Alexander Laidlaw Purves, known to all and sundry as Jock, had recently returned to his farm having served as a captain in the 3rd King’s African Rifles during the First World War. He was then in his early thirties, a powerfully built and athletic man. Born in England in August 1886, the eldest of four brothers, Jock had been educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh. During his years at Fettes the school was turning out scholars and international sportsmen in profusion, many of them combining both learning and athletic skills, and ‘the 1st XV must have been very hard to get into’.8 Nevertheless Jock had won his place in the rugby team playing centre three-quarter beside the brilliant K. G. Macleod, as a consequence of which he was somewhat overshadowed on the playing field. He was halfway up the Modern VI form when he left (the scholars were in the Classics VI), and was considered to be bright but ‘a late developer who would have made more of a mark academically if he had stayed a year longer’.9 His father was Dr William Laidlaw Purves, the founder of the prestigious Royal St George’s Golf Club, and Jock’s three brothers all carved distinguished army careers for themselves and were renowned all-round sportsmen.
In 1905, at the age of eighteen, Jock joined the London Scottish regiment. In 1906 he played in his first rugby international, and during the following two years he was capped ten times as a Scottish International. The Times described him as ‘that type of Rugby footballer who, with half a try in sight made it a whole. He took part in Scotland’s memorable victory over the South Africans in Glasgow in 1906, in which season Scotland also beat England, Ireland and Wales.’10 In 1908 he left the regiment and went to Madras to seek his fortune. At the outset of war he joined the Madras Volunteers and shipped to Kenya, where he later transferred to the King’s African Rifles. At the end of the war he managed, with the help of his family, to buy 600 acres of land at Njoro, and in the early days, before his own farm was self-supporting, he worked for Clutterbuck on a part-time basis.
There is a story, which may be no more than rumour, that Jock became one of Clutterbuck’s biggest creditors and arrived at some sort of deal regarding the amount of money he was owed. The story goes that Jock agreed to forget the debt if Clutterbuck would allow him to marry Beryl.11 Beryl smiled serenely at this story and claimed she couldn’t remember, but recalled Jock as ‘a very nice man, and a kind man, very strong…’
Beryl was only sixteen when she became engaged to Jock in August 1919. There is also a story that Clutterbuck could not remember her exact age and ‘aged’ her along with the racehorses,12 so that on 1 August each year Beryl became a year older.13 Assuming this story is true, even by Clutterbuck’s reckoning Beryl would have been seventeen when she married Jock on 15 October, though in fact she was still only sixteen, and roughly half the age of her bridegroom. The marriage certificate gives her age as eighteen and this was witnessed by her father and Lord Delamere, both of whom must have known very well that she was not eighteen. But this was probably done in order to meet the legal age requirement for marriage in the protectorate.14 Delamere was always prepared to sacrifice strict accuracy where expediency was at stake.
There were the inevitable newspaper reports of the wedding: in The Leader the report was headlined ‘A Sporting Wedding’, whilst the report in the East African Standard was accompanied by a typically wooden photograph of the wedding party, in which Beryl appears a very mature sixteen-year-old, and could easily have passed for eighteen. Jock Purves was over six foot tall and powerfully built, but Beryl is very nearly his height and is inches taller than her father.
East African Standard Saturday 18 October 1919
NAIROBI WEDDING
Miss B. Clutterbuck & Captn A. L. Purves
Local Society Event
There was a large influx of up country folk for the wedding at Nairobi on Wednesday afternoon of Captain Alexander Laidlaw Purves KAR, and Miss Beryl Clutterbuck daughter of Mr Charles B. Clutterbuck of Njoro. The friends and relatives made a congregation that filled All Saints Church. The bridegroom’s brother officers of the KAR were strongly represented.
Just on 2.30 pm the bride, accompanied by her father who gave her away drove to the church and amid the strains of ‘Lead us heavenly father lead us’ proceeded up the aisle followed by her train bearer Miss Elizabeth Milne. The bridegroom was attended by Captain Lavender, his best man…The bride looked charming in a dress of ivory satin with an embroidered corsage, veiled ninon ornamented with pearl trimmings and a girdle of orange blossom. Her train of ivory satin was embroidered with roses and thistles. Her veil was white silk net with a garland of orange blossom.
