Gilgil and its environs is the place where the Happy Valley set lived.
Nowadays Gilgil is located in the Highlands of Kenya about 200 miles from Nairobi on the main road. Gilgil is Kikuyu Land where alot of Kikuyu people live too (and a few Maasai) - it is near the Towns of Nakuru and Lake Nakuru but it actual fact it is closer to Naivasha and Lake Naivasha. The great mountain range the Abaderes is located near to this area too. It is in the heartlands of Kenya.
Oh i forget - Lord Delamere, also lives down the road from Gilgil. He was in the newspaper recently for shooting someone on his land. This is the second time that this happened he shot and killed someone before - the first time he got off though...
The place has two or three seasons - the long hot season the windy season and the wet. It is very mountainous going up to about 14,000 feet.
The Happy Valley set also liked to play golf and drink 'sundowners' (G & T's - for the quinine - it prevents malaria) at the Gilgil County Golf Club. It is still running and it is still a whites only Club.
Nowadays, the whites who live around Lake Naivasha go to the club which is famous for its Sunday Roast (usually there are a bunch of people to play Tennis there.
Also the local English Preparatory School teachers like to drink there on a Friday night. So do the chaps from V.A.E
There is a swimming pool inside Pembroke School which recently first admitted it's first black pupil.
The children like playing cricket, rugby, horseriding, tennis and of course swimming.
There are also boda boda bicycle riders who will cycle you on the back of their bicycle (which has a useful seat welded to the back of it) for 30 bob (30p stirling). They will cycle to the local town called Gilgil, they won't cycle any further.
Gilgil is a small dusty sweltering little scap of a place.
There tracks of the railroad run past the Gilgil club and towards Gilgil.
Gilgil is also near a another town called Langalanga - (meaning racing car - its a onomatopaic word). There used to be a great race track there but now there's just a great thick wedge of black tarmac which surprisingly doesn't melt.
The Army base for the Northern Command in Kenya is based there. The Army sometimes arrests and tortures people there. Usually with electric car batteries. Very nasty.
A friend of a friend of mine had been arrested on the assumption that he had stabbed someone in Gilgil town. My aquentance was going to the Army Police station to bring his friend food, because they wouldn't feed you in there.
At another point, when I was in Gilgil - I nearly got beaten to death by a mob of people for forgetting to pay the bus driver 20 bob (Kenyan shillingi) 20p. That was another hairy point.
The place is full of danger under the surface.
But the Tennis Courts at the Club are fun. And the beer is niiiice and cold.
Source: Brain