Travelling back to Britain from India in 1922-23, the ship developed engine problems necessitating stopping in Mombasa for a period of weeks “The engine fell out of the bottom of the ship” said my father. During this interval, Ray and his friends travelled to Nairobi by train, and he told me on a number of occasions, always with great feeling, that when they crossed the Athi plains at dawn, “stiff with wild animals,” and got to Nairobi, he made up his mind instantly and irrevocably, to stay in Africa forever. He returned to Britain, resigned his commission in the Indian Army and returned to Kenya soon after, possibly the same year. He was however, unemployed, but having a talent for mechanical engineering, succeeded in obtaining work as the plant supervisor on a cotton ginnery somewhere near Lake Kiyoga. Whilst travelling through Kenya, he met the Foster brothers who were farming in Kaptagat, and who became lifelong friends, one result being my sister and me attending their local primary school – a three day train journey from Morogoro, our childhood home.
The details of his early days in Kenya, are mostly unknown, but during this time, he must have succeeded in making a reputation in big game hunting, because he became the co-organiser of three famous safaris, the Prince of Wales hunting trip to Kenya (1928), the overland expedition to the Olduvai from Nairobi (1931,) and the Crile expedition on Lake Manyara (1934). Based in Nairobi, he became a member of the Muthaiga Club, then the most prestigious institution in Kenya, and was on friendly terms with the sort of people like Delamere and Cole, who were very influential in the colony at that time; but there were some in this social order who later came to be known for their feckless and immoral lifestyle portrayed so vividly by James Fox in his book “White Mischief”. I recall the name of Lady Idina Hayhoe as someone whom he liked and admired, but he strenuously denied ever being part of the scandalous ‘Happy Valley’ set. At some uncertain stage in this period, some photographs which he identified to me, are taken from when he was employed as the Elephant Control Officer in the Voi region of southern Kenya (figs 6a,b), and it is likely that this was where he developed his skill as a big game hunter, which could explain his involvement with the Royal safari.
My father referred on many occasions to his friendship with Denys Finch Hatton, although without any detail that I can recall, of when or where they first met. There is no reference to Ray Hewlett in the edited letters of Karen Blixen (ref) so it is likely that she and Finch Hatton had already separated. Ray and D FH were best-known at the time for taking the Prince of Wales on a hunting safari in the Voi region in 1928 (ref) commemorated in the well-known photograph, which is also the only surviving record of them together (fig 7a). Denys Finch Hatton, with his African assistant, was killed on 14 May 1931 when his aircraft engine failed shortly after take-off. Recalling the fatal crash as he often did, my father made it quite clear that D FH and he had recently agreed to become partners in the big-game safari business. The week of the accident, Ray was detained in Nairobi, which was the reason he was not in the aircraft at the time. He told me, memorably, that he thought it likely that he may have been able to save the situation, having been an instructor in the RFC, with specific practice in handling engine-failure on take-off.
That year, 1931, Ray, on the on the basis of his reputation as an experienced hunter, was engaged by Louis Leakey to lead an overland expedition to the Olduvai from Nairobi (ref). According to the informative Wikipedia article, Hans Reck’s ‘Olduvai Man’, discovered in 1913, had first attracted Leakey’s interest in 1927 on account of Reck’s claim that no artefacts were to be found. This lead Leakey to question the age of the hominid, and in 1931 he organised a return expedition, under the auspices of the British Museum, in order to settle the issue (on which the two men placed a bet). From the detailed account of the expedition’s activities in his book “White African”, Louis Leakey knew there was no road across the Serengeti to the Olduvai and he sent Ray to reconnoiter a suitable route for motor vehicles. In this he had the assistance of the District Officer at Loliondo, a Mr Priddle, who had walked to the gorge and was able to provide my father with a sketch map. Ray not only drove his car across the Serengeti (and back), the first person ever to do this, he and Mr Priddle located the Olduvai itself, to the disbelief of Hans Reck, who said it could not be done, and that Ray must have found a different, more accessible gorge (ref Leakey).
The party, including Vivian Fuchs, a young geologist, reached the Olduvai on September 28th, 1931, and in his book, Leakey describes their consternation on finding that the pool which had sustained Reck in 1913, had dried up! The water hole at Mgurugine was undrinkable though usable for shaving (fig 8e ) and the only spring, also known to Reck, was at Langavata, a day’s journey on foot, necessitating water to be carried to the camp-site, every 3 days by a team of porters (fig 8f). In the picture of Reck and Leaky (fig 8g), numerous artefacts are displayed, showing Reck to have been wrong, and Leakey the winner of their bet. The frontispiece to the “Ngorongoro Story” by Lithgow and Lawick, shows Hans Reck and Ray Hewlett with the 2 male lions that were said to have been intent on attacking them, and Leakey said he had to shoot a wounded rhino which charged him. During their time in the gorge, the Langavata spring gradually dried up, necessitating an end to the work of excavation. The return journey to Nairobi with was hampered by mechanical failures and eventually heavy rain.
The photographs of the expedition (figs 8a-i), are from an annotated album sent to my father by Arthur Hopwood, the British Museum paleontologist, and Hans Reck presented Ray with a signed copy of his book “Die Schlucht das Urmenschen” describing the expedition and its findings, published in 1933 and illustrated with his own sketches and photographs. However it is in Gothic script and unreadable to my German friends.
Curiously, there is no official report of the 1931 expedition in the British Museum of Natural History – to the surprise of the Archivist, nor any specific reference to it in the Leakey-Hopwood correspondence of the period (ref), although one of Leakey’s letters has the letterhead “East African Archeological Expedition, 1934-35, Fourth Season”, with himself as the declared leader. In one of Hopwood’s letters, it is clear that there is disagreement between them over certain archeological technicalities, which I assume to be the cause of Hopwood’s failure to document the expedition’s findings. Today, Louis Leakey’s name is forever associated with the Olduvai man, whilst Hans Reck and Arthur Hopwood are almost unknown.