To call Elizabeth Mumbi Madoka the mother of beauty pageants in Kenya would be accurate as she won the competition at the dawn of the nation in 1963.

She caught the attention of the head of state Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, who subsequently invited her to work as his social secretary at State House.

Elizabeth served through the entire Kenyatta presidency and a part of his successor Daniel arap Moi’s regime. She has now written a book, Miss Uhuru 1963: Working for Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, about her experiences serving the first Kenyan president.

The penning of such memoirs and autobiographies in recent years has given readers glimpses of local history.

Here is a woman who, while working for Jomo Kenyatta, was tasked with the role of looking after the president’s young children, including taking them to and picking them up from school. Jomo mostly remains a mysterious figure to many Kenyans, as little has been written about the man.

The reader’s appetite is whetted by Kenyan psychiatrist Dr Frank Njenga’s foreword, which, among other things, promises a glimpse of Jomo Kenyatta from a “non-political and purely human angle.”

Elizabeth writes about how the first president only once spent a night at State House. That one attempt at sleeping at the House on the Hill did not end well, as croaking frogs in the fish pond kept him awake.

He claimed that the noises were spirits of the white men who had lived at the presidential residence, and he had to be taken to his Gatundu home.

However, despite his aversion to sleeping at State House, he recommended the place to others. At some point, when Elizabeth felt her social life was being cramped by living at State House, she requested the president’s permission to live outside.

She reports that Jomo took her around the living quarters of State House and asked her where else she would find such luxury.

In her book, we learn that despite being at the forefront of helping Kenya get rid of its colonial rulers, Mzee was an incurable anglophile.

Even after the departure of the colonial governor, Jomo insisted on retaining the crockery bearing the queen’s insignia. His stock answer to any sort of criticism was that it was about the food and not the utensils. 

Dr Njenga rightly says that the book raises more questions than answers. He adds that it is just a teaser, and that any person with their version of those years is free to add to the body of knowledge.