Nicky Renouf

I was executive assistant manager at The New Arusha , for about 10 months in 1970.

I worked for African Tours and Hotels, and spent the time there as there were problems (aren�t there always) with my Kenya Work Permit.

I was only 20/21 and fresh out of hotel college. The previous young expats had decided to leave (due to the hard conditions imposed on us) and disappeared overnight, their tickets being paid for by some guests.

The Hotel was being run in a largly despotic manner, by Tony O'Brian, known to all as Mkaki due to the highly starched safari gear he used to wear. He had the most sophisticated spy network , and knew exactly what we had been up to , almost before we did it!

He was an ex hunter, and well I remember shooting with him at West Kilimanjaro,Tony sitting on a shooting stick , quaffing from his hip flask at the same time as effortessly shooting large numbers of sand grouse.

We worked extremely hard, often from 7 am till 2 the next morning, and that included his hard working wife who was I believe called Phil.

There are any number of stories about my time there, when parts of the old building were still in use, greeting the King of Denmark, the tanzanite smuglers shooting at each other as they went round the roundabout.

Lots of stories, but not a place I recall as being the happiest posting of my career.

Nicky Renouf