An African Love Story by Daphne Sheldrick: book review

Daphne Sheldrick (1934-) is a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, an honour bestowed by the Queen in 2006. She is also the founder of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, named in 1977 after her husband’s death to continue his work on wildlife conservation work with her family. Their establishment of an elephant orphanage, formally called the Orphan’s Project, is known worldwide, in which young elephant and rhino orphans are rescued and rehabilitated, and returned to the wild.

AnAfrican Love Story: Love, Life, and Elephants (2012) is her memoir of growing up in Kenya and her love of animals of all kinds, and specifically her work with her husband, David Sheldrick (1919-1977). It is a chronological account that covers her early life with her first husband, Bill Woodley (1929-), whom Daphne married in 1953 and divorced in 1960, and her meeting with Bill’s boss, David Sheldrick, whom she married in 1960. Her two daughters, Jill (nee Woodley) and Angela (nee Sheldrick), are an integral part of her ‘love story.'

Some of the book relates to the development and growth of the elephant and rhino orphanage and the relationships she has with a vast menagerie of animals. It is her tales of the human aspect of elephants that are most poignant, but this is secondary in detail to the personal aspects of her life.

However, her best writing appears in the first three chapters. She begins in the 1900s with her great-uncle Will. The Governor of the British colony of Kenya (then known as the British East Africa Protectorate) decreed in 1907 that if Will could bring 20 families to help build the colony, he would allocate them free land. She gives a marvellous account of the pioneers – 20 families in South Africa of Scottish heritage – who sailed for two months from Port Elizabeth to Mombasa, then travelled inland by train to Nairobi and afterwards in ox wagons for several months to their allotted land in Narok, and their ultimate move to Laikipia Plateau, north of Mt. Kenya. Taking all of their possessions in convoy – oxen, horses, dairy and beef cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, gees, turkeys, and pets, farm implements, furniture, boxes of books, bottles, jars, and sewing machines – it was a move of epic proportions. “And even when they finally came to Narok, they had to cross the Uaso Nyiro … a deep, wide, fast-flowing river. The only way to get to the other side was to swim the animals and float the wagons – a logistical nightmare … of course, there was nothing there for them when they arrived.”

She writes of the Mau Mau, her near death, the state of emergency in the 1950s, and the transition from colony to Kenya’s full independence in 1963 – although this is not in detail and is from a personal, rather than historical or political account. She writes of the Tsavo National Park, southeast of Nairobi, and the conservation of not only wildlife and endangered species, but also of animals that became household companions. She writes extensively about wild life poaching and the culling of elephant herds. She also writes, briefly, of David’s death from cardiac arrest at the age of 57, when she was only 43 years old.

The black and white, and more recent colour photographs, show her homes, marriages, Kenyan landscape, family, and of course the wildlife orphanage and animals. Hence, the title of the book is apt - this is an African love story – the love of David, her family, Kenya as her homeland, and its wildlife. But it is also about the love of life, one that has a purpose – and that is the main substance of the book.

As a note, the 2013 edition has a slightly changed title – focusing on the elephants, which is not quite the actual focus of the book. It is a personal memoir, not an environmental novel, or the specific, detailed history of the orphanage. The new title is Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).