settlers to East Africa, and deeply admired the culture of the local
Maasai. There is a story of Delamere's riding his horse into the dining room of Nairobi's Norfolk Hotel and jumping over the tables. He was also known to knock golf balls onto the roof of the
Muthaiga Country Club, the pink stucco gathering-place for Nairobi's white élite, and then climb up to retrieve them. At the outbreak of World War I, Delamere was placed in charge of intelligence on the Maasai border, monitoring the movements of German units in present-day
Tanzania. He married
Lady Charles Markham (née Gwladys Helen Beckett) in 1928. He died in 1931.
Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll A Scottish
peer and notorious philanderer,
Josslyn Victor Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll (1901–1941) abandoned his diplomatic career in Britain and scandalised society when he eloped with a married woman, Lady
Idina Sackville. The couple were married in 1923 and relocated to Kenya in 1924. They became the most celebrated of the '
Happy Valley' set and their home,
Slains (named after the former Hay family home of
Slains Castle), became a venue of social life, notorious for its orgies. Idina, Countess of Erroll, divorced him in 1929, because he was cheating her financially. Lord Erroll was already having an affair with married woman Molly Ramsay-Hill. The couple eloped. When Ramsay-Hill's husband found out, he traced them and horsewhipped Lord Erroll in public at
Nairobi Railway Station. Erroll married Molly in 1930. In 1934, Lord Erroll joined
Sir Oswald Mosley's
British Union of Fascists (B.U.F.) and, on his return to Kenya a year later, became president of the Convention of Associations. Early in 1939, Erroll's wife Molly, Countess of Erroll, died from the effects of consuming a concoction of alcohol,
morphine and heroin. On the beginning of World War II later that year, Lord Erroll became a captain in the
Kenya Regiment and accepted the post of
military secretary for East Africa in 1940. During late 1940, Lord Erroll met
Diana, Lady Delves Broughton, the new, glamorous and much younger wife of
Sir Jock Delves Broughton, 11th Baronet. Lord Erroll and Lady Delves Broughton soon became lovers. Their romance was a very public one. Delves Broughton admitted to have discussed it openly with Lord Erroll. However, in January 1941, Lord Erroll was found shot dead in his car in an intersection outside Nairobi. Although Delves Broughton was charged and tried, he was acquitted of the murder. Numerous books, movies (including
White Mischief) and articles have been written on the murder mystery and various theories have been argued; the murder may have been solved by material discovered in 2007 suggesting that Delves Broughton was guilty after all.
Lady Idina Sackville A British aristocrat, daughter of the 8th
Earl de la Warr and cousin of poet
Vita Sackville-West, Myra Idina Sackville (1893–1955) scandalised society when she divorced her first husband
Euan Wallace, losing the right to see her two sons, who were later killed while serving in World War II. Idina abandoned her second husband Captain Charles Gordon for her lover Joss Hay, the future Earl of Erroll, eight years her junior. Together, they relocated to Kenya in 1924 and essentially pioneered the decadent lifestyle of the Happy Valley set. Idina became notorious for hosting wild parties, which included spouse-swapping and drug use. Stories were also told of how she often welcomed her guests in a bathtub made of green onyx and then proceeded to dress before them. After she and Erroll divorced, she married twice more. She died in 1955.
Countess Alice de Janzé Born Alice Silverthorne (1899–1941), she was a wealthy heiress from Chicago and Buffalo, New York, daughter of an alcoholic felt manufacturer and niece to magnate
J. Ogden Armour. She lived in Paris since the early 1920s, together with her husband, Count Frédéric de Janzé. The couple first met Joss Hay, Earl of Erroll and his wife, Idina, when the latter two lived in Paris during the early 1920s. After the Hays relocated to the Wanjohi Valley in Kenya, they invited the de Janzés for lion hunting, in 1925 and 1926. The de Janzés lived in a house next to the Hays for several months. Alice had an affair with Lord Erroll and later with Raymond de Trafford. When the de Janzés returned to Paris, Alice abandoned her husband for Raymond. Alice made international headlines in 1927, when she shot Raymond in a Paris railway station and then shot herself. It was later revealed she did this on account of her anguish, after Raymond told her he could not marry her. They were both hospitalised but survived; Alice was tried by a Paris court and got away with a four-dollar fine. When she returned to Kenya in 1928, she was forced by the government to leave the country as an undesirable alien. In 1932, she and Raymond married in France, but separated almost immediately and later divorced. Alice later returned to the Happy Valley in Kenya. Depressive, alcoholic and addicted to morphine, she remained in Kenya until she committed suicide by shooting herself in 1941. Prior to her death, Alice had been considered as a suspect for the murder of Lord Erroll.
