I love stories and this family chronicle is close to my heart. Initially started as an MA project, this fascinating account of a strong independent woman who faces impossibly unfair situations in England and Kenya is still in development. Hopefully, one day it will grace bookshelves all over the world…

 

Hospital hill

Hospital Hill is the partially fictionalised biography of a remarkable Englishwoman, based on a collection of her unpublished notes written over six-years in an extraordinary period of Kenya’s history.

In 1958 Molly Maud Holmes was invited to take up the position of headmistress at the first multi-racial primary school in Kenya. 

At this time Kenya was still a British colony but the country was hurtling towards independence following the Mau Mau uprising.

As a part of a landmark educational experiment, unofficially sponsored by the colonial government Molly Maud was set the seemingly impossible task of tutoring a group of mixed-race children to the same standard of education as the European schools. This radical notion was the first step on the ladder to fully integrated schooling in Kenya.

The events which prompted her life-changing journey firstly to South Africa and lately Kenya, are equally compelling and left heartbreaking echoes within the family that are still felt today.

You can follow the evolution of this biography and the story of Molly Maud as it unfolds through my journal…