After the wedding ceremony a very largely attended reception was held at the Norfolk Hotel when photographs of the wedding group were taken. The KAR band played outside the hotel. The newly wedded pair received the congratulations of a host of friends and left for the honeymoon which is to be spent in India.
Mrs Purves’ travelling costume was a tailored suit in white gabardine, pleated shirt and neat coat with a long rolled collar.
The dress with its symbolic motif consisting of roses for England (the bride), and thistles for Scotland (the groom), implies that a considerable amount of planning went into the event. The list of gifts included all the usual paraphernalia: a number of cheques, a cake stand, a gold chain, a silver cigarette case, a silver calendar and vase, silver napkin rings etc. Lord Delamere gave a silver spirit kettle; and the more unusual items included a cutting whip and a box made from a rhino’s foot.
While the couple departed for India where they stayed with Jock’s relatives, and enjoyed a honeymoon which Beryl remembered as ‘great fun and very glamorous – we both had people out there and played a lot of polo’, the protectorate, shortly to become a colony, experienced the first influx of soldier settlers. The Soldier Settler Scheme was a lottery for which the participants qualified by virtue of war service.
Two ballots were held, one at the Theatre Royal in Nairobi in May 1919, and the other a few weeks later at the Colonial Office in London. Since the prizes consisted of plots of land which were to be offered to the winners at virtually give-away prices, it is hardly surprising that the scheme was a huge success and many thousands of applications were received. Before the year ended some fifteen hundred new settlers had arrived in British East Africa to settle mainly in the highlands.
Clutterbuck was still experiencing financial problems and watching the profits of his good years on the farm drain away as he continued to meet his contractual obligations. Beryl and Jock returned from honeymoon and settled on Jock’s farm which adjoined Green Hills. To Beryl’s great delight her brother Richard, whom she had last seen in 1906, came out to live with Clutterbuck.
Richard was a good rider and rode in several races, never winning but sometimes placed, and there are several records of him riding in races with his father. He never beat his father, and in the end the climate again beat Richard. The handsome fair young man died aged twenty-one. The cause was either cerebral malaria or tuberculosis – possibly the effects of both.15
In the summer of 1920 Clutterbuck was photographed receiving the prestigious East African Standard Gold Cup, which he won with his beautiful little mare Ask Papa. At the Nairobi meeting in July his horses won six out of the seven races. But in November 1920 he announced that he was selling up his entire holdings to meet his creditors’ demands. Even the good harvest did not save Green Hills. In addition to the problems Clutterbuck experienced over grain he was badly affected by the revaluation of the rupee in February 1920. He would have been in the minority if he had not been heavily in debt to the bank. The revaluation of the rupee, a decision taken in far-away London, brought many farmers to the verge of bankruptcy since overnight their indebtedness increased by 50 per cent. The settler who went to bed owing £5000 woke up owing £7500, as well as suffering the continuing injustice of interest at eight per cent on the £2500 he had never borrowed.16
The East African Standard records Clutterbuck’s decision with regret. ‘…as a lover of the racehorse
, he took risks in bringing to the country English thoroughbreds with a view to breeding. As a horseman Mr Clutterbuck has always proved himself one of the best and today he holds pride of place in the list of winning jockeys for 1920.’
The farm was sold off lock, stock and barrel. Jock bought the flour mill and the stables by private arrangement and took Beryl away whilst the sale of her old home and its contents was effected by auction. Lady Alice Scott (subsequently HRH Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester) attended the auction on behalf of her uncle, Lord Francis Scott. Her only purchase, she recalled, was a wheel-barrow.17 The horses were sold in two auctions. The first was held on 14 December, at which Lord Delamere was quick to snap up Camsiscan, then an eight-year-old. Forty-seven horses, including the best stallions and mares, were sold along with some very promising yearlings and two-year-olds. Lord Francis Scott bought much of Camsiscan’s progeny.
