Bill Mitchell was born in Nairobi, Kenya and grew up on his parent’s coffee farm at Makuyu, near Thika. When he was 5 his brother Anthony was born, and at the age of 6 he went to St Christophers, a small boarding school about 80 miles away in Nanyuki. This was then evacuated during the war to the Kinangop plateau. He enjoyed his time there, and having other children to play with, after the remoteness of the farm. He remembered the spectacular view over Lake Naivasha and the Rift Valley beyond, but it was far from home, so he only saw his parents once a term.
Bill then went onto Kenton in Nairobi, but the building was soon taken over by the army, so the school moved to Westwood Park Hotel at Ngong. Sadly during this time his mother died suddenly of Cerebral Malaria when he was 9. So in the school holidays he and Anthony went to live with two different families nearby as his father was away in the army, based in Ethiopia.
At the end of the war, Bill travelled with his father to England to start at Marlborough in September, but he didn’t arrive until January!
His father had completely forgotten to inform the school that they were stuck on route in Suez after their ship was requisitioned for moving troops. Bill had a great time based at a camp on Lake Timsah in Egypt, swimming, sailing and canoeing with a handful of other children. He became very behind with his schooling, having also missed the previous term in Kenya. When he eventually arrived at Marlborough, he said he felt quite famous, as the ‘missing boy’. To his credit (and his teacher’s!) he soon caught up and won the end of year Form Prize.
Bill remembered the severe winter/spring of 1947 when there were national shortages of coal and food, and everyone ate whale meat. The water in the school baths froze overnight, as they had to keep the windows open as there was an outbreak of around 200 cases of scarlet fever. The boys in beds either side of Bill were ill, but strangely he never caught it. Instead, he was the only case of German Measles in the whole school. He enjoyed his time at Marlborough, loved hockey and excelled in most areas especially science.
He shared a study with Hugh Cantlie, and they became lifelong friends. Hugh described Bill as a quiet chap with a good sense of humour, who always considered everything he said very carefully. It wasn’t until their retirement, and living 20 minutes from each other, that they discovered they were in fact 3rd cousins! Sadly Hugh died just a week or so after Bill.
After Marlborough Bill went onto Wye Agricultural College for his BSc Agriculture, which included a year on a remote farm in Scotland. He then went to the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad for postgraduate study. He started his long-distinguished career in 1955 at the Ministry of Agriculture, Tanzania where he worked at coffee research stations in Bukoba and later Lyamungu, near Moshi. It was the foundation for a sixty-year long association with Robusta and Arabica coffee that took him to pretty much every country in the world that grows coffee to give his expert consultancy advice.
While on leave in England Bill met Judith Warne Browne. They were soon married in the tiny church at Makuyu in 1962 and lived high on the foothills of Kilimanjaro with yet more stunning views across the Rift Valley. Their first son Charles was born in November 1964 and then 18 months later, their daughter Elizabeth.
In 1967 they moved to Jacaranda, near Ruiru in Kenya where Bill was the Head of Agronomy at the coffee research station. Four years later their son Tim was born. Bill’s father Hugh and stepmother, Nina sold their farm and retired to Malindi on the coast where the family joined them for many happy holidays, swimming and snorkelling in the marine park. Bill had a passion for nature and developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the East African wildlife, whether in the bush or the sea.
In 1976 the family moved to Hampshire in the UK for Bill to start a new career with Booker Tate International as a Senior Consultant, based at Bloomsbury House, London. They then moved to Yarnton in Oxfordshire, as the company moved out to Masters Court, Thame where he worked until 1991. Bill had multiple assignments to 16 different countries during this time which continued onwards for a 14-year long spell as a freelance consultant, sometimes with Booker Tate, and sometimes for governments or NGOs. By the time he retired in 2004 he had visited over 75 different countries.
His life was full of adventures and some extremely close shaves. He’d encountered cartels, militias, rebels, coups and juntas – all in his stride. He drove a vw beetle through a mountain pass in the Alps, unaware it was closed due to extreme winter weather conditions. He’d been stalked by a lion, charged by rhinos, tipped from a boat by a hippo and stood his ground in the face of a bull elephant. He was one of the founding members of the Kilimanjaro Mountain Club, climbed it ‘a few times’ and was part of the mountain rescue team. He and his friend built a porters’ hut at Kibo, the last overnight stop for climbers attempting the summit.
Bill felt lucky to be able to travel the world with his work and loved meeting new people. He once said, ‘the more different people are to oneself the more interesting they are’. He and Judy managed frequent visits back to visit his parents in Kenya, as well as visiting relatives in New Zealand and Canada. They enjoyed numerous holidays around the world, often tagged on the end of a work trip, but their favourite place to go back to was Jamaica.
Bill continued his lifelong passion for fly fishing well into retirement and enjoyed volunteering with river conservation. He was an active member of his local Probus Club where he would occasionally give talks. He and Judy enjoyed being part of a strong village community in Yarnton, and helped with numerous things such as the history society, the lunch club and driving the elderly to their hospital appointments.
In the last eight years Bill bravely managed a heart condition while caring stoically for Judy who struggled with arthritis and Alzheimer’s, until she died in September 2023.
Bill was a true gentleman, extremely kind, modest, and always interested in others. He was someone to trust, an understated man who did not seek the limelight, yet was so thoughtful and always worth listening to.
He was a loving father to Charles, Elizabeth and Tim, and devoted grandfather to Rufus, Sam, Ibby and Nell. He died peacefully at his home age 92, his mind and humour remaining sharp to the end. His love, companionship and many travel stories will be greatly missed by his family and friends.
