Straight on Till Morning by Mary S. Lovell

the place next door had been bought – snapped up by somebody else. Quite rightly, it was a real bargain! Anyway, her establishment was soon completed and she moved in with her horses. 11
    Tubby was the son of Abraham Block, a pioneer who had arrived in British East Africa in 1903 from South Africa, at the time when it was proposed that the protectorate could provide a homeland for the Jews. This scheme did not materialize, but Block stayed on, and although he had no money he was befriended by Lord Delamere. Over years of immense hard work and sacrifice he became involved in many business activities ‘usually profitably’, but on one occasion at least, he was reduced to his last span of oxen. His experience must have been akin to that of Beryl’s father, though Block would not have had Clutterbuck’s initial advantages of birth and social position. Tubby was born in 1919, and was still a small child when his father acquired the Norfolk Hotel through a shrewd piece of wheeler-dealing. Abraham gave up his other interests to concentrate on the hotel business, founding Block Hotels, and in the process creating a dynasty. 12 Tubby, like Beryl, was a child of Africa. They dealt well together.
    Beryl’s house at Naivasha was at the edge of the lake on the way to Hell’s Gate, the district adjacent to the Maasai Reserve. It was the best house she ever had in Kenya, and the one she most liked. The number of birds was almost incalculable and the area was once described by Sir Peter Scott as the finest bird sanctuary anywhere in the world. ‘One was always awakened by the cry of the fish eagle, and a boat trip on the lake was like stepping into a Disney film. There were quite incredible birds everywhere,’ Doreen Bathurst Norman recalled. ‘From the giant goliath herons and countless kingfishers, to lily trotters dashing across the lily leaves. The early-morning haze on the water reminded one of a painting by Turner – it was a world of magic.’ Tubby Block continued Beryl’s story:
    After Beryl moved into Naivasha, Aldo Soprani and I gave Beryl quite a few horses. She used to tell us which horses to buy. She always did us extremely well in that respect – we were leading owners for three years running. We had four Derby winners and won every other classic – every other race there was to win on the Nairobi race course.
    Buster Parnell told me of some of the horses that Beryl located for Block and Soprani:
    Mountie was one of them. He was a mountain of a horse but pound for pound he was the best horse we ever bought. Beryl was in the hairdresser’s when she heard the asking price, £1000. That was two arms and two legs in those days. She said she’d take him. ‘Tubby can afford it,’ she said airily. He won eleven races and was never beaten. Spike was another good horse she found for Tubby. Money (other people’s, especially) was no object to Beryl. When we went to buy Spike, she watched him gallop down the paddock then she turned to Noreen Kidman and said, ‘Yes, we’ll have him.’
    â€˜Hold on,’ said Noreen. ‘You don’t know how much I want for him yet.’
    â€˜I said we were buying him, sweetie,’ said Beryl. ‘Not paying for him. You’ll have to discuss the price with Tubby.’
    A constant source of annoyance to Block and Soprani was Beryl’s habit of running several of their horses in the same race. She was never sure which was the best horse on the day. If she told them X was best that day, they could almost be sure that Y would romp home.
    In the 1961–62 Derby she ran two of our horses, Rio Grande, which was the favourite ridden by the stable jockey, and Speed Trial, ridden by veteran jockey Arthur Orchardson who was then sixty-three years old. Needless to say Speed Trial won! 13
    Beryl always regarded Speed Trial as ‘the most brilliant horse I have ever trained, until he went wrong’.