The East African Derby was held on New Year’s Day 1921 and Clutterbuck entered My Tern, riding her himself under his colours of black and yellow. He must have desperately wanted to win, not only for the prize money but for the added value that would accrue to the horse, but everything was against him. Exceptionally heavy rains had made the going very heavy and My Tern slipped rounding the final bend, unseating her rider. He had entered a great number of runners that day, for the races were a prelude to the second auction of his horses which was to be held at Nairobi Race Course on the following morning. Richard, Arthur Orchardson and Clutterbuck all rode in races that day but without success: ‘It is some time since we saw the Njoro stable in such bad form,’ said the East African Standard’s racing correspondent, ‘for it did not saddle a winner during the afternoon. Mr Clutterbuck’s horses prefer galloping on the top of the ground and the mud on Thursday did not suit them.’18
Prior to the auction it was announced by the Kenya Jockey Club (until this time it had been known as the East African Turf Club) that a special race meeting would be held in February so that buyers at the auction would have an opportunity of running their horses without waiting until the June meeting. Even this inducement did not persuade the crowd to bid generously, although all of the horses bar five (who failed to reach the reserve) were sold under the hammer. Jock bought three horses on behalf of himself and some partners. The best price of the day was paid for Ask Papa, a brilliant mare bred by Clutterbuck out of Gladys (the first thoroughbred he had imported into the colony). It fetched 8000 rupees19 from Mr Eric Gooch.
Clutterbuck rode in the special February meeting, gaining two second places on the horses that had remained unsold, and it was somehow fitting that he should win the last race of the meeting for he had resigned from the Jockey Club and it was to be his last race meeting before he left the colony. Having placed an insolvency notice in the official gazette20 he accepted a position as trainer in Peru. He could hardly have chosen a more distant point on the map to escape from the stigma of bankruptcy, and Beryl was devastated. She later told friends that she felt totally abandoned, but to be fair to Clutterbuck he must have thought that Beryl was happily settled in her own household. Before he left he discussed with Beryl the possibilities of her becoming a trainer in her own right and as a parting gift he gave her Reve D’Or, a promising filly that had failed to reach her reserve at auction. He had already sold two of the five unsold horses, and the remaining two he left with Beryl to be trained by her, run under his colours, and sold when a suitable buyer came along.
Beryl obtained a trainer’s licence, the first ever granted to a woman trainer in Kenya. She engaged a professional English jockey called Walters to ride for her, and, operating from part of the old Green Hills stable, she began training a handful of horses. On 25 June there was a meeting at Nakuru and it was there at the age of eighteen that Beryl started her career. She ran two horses that were owned by Jock and his partners, obtaining a second place with Goblimey in the first race. But the important race of the day was a trial stakes for two-year-olds and Beryl had entered Cam, a previously untried son of Camsiscan. ‘To a good start, Cam took the lead, led all the way and won easily. Winner trained by Mr B. Purvis [sic],’ the East African Standard reported. On the following day the young trainer led in a further three winners.
A month later in more select company at Nairobi she repeated her success with three winners, including the Dewar Cup race. Shortly afterwards Cam won the Produce Stakes, confirming Beryl’s suspicions that he was a Derby candidate. At first owners did not flock to her stables. She had to prove her mettle. But by October her blue and gold colours had been seen in the winner’s enclosure enough to convince Mr A. Hogg and Mr A. Anstey to send horses to her for training. Beryl repaid their confidence by promptly securing a winner for each of them and in addition Cam romped home to win the big race of the day.21
Her success made Beryl the toast of Kenya society and now other owners, including Major Ben Birkbeck, sent horses to her. The name Mrs Purves began to appear frequently in the lists of winning trainers, as the name C. B. Clutterbuck had done previously, and in December she won four races on the eight-race card. Her own Pegasus came home to an exciting finish: ‘A great neck and neck finish was seen all the way down the straight and both Pegasus and Miller’s Daughter passed the post together, five lengths ahead of Vixen…the dead heat was divided.’22
Her first big test came in January 1922 with the East African Derby. Cam started favourite at odds of 10 to 1 on, with the horse’s half-brothers Cameo and Camargo (ridden by Richard Clutterbuck) also entered. ‘To a good start Camargo settled down in front of the field and led them to the bend for home where Cameo challenged and running on led Cam up the straight. Here the favourite looked beaten and Cameo ran on to win by a length. Two lengths between the second [Cam] and third.’23 The result was hotly discussed by the losing punters and in a subsequent edition of the East African Standard the racing correspondent was moved to comment on the dispute and the ugly rumours circulating in the colony.
