In 1960 RMS assumed the duties of School Bursar on a part-time basis and in 1962 he became Housemaster for Junior Dayboys.

Music was important to the McLellan-Sim Family, especially Marjorie and musical soirees were often held at their home. Marjorie had acquired a love of operetta particularly Gilbert and Sullivan from her father, and was a good pianist.

RMS enjoyed fishing and as we all know Kenya was blessed with excellent trout streams. He enjoyed gardening and growing his own vegetables, from which large batches of home-made pickles were made.

Kenya Schools' Inspector for Art
What was probably not known to most of us at school at the time was that RMS was Inspector for Art at Kenya Schools. This duty required him to travel throughout Kenya to other schools to encourage the development of Fine Art.

Queen’s Coronation Medal
In 1953 RMS was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal. This honour was also awarded to two other members of staff, Headmaster Philip “Flakey” Fletcher and one-time Acting Headmaster and long time Deputy Head, Jack “Bush” Forrest.

The medal was the official commemoration award for H.M.The Queen’s Coronation on 2nd June 1953, and the list of recipients was officially announced on 30th April 1953. It was given on a discretionary basis by local governing authorities throughout the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Authorities were free to decide criteria for the award and the recipient list for that area. Recipients included members of the armed forces, government ministers, public servants and others such as serving police officers. A total of 129,051 medals were awarded, with Sir Winston Churchill being the most famous recipient.

Mr Sim as a Teacher
Good teachers seldom get a good press for their prowess in the classroom. Usually we remember their idiosyncrasies. Characters like Dougal Gammie or Storky Chadwick immediately spring to mind. RMS was in a different category.

Martin Langley (Nicholson 1956-61) recalls him in the following way:
“He was a low profile bloke, a very likeable personality, no discerning idiosyncrasies or sharp edges. I don’t ever recall him admonishing anyone or raising his voice in class. My memory of RMS is of him strolling around the classroom looking over one’s shoulder at pitiful efforts at drawing or painting. For most of us art was considered a welcome and relaxing break that was free of the rigorous mental approach required in say maths or science having to memorise wads of historical facts.

“For me Mr Sim was successful as a school teacher because of his very high standards and knowledge as an artist and also in the example he set through hard work and diligence both in the class and out e.g. sets for the school plays. And he was definitely successful in imparting to his students a broad understanding and appreciation of the visual arts which all go toward turning out a more well rounded product.”

Nigel Hayward (Rhodes 1954-57), a talented amateur painter who developed his artist talents well under RMS’s guidance and now living in Australia, put it another way:
“From my school reports I can only conclude that I learnt well under his guidance over four years. Robert McLellan-Sim was a very good teacher with a mild and patient manner with whom I felt at ease whilst being tutored.”

His brother John (Rhodes 1949-53) who sadly died in Spain in November, 2009, once reminisced:
“My favourite teacher was our art master Robert McLellan-Sim who always made lessons enjoyable and well instructed. I usually got good marks too. He did a lot of oil paintings of Kenya landscapes and was a very good painter of eucalyptus trees and Mount Kenya in the background. He was a well-known artist in Kenya.”

I would like to invite other Old Cambrians to submit their stories and memories about RMS.

The East African Standard on one occasion interviewed RMS for his views as a teacher of art and the state of art in schools in Kenya:
“There are not enough hours in the day for Mr Robert McLellan-Sim, a man who, besides being an enthusiastic teacher of art, is also a prolific and successful painter. He has been a painter since 1929. His real love and enthusiasm for his subject, and his own success in art, are he believes a terrific inspiration to his boys in class. He believes that, although real talent cannot, of course, be created by teaching, almost all boys can be taught to draw and appreciate good work, and he says he never had more than 5% of failures in the School Certificate examinations.

“Besides teaching at The Prince of Wales School, Mr McLellan-Sim visits other schools in the Colony to give encouragement and advice on the teaching of art.

“He thinks that considering the difficulties - few schools have proper art rooms and many improvise equipment - the standard of art in Kenya’s schools is very high while, for a colony of this size, the standard of art in general is immensely high.”