Count Frédéric de Janzé A French nobleman from an old aristocratic family of
Brittany, Comte (Count) Frédéric de Janzé was also famous in France for his career as a racing driver. After an invitation from their friends, Joss and Idina Hay, he and his wife, Alice, first travelled to the Wanjohi Valley, Kenya, in 1925 and spent months there, hunting lions. Frédéric had an affair with Idina, while Alice was having an affair with Joss. Frédéric wrote a memoir,
Vertical Land,
Raymond de Trafford Son of
Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 3rd Baronet, Raymond Vincent de Trafford (1900–1971) was a British nobleman from an old Irish aristocratic family. His career first started in the
Grenadier Guards or the
Coldstream Guards (1919–1924). In late 1924 or early 1925 in London for a £50 wager he had a five-round boxing contest with a fellow club member, the 22-year-old Sir John Charles Peniston Milbanke. A gambler, womaniser and alcoholic, de Trafford was a notable presence in the Happy Valley set during the 1920s, and had numerous lovers, including
Alice de Janzé and
Kiki Preston. He was reported as having large estates in Kenya, of at least . but almost immediately He visited all Australian states, and moved within the sporting social circles including horse racing in Sydney and Kalgoorlie. De Trafford returned to England in April 1936, although it was hinted he would return to Australia in January 1937. De Janzé was granted a
decree nisi for divorce in October 1937. On Friday, 3 March 1939, at
Cheltenham, England on a country road, de Trafford hit and killed a cyclist with his car he was sentenced on 6 June 1939 for three years in
Maidstone Gaol for manslaughter. In August 1946 he was before the London Bankruptcy Court, for liabilities of £1960. De Trafford married Eve de Vere Drummond (daughter of Northamptonshire cricketer
George Drummond) in May 1951. He died on 14 May 1971 in
Northampton. In 1955, Diana married
Thomas Cholmondeley, 4th Baron Delamere, and increased her land fortune. For many years during the 1960s and 1970s and until the death of her lesbian lover, Diana lived in a three-way relationship with her husband and Lady Patricia Fairweather (daughter of the
2nd Earl of Inchcape).
Leone, Cavaliere Galton-Fenzi Leone,
Cavaliere Galton-
Fenzi was the founder of the Royal East African Automobile Association, REAAA, in 1919 and honorary secretary until his death on 15 May 1937. He was the first man to drive from Nairobi to Mombasa in January 1926 in a car of the brand Riley. There is a monument to this effect on Kenyatta Avenue. In 1923, Galton Fenzi started negotiating for loan cars so that they could be tested in East African conditions. He received several vehicles, notably among them a Riley 12/50 from the Riley Motor Car Co. Ltd. of Coventry, which was used by Fenzi and Captain Gethin to pioneer a route from Nairobi to Mombasa in January 1926, a distance of . He also pioneered the Nairobi – Dar es Salaam to Malawi route, and the Nairobi-Khartoum route. The EA Standard of 1924 quotes: 'Galton Fenzi is always doing things, and he does them so quickly the public has no time to recover its breath!’.
Others Others included Gilbert Colvile, Hugh Dickenson, Jack and Nina Soames, Lady June Carberry (stepmother of Juanita Carberry), Dickie Pembroke, and Julian Lezzard. Author
Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) was a friend of members of the group, and writer and pilot
Beryl Markham associated frequently with the Happy Valley set. == See also ==