Terence Adamson

George Adamson was born in India in 1906, and his brother Terence arrived a year later. Their father had taught himself building and engineering, attitudes he passed on to Terence who, like him, became an expert engineer who built and maintained every hut at Kora as well as its fences, airstrips and roads.

Terence Adamson became a gifted amateur botanist who knew every tree, shrub and plant within a hundred miles of Kora by its English, Latin and Swahili names as well as an extraordinary knowledge of their medicinal
properties. He was also fond of the animals but had one unaccountable failing in George’s eyes – he preferred elephants to lions! However, they did have one distinction in common. Both had been mauled by a lion or crocodile and Terence’s cheek still bore the scars made by Juma’s grandson after he raked him with his claws.

Having followed George to Kenya he left Africa only once. That was in the 1950s when a friend saw him digging up a debbie (a tin oil drum) at the back of his hut. His friend asked Terence how long the debbie had been buried, what treasure it contained and why he was disinterring it now. “Seven years, my suit, going round the world” came the laconic reply. It was the only one he ever owned and was later returned to the debbie where it rests to this day!

George recalled how Terence had always believed in the brotherhood of elephants and men. Once, when he found an elephant trapped in a well, his road gang begged him to shoot it for meat, but Terence told them to bring him barrows of stones which he dropped into the pit, allowing the elephant to free itself and return to the herd.

In the mid-1960s Terence worked as an assistant Game Warden in Tsavo National Park and at Marsabit and Isiolo in the Northern Frontier. It was around this time that he came to George’s aid at Kora, where his expertise at erecting camps and building roads was invaluable. Over the years he continued to extend Kora’s network of roads so that George and Tony could follow the lions as they explored further and further afield.

In 1977 an incident occurred that nearly put paid to Terence’s building activities for good. He had been re-thatching a roof and set out the next morning to burn the debris just outside the gates. Without looking round to see if the coast was clear he jumped out of his vehicle to set light to the rubbish. The next thing he knew he was flat on his back with the claws of a lion on his neck and his face in its jaws.

His labour gang who had been following close behind jumped from their truck, yelling at the tops of their voices and throwing stones at the lion who let go of Terence and began to back off. Having heard the commotion, George ran out to see the culprit, a lion called Shade slinking off into the bushes, and Terence on the ground with blood streaming down his face. There were holes in his neck and his teeth were exposed through a tear in his cheek; but miraculously Shade’s canines had just missed his eye and somehow gone between his carotid and jugular arteries.

Later, after having undergone extensive plastic surgery he returned to Kora where he continued to work until October 1985, when he was rushed to Nairobi with kidney failure. The hospital staff thought he was dying but he confounded them and returned to Kampi ya Simba, desperately frail but determined to continue his life’s work, which he did until he died of an embolism in February 1986 and was buried among the flowers and acacia thorn trees he loved so well.