A Painting Career in Africa
RMS was a prolific artist, and during his time in East Africa (he travelled throughout Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar) he completed as many as 40 paintings a year. His work was in great demand, and over a period of some fifteen years he held ten One Man Exhibitions, mostly in Kenya, but at least one in England while on leave.

His work was purchased by many eminent people and was extremely popular as an official gift or a farewell present. The Colony of Kenya presented a McLellan-Sim painting to HM The Queen on the occasion of her Coronation in 1953, and HM The Queen Mother was presented with another to commemorate her Visit to Kenya in 1959. Many a departing dignitary at the time of independence received a McLellan-Sim painting as a farewell gift. Both Jake Fletcher and Amoeba Walker took McLellan-Sim works of art home with them to England when they left the Prince of Wales School. The Kenya Regiment presented a McLellan-Sim painting to Sir Patrick Renison as their departing Commander-in -Chief when he retired as Governor of Kenya in 1961.

RMS was a successful commercial artist, with his clients including the East African Tobacco Company, the East African Standard and the Uganda Tourist Board. His public works included the murals for the Kenya Agricultural Stand in the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition of 1952 in Bulawayo, the Nakuru Railway Station murals of 1957 and the 1960 mural for the National Assembly Building in Nairobi.

RMS designed the 1954 blue 10 shilling postage stamp depicting the Royal Lodge at Sagana, a signed mint copy of which has been presented by the McLellan-Sim family to The British Library. This is the one that caught my eye and got me started on this article in the first place.

Mr Sim’s Philosophy on Art
RMS’s move to Kenya in 1947 was a search for colour and space. His brief war service in the Far East obviously gave him a taste for warmer climes, brighter colours and wide spaces, aspects that were to feature strongly in his African paintings. He is on record as saying that he preferred landscapes and seascapes to portraits because he could go away on his own, often combining his field trips with fishing expeditions, during which he could turn to his sketch book when the trout would not jump!

In 1958, when back in England on home-leave, he told The Worthing Herald:
”I always paint sunshine. It was the sunshine that attracted me. I can’t paint greyness and cloudy skies, so Kenya is definitely the place for me.”

RMS described himself as “a very rapid, very concentrated painter”. He painted during all school holidays and often got two hours work in before going off to school in term- time. He never painted after dark as oil colours tended to play false under artificial light. He never worked at a canvas out-of-doors, where dust and insects were hazards and his usual method of operation was to make a pencil sketch with copious colour notes or perhaps a water colour, and then to work on the oil painting at home, where he set up his easel in one of the bedrooms.

A painting would take from eight to twenty hours painting time to complete; a very small canvas might be finished in one very concentrated day’s effort, while a larger work might take several days, the time varying with the amount of research and drawing needed.

Kelsey recalls that when the family lived on the Lavington Estate her father took over a wooden shack in their garden as his studio and that it was “out-of-bounds “ to all and sundry, including Mrs McLellan-Sim!

When interviewed in 1964 shortly before he left Kenya for the last time, RMS was asked about his conservative style of painting. His response was uncompromising:
“I am a recorder and proud of it. People say there is something lacking in painters who cannot do this abstract stuff. Perhaps it is the age in which I was brought up. I have no desire to change my style, and I presume I am what is called a square.”

It should not be forgotten that RMS lived in an age when few people had access to television, when photography was still far too technical and unwieldy for most, and before the age of the jumbo jet and mass tourism. It was not surprising therefore that realistic and well executed paintings of foreign places and exotic cultures would find a ready and intrigued market.

Square or not, Mr McLellan-Sim’s work was popular enough for him to be able to paint up to forty paintings each year for sale during his time in Kenya. Many ex-Kenyans of my generation now scattered across the globe still have his paintings hanging on their walls half a century after they were acquired.

Some Examples of Mr Sim’s Works in Africa

Sagana Lodge
RMS painted Sagana Lodge several times and one of these paintings was presented to HM The Queen by the Colony of Kenya in 1953 on the occasion of her Coronation. Another painting of the Lodge was presented by the Colony to the Captain of the B.I. vessel “Kenya” in 1958; this was hung in the main promenade deck of the ship’s First Class area.

