Twentieth Issue: The Happy Valley Set

I'm sorry it's been a while! Life got in the way. This issue of the newsletter is pretty juicy though! It deals with scandalous behavior, including drugs, murder, and also suicide - if that bothers you please do not read.

The Happy Valley set was a group of British rich people who settled in the Wanjohi Valley in colonial Kenya and Uganda around the 1920s to the 1940s. They were known for their “decadent lifestyles and exploits, following reports of drug use and sexual promiscuity”. The area they were settled in was one of the first places in Kenya to be settled by white people. The main town, Nyeri, was where most of the settlers lived, and resembled a sleepy English village. Those who lived there were generally embarrassed by the Happy Valley Set. I’m going to go into a little further detail of some of the notable members of the Happy Valley Set so you can get an idea why.

Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere, one of the most British sounding men I’ve ever heard of, liked to go to East Africa to hunt lions. In 1894 he was mauled by one, and limped for the rest of his life, which sounds well-deserved, because what idiot goes out and hunts lions?? He got himself a ranch in Kenya and became the unofficial leader of the white settlers in the area, recruiting more to come. Apparently once he rode his horse into a hotel and jumped over the tables with it. Anyway, he died in 1931 but I guess he was notable because he started everything. 

Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll was a “notorious philanderer”. He abandoned his career and eloped with a married woman, Lady Idina Sackville, and moved to Kenya in 1924. They became the “king and queen” of Happy Valley and their home was the center of social life, “notorious for its orgies”. Idina divorced Josslyn in 1929 because he was taking advantage of her finances. It didn’t matter because Josslyn was already off having another affair with a married woman named Molly Ramsay-Hill. They eloped, and when Molly’s husband found out he found Josslyn and horsewhipped him at the Railway Station. It didn’t matter, because Josslyn married Molly in 1930. In 1934 Josslyn joined the British Union of Fascists and became military secretary for East Africa in 1940. Molly died a year before, after overdosing on a combination of alcohol, morphine, and heroin. After that, Josslyn became lovers with a glamorous young woman who was the husband of a Sir Jock Delves Broughton. Their romance was public and supposedly Broughton said it was all cool, but in 1941 Josslyn was found shot dead in his car. Broughton was tried but acquitted of the murder. He overdosed on barbiturates a year or so later and died. The murder of the Earl of Erroll is still unsolved. Below is a picture of Joss and Idina on their wedding day.

 

Idina, more specifically Lady Idina Sackville, divorced her first husband Euan Wallace and was no longer able to see her two sons who were killed in World War II. She married another man but left him for her lover Joss Hay mentioned above. The two of them moved to Kenya and set the standard for the fancy lifestyle of the Happy Valley set. Idina was known for her wild parties where there was spouse-swapping and lots of drugs. She would often greet guests while she was still in her bathtub, and would get out and dress in front of them. She married twice more after divorcing her lover Joss. Here's a picture of her.

 

 

Diana Caldwell married Sir John Broughton and moved to Happy Valley in 1940. Once there, she began to have an affair with Joss Hay, planning to divorce her husband and marry him instead. Joss was found murdered in his car in 1941. Bourghton was accused of his murder but was found not guilty in the trial. Though initially during the trial Diana supported her husband, when it was over she abandoned him. Writers on this subject have brought up many possibilities for Diana, saying that she either covered for her husband, helped him murder her lover, or murdered him herself. She divorced Broughton, married Gilbert Colvile, and inherited his fortune. She then married another baron later and got even richer. In the 1960s and 70s Diana lived in a polyamorous relationship with Lady Patricia Fairweather and her husband Tom Delamere. She was called the “White Queen of Africa” because she was the most powerful white woman in the whole continent when she died.

 

 

Alice was a wealthy heiress from Chicago and New York. Above is a picture of her. She looks very mysterious. She lived in Paris with her husband Count Frédéric de Janzé, which is where she and her husband met Idina and Joss. They got invited to go lion hunting to Kenya and lived as their neighbors in Kenya for a few months. Frederic (a race car driver back in France) had an affair with Idina while Alice had an affair with Joss (this guy had affairs with EVERYONE, jeez!) and then ended up leaving her husband for a man named Raymond de Trafford. Raymond was a British nobleman who slept with Alice but also Kiki Preston. Once he got so drunk he set a bunch of Kenyans’ houses on fire. I can’t figure out if he killed or hurt anyone but let’s face it, he probably did. He wanted to marry Alice, but his family said they’d disinherit him so he changed his mind.  In 1927, Alice was so upset when Raymond said he wouldn’t marry her that she shot him in a train station in Paris and then shot herself. They survived, and Alice was tried and just had to pay a four dollar fine. She eventually did marry Raymond, but they divorced almost right away and she returned to Kenya. She was depressed, and addicted to alcohol and morphine, and she eventually shot herself in 1941. She was considered a suspect in the murder of Joss as well. Raymond ended up moving to Australia, where he ran over and killed a man with his car. He went to prison for three years, and declared bankruptcy when he got out.

Kiki Preston (born Alice Gwynne) was an American socialite who moved to Kenya with her second husband Gerry Preston and spent their time hunting big game. Kiki was addicted to cocaine and heroin, nicknamed “the girl with the silver syringe” and she didn’t care who saw her when she shot up drugs publicly. She would send a plane to Frank Greswolde Williams (the drug dealer of the Happy Valley) whenever she ran out, and she had affairs with many men. Kiki introduced Prince George to drugs, so the royal family forbade them from hanging out. Apparently rumor has it that Kiki had a son with Prince George, named Michael Canfield. Anyway, after her husband died Kiki moved back to the United States. Her son was killed in World War II and she committed suicide soon after, jumping out of the window of her apartment. Below is a picture of her (on the right) with Joss and one of his wives, who she got addicted to drugs also.

 

 

There are a few other notable people who were tangentially involved with the Happy Valley Set, but their lives were interesting enough to warrant their own issue of the newsletter, so you will read about them in the future! As always, if you've got any suggestions for topics I should cover, please don't hesitate to reply to this email! I will leave you with this picture. From left to right, you will see Idina, Raymond, Alice, and Joss. They pretty much swapped spouses whenever, so it's interesting to see who's standing with who.