Daisy Hascott

Among the Indian laborers imported to help build the railroads in Kenya was Rajit Mehtar, Daisyπs maternal grandfather. His daughter, Snikta, Daisyπs mother, planned to give her daughter a traditional Indian name, but Sergeant Hascott flipped a coin and it was decided the girl would be named Daisy. Only years later did Mr. Hascott admit that he used a double-headed coin. Daisyπs father, Owen Hascott, was born in Inda to a British Sergeant Major and his wife who settled and spent the rest of their lives there. Their son became a member of The Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry that was used by the home office to put down the Mau Mau rebellion. Owen Hascott distinguished himself in the conflict, even giving evidence before Sir Kenneth Kennedy O'Connor in the trial of Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi, whom O'Connor sentenced to death in 1957. The Hascotts remained in Kenya despite the anti-Indian sentiment because Anglophile Kenyans still yearned for some of the Englishness with which they had grown up. The Boy Scouts remained a favorite of middle-class Kenyans who preferred their children to receive an education in the manners and language of the Empire and Mr. Hascott played a key role in the Kenyan Boy Scout movement. His income at that time, however, derived mainly from the safari trade. Big game hunting was big business and Mr. Hascott earned an extremely comfortable living from it, operating several stations around the country. The family stayed in Mombassa until 1980 when Daisy was born. They settled in York and Mr. Hascott became a supplier of goods to the British armed services. He was made an MBE in 1996 and retired in 2003. Daisy received a degree in International Relations from the University of East Anglia in 2002 but has turned her attention toward the arts, arranging exhibitions on the continent while traveling for an art book distributor, Art Data. Her own work springs from the relationship of nativism and nomadism, and the impossibility of heritage, ≥It is an acquired trait and as such cannot be handed down. It must be pursued and an addiction to this pursuit leads to a too fervent nationalism≤. Daisyπs work is built upon the fantasy of conquest and the fall of empire. Having never been to India, she appears to be Indian, and though born in Kenya she is by no means African. The fluidity of borders and the facade of citizenship give her ample material to examine the idea of homeland, her own background being a case study; her work has been influenced by Constable, Ankawara, and Raj literature. Sir Kenneth died in Surrey in 1985, aged 88. On the 50^th anniversary of the day he was executed, a bronze statue of Kimathi was unveiled in Nairobi city center. Daisy met Martine Gilbert on a train from Strasbourg to Paris.