Photograph of painting of Sagana Lodge

Rhodes Centenary Exhibition, Bulawayo
In 1953 the Kenya Agricultural Association commissioned seven murals for the Kenya Stand at the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition in Bulawayo to show the Colony’s main farming products, which at that time were wheat, tea, Ayrshire cattle, sisal, pyrethrum, coffee and Boran cattle. RMS was given a completely free hand in how he was to depict his topics, subject to two provisos. A very wide scenic view of Kenya had to be incorporated into every mural and in each case Africans and Europeans had to be shown working together.

Sisal Plantation at Taveta

Murchison Falls, Uganda
In 1957 the Uganda Tourist Board commissioned RMs to paint posters depicting local beauty spots. His picture of the Murchison Falls is perhaps his most well-known.

Murchison Falls

Dhows
RMS spent numerous school holidays along the East African coast sketching and drawing; his paintings of Arab dhows were particularly popular collectors’ items.

Dhow

Dhow

Dhow

Arab dhow- pen and ink

Pencil study of dhow

East African Tobacco Posters
Mr Sim undertook commissions for the East African Tobacco Company, and prints of two of his works still survive more than fifty years after he painted them.

Canoeists

Tribal Dancers

Old Zanzibar

Zanzibar street scene

Zanzibar street scene

East African Annual Review
For a number of years RMS’ eye-catching work graced the covers of the East African Standard’s Annual Review.

The Rainmaker

Wild Animals

Jacarandas

Nairobi Club Cocktail Bar
During the course of my research I came across this old black and white photograph of RMS sitting at the bar of the Nairobi Club in front of his painting of Mount Kenya.

This painting still hangs behind the cocktail bar at the Nairobi Club.

Nakuru Station Murals 1957
In 1957 RMS won First Prize of £200 in a competition organised by East African Railways and Harbours to design wall murals for the new Nakuru Railway Station. His winning entry comprised several murals totalling 750 square feet in size.

The main mural overlooking the Main Booking Hall depicted settlers looking over the Rift Valley, with Masai tribesmen and rolling wheat fields. A famous Hollywood film star is said to have been the model for the male settler- he subsequently had a successful career in American politics. Other murals included an imaginary scene of Nakuru Station in 1910, a decorative map of vignette portraits of Rift Valley tribes and the fauna and flora of the area.

Mr M. Grimsburg assisted RMS with the painting and installation of the murals.

RMS at work on Nakuru Station murals

Arrival at Nakuru 1910

Nakuru Station Booking Hall 1958

The Queen Mother’s visit to Kenya in 1959
RMS presented one of his own paintings of Mount Kenya to HM THe Queen Mother as a memento of her 1959 visit. Mr Sim subsequently received the following Letter of Appreciation from HM's Private Secretary.

Letter of Appreciation from Private Secretary to HM The Queen Mother

East African Mountains

Mount Kilimanjaro

Mount Kilimanjaro

Mount Kenya

Mount Meru (owned by an Old Cambrian now living in Australia)

African Hills

Ngong Hills

British High Commission, Nairobi

This painting was reproduced as a Christmas card for the High Commission

Carthusian Work Shield
During the course of my researches I came across an interesting reference to RMS’s involvement with the Carthusian Shield. This shield, made of mvuli wood, had been presented to the school in 1949 by the Old Carthusian Club of Kenya (former pupils at Charterhouse School in Surrey, England) as a trophy for the House achieving the highest academic results each term with the efforts of every boy in each House being recognised.

As many Old Cambrians may recall, Scott regularly won this trophy, winning it no less than twenty one times between 1949 and 1962. To commemorate this achievement, a replica was made (possibly by Mr Barnett, the woodwork master), painted by RMS and presented to Mr Chadwick, Housemaster of Scott. Mr Chadwick retained the replica, and took it with him back to England when he left Kenya in 1964.

