I’VE SCOT TO FIND INSPIRING MARK
Kenya flight plants seed for new book
A CZECH novelist has launched an international manhunt to find a mystery Scottish chopper pilot – so she can write his life story.
Hana Hindráková met the Scot on a flight from Kenya on the way home from a writing trip to Nairobi.
She met the man – believed to be a 50-year-old who works as a helicopter pilot in Kenya – as he returned to Scotland for a break. She now wants to create a fictionalised account inspired by his life.
Hana, 37, from Prague, said: “I contacted the Record as I thought it was my last chance to find this man. I am looking for any information which can help me get in touch with him.
“I am a Czech writer focusing on novels about Kenya and I would like to meet him again but now I do not have any contacts for him. His name is Mark. I didn’t get his surname.
“He is about 50, he flies a yellow helicopter – probably a rescue helicopter – near Mount Kenya and lives in Nanyuki in Kenya. He has British and Kenyan citizenship and he has family in Scotland.
“He is married and he has an adult son who is 20. Before working in Kenya, he worked in Uganda, South Sudan and in other countries. I met him in the plane from Nairobi to Dubai on September 12, which departed at 10.45pm from Jomo Kenyatta National Airport.”
Hana believes the man may work with the armed forces, possibly at British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK), a permanent training support unit based mainly in Nanyuki.
She added: “From Dubai, he was going to Glasgow and he lives somewhere on the Scottish coast. He probably works for BATUK in Kenya and was going to Scotland for a holiday for four weeks.
“I would be very grateful for any help and information about him. I went on the internet trying to find him but I wasn’t successful. I have been inspired by his life story but I wouldn’t intend to write it for real.
“I don’t want to scare him and, almost always, I mix reality with fiction and use different names.”
Hana has visited Kenya many times and based five of her novels there. After leaving university in 2008 she started her own non-profit organisation, called Fair, and visited Kenya to work on cooperative projects.
According to her biography, she became fascinated by the country and its people, and it is the setting for five of her novels – Nobody’s Children, Karibu Kenya, The Volunteer, The Enchanted and Unbreakable.
Nobody’s Children was ranked among the best-selling books of her publisher and was nominated for an award.