Who would have thought that the Cameo we saw finish last at the September meeting would win this year’s Derby? I remember the Sunday morning she was picked up at Mr C. B. Clutterbuck’s sale for something like £90. After the [Derby] I listened to all sorts of suggestions as to how the favourite might have won the race. How absurd…who could have known better than Walters how to ride the favourite. He had lived with it and had ridden it in all its work. I hold no brief for Walters. He is a superior jockey, hence all the more reason that the public should be told when he makes a mistake. But upon this occasion he made no mistake. He rode Cam as any experienced jockey would. Knowing Cam had a superior turn of speed he was content to remain behind Camargo and allow the stable companion to make the running. As it was when the straight was reached Camargo ran wide and Cameo who was going smoothly all the way, seized the opening. Walters realised this and asked his horse to go on but he could not respond and the Derby was lost and won.
Unfortunately it was one of Cam’s off days…all in the glorious uncertainties of racing, and as it happens a favourite has yet to win this event. Now that all suggestions as to how the race should have been won have fallen to the ground the last excuse to fall back on is that Cam was ‘got at’. To my mind it is both childish and unfortunate.
Who are the persons supposed to have ‘got at’ the favourite? Could we not have discovered this by the position of the market? Would the books have laid 10 to 1 on the favourite if anything else had been expected to win? It is too absurd.24
To have achieved even a second place in the Derby at her first attempt, and at the age of nineteen, was hardly a disgrace. But the controversy upset Beryl and she promptly put all her horses on the ‘ease list’.25 By March, however, she had recovered her confidence and was racing again. During that year she obtained seven firsts (among them the Jubiland Cup and Lord Delamere’s Gold Cup), and numerous places for Jock’s consortium and other owners. But in December Beryl’s name vanished from the trainers’ lists; all the horses she had previously trained were run under the aus
pices of other stables and Jock sold his horses to Major Birkbeck.
The reason was that Beryl and Jock had begun to fight, sometimes physically, and their domestic circumstances were desperately unhappy. Despite her successes, Clutterbuck’s departure and Richard’s death during that year were traumatic events for Beryl. According to her contemporaries Beryl became ‘very wild and unhappy’.26 Jock and Beryl often had rows after which Beryl ‘went off’. Once she stayed away for three weeks – Jock had no idea where she was or how to set about finding her.27 There is a story – well known among the couple’s friends that Beryl had a number of lovers during this period, and that each time she took another lover, Jock knocked a six-inch nail into the post by their front door ‘…until eventually there was quite a long row of nails. We all knew what they represented…’ said a member of their set.28
When Beryl married Jock two years earlier she was little more than a child. She had had an extraordinary upbringing and could hardly have known about the duties expected of a wife in normal circumstances, or even how to behave within a family unit. Jock was probably not as sensitive to her distress over her father’s departure as he might have been, and he was jealous of the time she spent with the horses. He could never have measured up to Clutterbuck in her eyes (few men could) and Beryl’s attitude towards him was often scornful. It was when Jock began to suspect that she was being unfaithful to him that the problems escalated into public violence. Almost certainly she stayed with Jock longer than she would have done if there had not been the horses to consider, but eventually she ran away from home, taking only Pegasus and what she could carry. She had no money and nowhere to go, except to friends.
It was during this period that she first became involved with Karen Blixen29 and Denys Finch Hatton. Beryl could not remember how they had met. She said she had ‘always known them’. They all attended race meetings, and in 1986 Beryl recalled that as a child she used to walk the Blixens’ dogs. Whenever Beryl was in Nairobi at race meetings or on business, she used to visit the baroness at her home on the outskirts of the town.30 Karen – or Tania as she was known to her friends – wrote to her mother, Ingeborg Dinesen, every Sunday for many years and her letters are an elegant chronicle of those years in Kenya. In April 1923 Tania31 wrote:
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