Replica Carthusian Shield

I have not been able to establish why the Old Carthusian Club of Kenya decided to donate a Work Shield to our school. However we know there were some thirty Old Carthusians living and working in East Africa at the time and it is conceivable that one of them had a son who attended the Prince of Wales School. Alternatively one of our school masters might have had links with Charterhouse School. Ron Bullock thinks that E. M. Cobb, Housemaster of Scott in 1949, who was not an Old Carthusian, might have had a hand in the donation.
Can any other Old Cambrian throw light on the subject?

The Old Carthusian Club also donated a trophy for an annual inter-schools tennis competition.

Far Eastern Tour – 1961
In 1961, instead of travelling back to the UK on home leave, the McLellan-Sim family made a three month sea tour of South East Asia and the Far East, calling at Aden, Bombay, Ceylon, Singapore, Saigon, Hong Kong and Japan. Kelsey recalls how during the trip, her father took them to places he had visited during the war. On that trip he painted eleven oils and five water colours, all landscapes, seascapes or street scenes. These were exhibited privately at The Art Gallery in the New Stanley Hotel, Nairobi, on 4th September, 1961.

On 5th May 1963 Val Braun art dealer and painter who ran The Art Gallery, New Stanley Hotel, said he was very unhappy about RMS’s impending return to England. He had sold a number of McLellan-Sim’s paintings of Mount Kilimanjaro, Old Zanzibar and Mau landscapes:
“His leaving Kenya will make a big hole in my picture sales ...... I am very sorry indeed Mr McLellan-Sim is going away from Kenya.”

Mike Saville, Editor of “The Impala”, emphasised two aspects of RMS’s contribution to cultural life at the Prince of Wales School during the Fifties when in 1962, just prior to his retirement to England, he wrote:
“Mr Sim will have retired, too, before the next edition of the ‘Impala’ appears. The Headmaster paid a just tribute to his work and personality at Queen’s Day: ‘It is difficult to imagine the School without him, whether in the Art Room, on the Playing Fields, or with his Junior Day Boys. Nearly every new day boy has passed through his hands and must at some time have been grateful for his sympathy and interest. To the School’s Art Mr Sim has brought fame and honour, both with his teaching and with his pictures which are known throughout East Africa. He has been a popular and friendly colleague who will be hard to replace, and we wish both him and Mrs McLellan-Sim a happy return to the UK.

“I must again invoke an editor’s privilege with a personal note. In my first year here I endeavoured to produce a play, Shaw’s ‘Arms and the Man’, for which Mr Sim readily agreed to paint the scenery. His kindness and cooperation were exceeded only by the speed and dexterity with which three different sets sprang to colourful life. I remember making tentative, hesitant suggestions about various additions to enhance the sets, unsure of what I really wanted - only to find Mr Sim, with certain and masterly insight produced the very things that I had .... wished for, without my realising it. It was uncanny! But he did it again in the more recent ‘Pygmalion’- I could only marvel, then as now, and has a producer’s heartfelt gratitude.”

Mr O.C.Wigmore, who took over as Headmaster from Mr Fletcher in 1960 wrote of Mr Sim:
“ ... he is an artist of considerable distinction and in East Africa is extremely well known and his pictures are in great demand. His teaching of Art in the School is extremely successful and over the years a considerable number of boys have gone on from the School to careers in Art.
“In point of fact Mr McLellan Sim is the complete schoolmaster ... Although he no longer takes an active part in School games, he is an ever present supporter of all activities, is responsible for several aspects of School organisation and runs voluntary Art Clubs for both senior and junior boys. He is an extremely popular member of the staff, respected and liked by both the boys and his colleagues .... he must be one of the best Art masters a School can possibly have.”

In a letter written on 22nd March, 1963, Mr D.N.Nuttall Secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Education wrote of Mr Sim:
“In his sixteen years as an Education Officer in the service of the Government of Kenya Mr McLellan Sim has made his name in two different, if complementary, spheres - as a teacher of art and as an artist in his own right. He is by now one of the best known painters in oil of the Kenya scene, his work over the past years having been prolific and of a uniformly high standard. He has performed many commissions and executed numerous presentation pieces, he has repaired old masters and presented one man exhibitions, and he is a registered designer for industry (textiles).”

