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I always was disappointed there were not any interviews or accounts from people who may have visited with the man in later life in Scotland, then I found this in a magazine called the Uganda Journal, published in 1954, written by a man named Kinloch, also an ex British officer,and a friend through correspondence it seemed. He wrote it as part of an obituary they printed, about a visit to Corriemolie.
I wish he said more about what they talked about, but he does say that Bell was reticent when talking about his exploits.

(I transcribe it here)

After recapping Bells career and general points of his life story which are commonly known, he writes:

I had the privilege of visiting Bell and his charming wife when I visited Scotland in 1951...my wife and I visited Bell's home Corriemollie, and were welcomed by an elderly, white haired man of soldierly bearing, great charm of manner and remarkably blue eyes. It was not long before the ice was broken and we were poring over maps and reliving Bells travels in Uganda. Our brief call ended with an invitation to stay for several days which we gladly accepted and the time passed all too quickly. Reticent as he was about his accomplishments, he was intensely interesting when persuaded to talk about his travels and his hobbies. I recollect him saying ""You know when you first called, I wondered what sort of person you expected Karamojo Bell to be, probably a tough swashbuckling old ivory-poacher, and I felt that you would be surprised to be met by someone who looked like a retired country parson." He was not far from the truth.

Apart from his other accomplishments Bell had a great artistic ability. I well remember his pictures hung round the house in particular a magnificent one painted by himself of a pride of lions and a lone old bull elephant drinking on opposite sides of a waterhole in the moonlight. His gun room contained a variety of weapons and he showed me a take down model .318 in a special light case*, saying wistfully that he had planned to visit Uganda by air in 1939 for a last elephant hunt but that the war had intervened and that he now felt he was too old. He was then nearly 75 (actually 71), but was still stalking red deer.
I said goodbye to him with regret and for the last time, for he died at his home at the end of June 1954.
The death of Karamojo Bell marks the ending of an era of professional elephant hunting in Africa which will never again be known and brings to a close the colourful career of a very great hunter sailor and gentleman.

(He closes with the lines from Stevenson's Requiem - hunter home from the hill etc.)
*This take down .318 was built on a Springfield rifle, bought from Rigby.

These pictures (from another source) I believe, were taken on this visit:

THis is Corriemollie today, much as it was seventy years ago (run now as a bed and breakfast) :

Steel target still hanging in the grounds. (Corriemollie was also run as a hunting lodge after his wife Katie died in the 1980's but I dont think they would be shooting by the house in those days -those are probably Bell's bullet holes.)

Just to illustrate his family origins, this is CLifton Hall today, his family home when a child and where he was born. (I think the property came from his mothers family.)

THis photo has no doubt been shown before but here it again. TO put it into context, this is Bell at a young looking 35 years old. Only months before he was in the Belgian Congo, and this is his flying license, obtained as part of his enlistment and training in the Royal Flying Corps. By early 1916 he had a commision and was back in East Africa flying for the Army.

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If you carry a cat home by the tail you will receive information valuable to you for the rest of your life.
Mark Twain

Edited by CarlsenHighway (08/08/16 03:09 PM)

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