Happy Valley set
[3] During the mid-2000s, descendants of the Happy Valley set were publicized by the news, due to the legal troubles of Tom Cholmondeley, the great-grandson of Lord Delamere.
Some of the notable members of the Happy Valley set were: Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere and his son and heir Thomas Cholmondeley, 4th Baron Delamere; Denys Finch Hatton, his lover Karen Blixen; Bror von Blixen-Finecke; Sir Jock Delves Broughton and wife Diana Delves Broughton; Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll; Lady Idina Sackville; Alice de Janzé (cousin of J. Ogden Armour) and her husband Count Frederic de Janzé.
According to Ulf Aschan, "Witty, attractive, well-bred, and well read, Happy Valleyites were relentless in their pursuit to be amused, more often attaining this through drink, drugs, and sex.
The recession caused by the 1929 stock market crisis greatly decreased the number of new arrivals to the Colony of Kenya and the influx of capital.
[citation needed] The area around the town Naivasha was one of the first to be settled by Europeans and one of the hunting grounds of the hedonistic Happy Valley set.
[5] Geoffrey Buxton, the first colonial farmer in the area, had relocated up from the arid Rift Valley with its meagre rivers and a relentless dusty wind that gave Gilgil its name.
A biography of Idina Sackville, The Bolter, by Frances Osborne, includes stories of the origins of the Happy Valley set and features many of its major characters.
[citation needed] The 1999 UK television mini-series Heat of the Sun describes lives and crimes of some fictional Happy Valley dwellers.
[7] In 2019, British-American author Rhys Bowen published a murder mystery titled Love and Death Among the Cheetahs set in the valley.
[citation needed] Some of the most notable members of that clique are the following:[9] 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.
[citation needed] 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.
[12] 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.
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.
[13] A British aristocrat, daughter of the 8th Earl de la Warr[14] 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.
[citation needed] 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.
[citation needed] 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.
Kiki and her second husband, Jeromy "Gerry" Preston (1897–1934) first moved to Kenya in 1926, after being offered land on the shores of Lake Naivasha by a friend.
Kiki also had numerous affairs with men, including Prince George, Duke of Kent, whom she introduced to drugs, much to the dismay of the British royal family, which forbade them from meeting with each other.
[17] 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.
[21] On Monday 22 February 1932 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, he married de Janzé,[23] but almost immediately[17] deserted her (allegedly, because he feared her)[citation needed] on the SS Orsova in November 1932, and relocated to Australia.
[17] Aged 41 and recently released from prison, in November 1941 de Trafford indicated he had allegedly enlisted as a private with the King's Royal Rifle Corps.
[20] A British aristocrat, Sir Henry John "Jock" Delves Broughton (1883–1942) moved to Kenya, together with his new wife, Diana Caldwell, thirty years his junior.
Broughton eventually conceded to the idea of Diana deserting him and marrying Erroll, due to a prenuptial agreement they had made, that she could abandon him if she became enamoured with another man.
[citation needed] Born Diana Caldwell (1913–1987), she relocated to the Happy Valley in late 1940, together with her new husband, Sir John "Jock" Delves Broughton, a Baronet with extensive landed estates in England.
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).
[34][35][citation needed] 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.
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.