(So far I have been unable to track down any information about RMS having “repaired old masters” but I was not in the least bit surprised to learn of yet other thus far unrecorded skill of our old art teacher.)

Back to England – 1963
When the McLellan-Sim family returned to England they decided to settle in the West Country. RMS bought sight unseen a delightful three-storied listed stone house set in a quarter of an acre of walled garden in the middle of a beautiful old Cornish town.

For a number of years he taught art part-time at two Cornish schools, Fowley Grammar School and Poltar Grammar School.

He also continued to paint, and was a member of the East Cornwall Society of Artists. During the school holidays he and Marjorie travelled to the Mediterranean where he continued to indulge in his two great artistic loves, sun and colour.

Mediterranean Works

Sunny Street Scene 1970’s

Mountain scene

Pencil study

Pencil study

English Works

English Village

Hills and River

In retirement RMS continued to enjoy growing vegetables in his garden and he died in 1985 at the age of seventy eight, a few months after celebrating his golden wedding anniversary.

Marjorie survived him by twenty three years, passing away in 2008 at the grand old age of ninety six.

RMS In his late seventies

Auctions
From time to time paintings by RMS come up for sale at auction. Unfortunately his style of painting seems to have gone out of fashion, and prices achieved have been modest.

For example an internet search came up with an auction in London in January 1999 of a 20”x26” oil by RMS entitled “The Approaching Storm” which realised the paltry sum of £115 including buyer’s premium. An auction in New York in November 2009 of travel posters included RMS’s “Murchison Falls, Uganda”, with a price estimate of US$800-1000. The actual price realised is not recorded.

Murchison Falls poster

Styles of art tend to go in cycles but in RMS’s defence I would suggest people who bought his art while living in East Africa in the 1940s and 1950s did so because they liked what he saw and interpreted, and still have no intention of selling them. They want to pass them on to their children and grandchildren as memories of an age that has now passed.

Conclusion
When I first started researching into the life and achievements of RMS I had no idea what I would find.

It is now more than twenty five years since RMS passed away and fifty years since I sat in one of his art classes. Had I known at school what I know now about him and his talent, I might have paid more attention to his teaching! However, there was one thing he did teach me which still sticks in my memory even after all these years:
“Every painting has Perspective. What is Perspective? Think of a straight railway track on an African plain, and see how as it stretches into the horizon until the two rails finally merge. That is Perspective.”

Thank you Mr Sim.

Pencil Sketch of Main School and Clock Tower - 1950’s

Acknowledgements
When I first started out on my quest to find out what I could about RMS, I didn’t realise quite how much help there was out there. My heart-felt thanks therefore go to the following:

It took me some months to find her but, once I had managed to meet her, Kelsey McLellan-Sim was delighted to share with me her memories of her father and his memorabilia. Many thanks, Kelsey.

Ron Bullock (Scott 1949-53), Brian McIntosh (Rhodes 1953-59) and Martin Langley (Nicholson 1957-61) combined to act as long distance editorial committee members, making helpful suggestions and offering me the benefit of very long memories. Thank you, gentlemen.

John Davis (Grigg 1956-60) for information relating to life in Kenya in the 1950’s and for scanning all the illustrations reproduced in this article.

Peter Liversidge (Scott 1957-61) for his assistance in locating and interpreting Mr Sim’s RAF records.

Michael McCulloch (Scott 1955-61) for the material about the Carthusian Shield.

Keith Trowell (Rhodes 1954-57) and Nigel Hayward (Rhodes 1953-56) for sharing with me their memories of RMS.

Elizabeth Scoble-Hodgins (formerly Betty Walker) for her help in trying to trace Kelsey.

Dr. David Beech F.R.P.S.L. Head of the Philatelic Collections, The British Library, for meeting me to discuss the 10/= blue stamp (S.G 179) designed by RMS and for showing me the final proof held in the ex-Crown Agent archives.

Ros Westwood, Derbyshire Museums Manager, for helping me trace Mr Sim’s 1930’s painting “Reading Room at Buxton Library”.

The Archivist of the Old Carthusians Society.

