In the run up to Independence day in 1962 engineering contracts in Kenya evaporated completely. So my father and Bill moved their company to neighboring Somalia. The move was a surreptitious one because they had been warned not to remove any assets from Kenya. After they had arrived at Kismayu and set up a new company there two of their employees then drove two equipment laden trucks and a boat from Mombasa to Somalia. In order to evade the Kenyan authorities they traveled at night and crossed into Somalia through wild country to the East of the existing border post at Tumticha.
Martin & Paul now morphed into a sea-food canning operation in Kismayu where it was renamed Martin & Paul Kismayu Ltd. It became the first company established in Somalia after that country's independence. While setting this new operation up they had many adventures along the wild coast of Somalia between the Kenya border and Mogadishu. They encountered lots of wildlife including lions on the beach and came across an elephant that had been swept out to sea and was being eaten alive by sharks. They also had to politely decline an invitation to take part in a secessionist plot being fermented by the clans they were working with on the coast!
At Kismayu they built a small factory, caught seafood that they canned for the European market and tried to make a go of it. During this time Bill and my father were constantly traveling back and forth between Mombasa and Kismayu. I had my only Mombasa face-to-face meeting with my father when he was back on one of these trips. It was an awkward, chance encounter in December 1962 and took place in the Nyali Beach Hotel car park. I think he was embarrassed and tried to hide that by showing me how to work the electric-powered cabriolet roof of his car. But in the back seat of the car sat an old black Alsatian. It was Klavs! When I stroked his head my former Dar es Salaam companion peered at me with eyes that indicated that I might not been forgotten! That was the last time I saw Klavs and it was the last time I met my father.
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