A holiday fit for a King

It’s not just beachgoers that are heading for Kenya. Chris Leadbeater celebrates a royal love affair with the country

There is an old adage, much-repeated and frequently misquoted, that history repeats itself “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”. But when a plane door opens onto a scene of African sunshine three days from now, it will be a case of history repeating itself, not in dark or comical tones, but as something beautifully symmetrical.

How else to describe the state visit of King Charles and Queen Camilla to Kenya? Here is a four-day odyssey, beginning on Tuesday (October 31-November 3), that will conjure an air of nostalgia for some, and perhaps even a tear or two in others. For it will see the king and queen wander, not just around a familiar friend of a country – but in family footsteps.

This will not be Charles’s first official overseas tour since his accession 13 months ago. This year alone he has touched down in Germany (Berlin), Romania (Transylvania) and France (Paris). But a journey that will take him to Nairobi and Mombasa – as part of the celebrations for 60 years of Kenyan independence (the exact anniversary is on December 12) – will be his first trip to a Commonwealth nation as king.

And it is here where the beautiful symmetry arises. His mother’s first overseas tour as monarch was to Kenya, in 1952 – although, of course, it was not intended to be. The story has become well-worn in its retelling, but even so, retains a sparkle: the then-25-year-old heir to the throne enjoying a short safari break with her husband prior to a longer visit to New Zealand and Australia in her ailing father’s stead. The couple were staying in Aberdare National Park when, on the night of February 6, George VI died, and the Princess Elizabeth who had gone to bed at the Treetops Hotel woke to find herself queen.

The events of the last two years have been a closing of this particular chapter. It is not just that the two main protagonists have left the stage – the Duke of

Edinburgh having died in April 2021 – it is that the location has also moved on. Treetops Hotel (below) shut its doors in October 2021, a victim of the pandemic. Talk of a reopening is, as yet, just talk.

Charles, then, will both echo the past and turn a page in the coming days. Like his mother (who also spent time in the country in 1972, 1983 and 1991), the King is no stranger to Kenya. This will be his fifth official tour – following visits in 1971, 1977, 1978 and 1987.

Nor will it be his first time there with a significant woman in his life. Back in February 1971, he was accompanied by his sister, in what was a glamorous outing for a new generation of young royals. Charles was just 22, Princess Anne 20. Photos of the era capture them in black tie and ballgown, during official functions in Mombasa and Nairobi, and in safari khaki while watching wildlife in Masai Mara National Reserve.

The latest royal visit will have a more sombre aspect. Stops on the itinerary will include a new museum of Kenyan independence, and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Uhuru Gardens – a park in Nairobi that commemorates the country’s winning of its freedom from the British Empire. The King’s own office refers to this weight of history, stating that the programme will “acknowledge the more painful aspects of the UK and Kenya’s shared history, including the Emergency [the rebellion against colonial rule between 1952 and 1960, and its brutal suppression]. His Majesty will take time during the visit to deepen his understanding of the wrongs suffered in this period by the people of Kenya.”

But if the tour will have a more sombre tone than those in previous decades, it is unlikely to be the last. And, as and when history repeats itself again, it will do so not as tragedy or farce, but as happy recollection. Just as the current king visited Kenya as a younger man, so did the next. Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton at a lodge at Lake Rutundu, at the foot of Mount Kenya, in October 2010 – later explaining that “I just decided that it was the right time. The African continent holds a very special place in my heart.” Whether or not the nowPrince and Princess of Wales head back to Kenya in the immediate future, few, perhaps, would bet against their return after their own coronations.