Bonhams for helping me search for information about recent auctions of McLellan-Sim paintings.

Extracts from the East African Standard of the 1950’s.

East African Tobacco Company.

The Impala magazine was an excellent source for background information.

And finally, Steve Le Feuvre (Clive 1970-75), Webmaster and Secretary, Old Cambrian Society (UK), for encouraging me in the first place to undertake this project.

14th December 2010.

*******


Memories and Comments from Old Cambrians

Webmaster’s note: the RMS article has clearly evoked fond memories of many OC’s, now scattered across the globe, of Kenya and what it was like in the Fifties.

Derek Woolfall (Scott 1948-53)
" ....... you may be interested in passing on the attached scan – I collected stamps in those days (and still do), and made up First Day Covers of the QEII stamps issued in June, 1954. Knowing Mr Sim designed the Shs10/-, I did a cover for it, and asked him to sign it - which he did!"


David Pringuer (Rhodes 1952-55)
“Here is a scan of a painting by Mr McLellan-Sim that is in my possession. It was bought in Nairobi in about 1965 from the artist himself. He was actually my art master too, but sadly I was never any good”.


Nigel Moor (Grigg 1955-6)
“The illustrated essay on Mr Sim – who I remember with great affection - is quite wonderful and deserves to be published in book form .....I am sure Old Cambrians would be interested in purchasing a copy”.

Ted David (Clive 1952-6)
“I remember Mr Sim, but even more his gorgeous daughter, sweet ALISON, who often ‘paraded’ down the street in the morning in front of Scott and Clive Houses ..... a great wake-up call to all and sundry. I wonder what lucky fellow captured her heart .....”

Brian Heater (Junior Day 1967-8)
“I thoroughly enjoyed the article about past PrinceO master, R. McLellan-Sim. While he pre-dated my time at school by four years, the article made me re-live wonderful memories. Please forward my thanks to the author for such an enjoyable article!”

Tony Price (Hawke 1952-6)
“I was much amused to read the article on R. McLelland-Sim ..... I recall his impressive ability with a paint brush .. ... I do recall his enthusiasm for directing the painting of backdrops for school dramatic productions, and I may be mistaken but the painting as shown as being in the Nairobi Club looks like something he would be working on during our sessions with him - a very wide landscape was usually set up and under way in our art room".

Willis Kastel Nalwenge (Naivasha 1997-2000)
“I would like to say thanks for the article ‘Robert Lewis McLellan-Sim NRIAD –Talented Art Master of the Prince of Wales School 1947-63’. It is eye-opening and makes me proud to be a member of the entire Nairobi School Family ..... I was much impressed by the Nairobi Club Cocktail Bar painting. I have been to the establishment many times and admired the painting not knowing I shared history with it.”

John Plough (Scott 1951-5)
“The article by Neville Watson on Mr Sim caught my eye. It was well researched and reminded me of days at PoW when Sim was also my art teacher, unfortunately not one of his better students. However the article did answer a question, the answer to which has eluded me all these years and that was who on earth taught me about perspective. To this day if I decide to draw something my first mark on the paper is that elusive dot indicating where the railway lines converge and everything else on the paper relates to. Once that is established the rest of my sketches of buildings and boxes magically fall into place. Still nothing to write home about but oozes the comforting feeling that my presence in art classes was not entirely for naught.

“ ..... I am writing to identify some of the individuals in the photograph of a Colts team coached by Mr Sim ..... the photo was taken between the Gym and the Scott/Clive dining room. If my memory serves me right .... it is 1953-54. Looking at the picture with Mr Sim on the right, the lads standing in the back row and moving left to right are:-
(Standing)  John Plough,   ?,   ?,   ?,   ?,   ?,   Eddie Tiel
(Kneeling)  Dick Mumford (goalie), Billy Wainey, Andy Swan,   ?,   ?,   ?
“I recognise the faces but their names elude me ..... Jim (Haggis) Dow may be one of them. I also recall that Mr Sim designed one or more stamps for Kenya, but all of them may not have been accepted”.

