Child of Happy Valley

Book excerpt: Juanita Carberry's story is a colourful and passionate memoir which reveals the darkness behind glittering White Mischief society. This story starts with her childhood in the 20s and 30s on a Kenyan coffee farm. Brought up by her father's black servants and white governesses, much of her time was spent riding and with the tame wild animals. This was the White Mischief era, when parents were busy partying and children lived their own hidden lives. But there was school to attend in Europe and later South Africa, a different establishment each year, where she struggled to speak English instead of Swahili. There was finishing school in Switzerland, and even in Kenya the less innocent adult life began to encroach on her African idyll. At fifteen she became involved in the Lord Erroll affair and is the only person to whom Delves Broughton confessed to the murder of Lord Erroll.