Kester Brown (Grigg 1948-53)
“ ..... I remember him well both as my art teacher for a couple of years when he probably had more influence on me than I realised as I became a prolific painter all over the world years later and never had any other formal art lessons. I recently published a hundred of them in ‘Travels to the end of the World’ which is a compilation of paintings, photographs and poems of the Far North (Canada, Greenland, Spitzbergen and Iceland) and Far South (Antarctica, etc). He was in charge of tennis - a minor sport at the time when I was captain in 1953. I initiated the inter-house competition for which he presented the cup.

“I think my memory is of him telling us about shading and shadows in a complex drawing he told us about. I have a special interest in shadows and reflections in my photography.”

Peter Liversidge (Scott 1957-61)
“I greatly enjoyed reading your excellent biography of Bob Sim. You have really pulled together a great story of the man’s life and career, and the illustrations are a wonderful addition which bring the memories crowding back.

“I was also interested to see ... (a)mini -citation for his Mention- in-Despatches. Where did that come from? (WEBMASTERS NOTE- it was in a letter written by RMS to his wife from Ceylon in 1945 and was probably awarded for earlier service at RAF Benson).

“It was also good find when you turned up his getting a 1953 Coronation Medal. I knew that Fletcher and ‘Bush’ Forrest had both got the medal but wasn’t aware that Bob Sim did also. The only other Kenya European whom I knew well and who got the same award was Bill Mathers, father of Pat Mathers (Rhodes) and Ali Mathers.”

Brian Jeffries (Grigg 1949-53)
“How wonderful after all these years to read about R McLellan-Sim. I would concur with those who like me sat in his art class and couldn’t paint to save my life but, enjoyed his classes. One memory that I have, is the mural he painted on the wall of the then New Stanley Long Bar. When I visited Nairobi in April 2010 I purposely went to said hotel to see if the painting still existed. Unfortunately the Long Bar is no more and no one could tell me about that part of the hotel.

“A truly great artist.”

Geoff "Jock" Elliott (Hawke 1955-60)
“Please pass on my thanks to Neville Watson for a wonderfully nostalgic article that was a pleasure to peruse”.

Ewart Walker (Nicholson 1951-5)
“Just seen Neville Watson’s very interesting article on Mr R McSim.

“In my years at the PoW, I was taught by RMS for my whole time there. I was a hopeless pupil, made worse by the fact that at the adjoining desk sat Rob O’Meara, a talented artist even then whose class work made my efforts look even worse than they were.

“My memories are really rather vague (mainly due to my lack of skill/interest) but I well remember that large mural that resides at the Nairobi Club Bar actually being painted in normal class time. He had it spread right across the front of the classroom and kept doing bits of it as the term progressed.

“I did buy an RMS painting in about 1975 from Muter and Oswald in Nairobi auctions and even now have it up on our wall here in the UK.

“Going through the many paintings on the website I was very taken by the 'Zanzibar Street Scene' which seemed rather different to to RMS's regular style. Any idea where it is now?”


"Lake Naivasha and Mount Eburu"
Bill Poppleton (Nicholson 1960-4)
“I was very interested to read the article on RMS for a couple of reasons. First, like many, he taught me Art during my time at PoW, but his enthusiasm and encouragement ignited in me a love for all forms of Art which has continued ever since. Secondly, he and his wife were close friends of my grandmother, Mrs M.D.Poppleton, known as Poppy, and who was Matron of Junior House from 1945 to 1959. Many will and do remember her and although only 4’ 11” what she lacked in height she certainly made up for in character and energy.

“Because of her friendship and association with RMS I believe that when she retired she was given the original Mount Kenya painting by RMS which she treasured. I inherited from my parents when they passed away and have kept it in my study since. I attach a photograph of the painting which was given to herb as a gift. I trust that this may be of interest to others.”


"Mount Kenya"
Robert McCrae (Rhodes 1958-61)
“ ..... I don’t know the precise time when the picture was done .... so I’d say 1958 is a near enough guess. I remember that it was done from a photograph of the Africans ..... in the NFD. In the painting the European was replaced by a second portrait of one of the trackers.”


"Trackers in NFD"


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