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Once Raymond ventured into the manufacturing of fabrics, we decided to make headscarves for women. We settled on the red, black and white checked pattern common with the kilts worn by Scottish men.

Within a relatively short time, the headscarves became a popular accessory across the country partly because we had set the retail price at Sh10 per piece, which was affordable to the vast majority. Practically every woman in Kenya started donning one. We were already in every Kenyan home, and wherever women were to be found, there you would find one of our most iconic accessories.

Since I had already tasted the fruits of giving monopolies, I gave the contract to one Indian businessman, a move that did not go down very well with other retailers who also wanted to buy from Raymond directly. They complained bitterly about the exclusion. However, my foresight would soon be vindicated.

I had made it a tradition that whenever I visited a town, I had lunch with our biggest supplier there. One day, I travelled to Kisumu and had lunch with one dealer who really begged me to sell to him at least one consignment of the headscarves, which he said he wanted to sell in the Nyanza region as well as in Uganda.

After much haggling, I eventually relented and authorised an exemption for him. My team then dispatched a train wagon full of headscarves from our Eldoret factory. However, since there was no direct line from Eldoret to Kisumu, the train had to first go to the Nakuru station where there was an interchange.

Dealing with risks in the market

A few days after the lunch meeting, the dealer contacted me to complain that the consignment was short by six cartons. I found this surprising and got in touch with my team in Eldoret to find out where the leakage could have happened. But they confirmed to me that they had dispatched the right volumes of the consignment.

I then decided to inquire with the station master in Nakuru, just to be sure that the wagon had not been tampered with by railways staff. Alas! He told me that the wagon was yet to leave the station and that indeed, no one had tampered with the company seals.

Flummoxed, I asked my driver to take me to Kisumu where I had a second meeting with the dealer. I apologised profusely for the “mistake” and asked him to deduct the cost of the six cartons from the price we had agreed on.

He got out his cheque book and paid me for the consignment, less six cartoons. I banked the cheque and went my way but made sure to call the station master in Nakuru and asked him to send the wagon back to Eldoret.

After about a week, the dealer called me to protest that his headscarves were yet to reach him in Kisumu.

“But you told me the consignment was short by six cartons. The wagon must be out there somewhere,” I said to him, playing the fool. After about a month of this game, I wrote him a cheque and gave him back his money.

On another occasion, a banker, seeing how his customers were making money selling our fabrics, came to me and offered to buy all our stocks. It sounded like a risky venture and I was reluctant to give him a monopoly.

My biggest fear was that once we allowed him to control the entire market, he could manipulate the retail prices arbitrarily, which could hurt our market. However, he sounded very convincing and even gave a cheque for Sh5 million, which was a large amount those days, to demonstrate his commitment. In the end, we agreed to give him a three-month trial contract that could be terminated by either party after 90 days.

To his chagrin, he could not sell the stock he bought as quickly as he had initially estimated and his inventory ballooned swiftly as his cash flow dwindled alarmingly.

One day, he came to me and begged to be freed from the contract, lamenting that it had taken him to the edge of bankruptcy. I was happy to indulge him and it was only much later that I learned that retailers, for some reason, were unwilling to buy from him.

This had in turn created a shortage in the market. We bought back the inventory and supplied it to retailers. The customers came flooding back and the fabrics literary flew off the shelves.

Although Raymond was known for its yarn, blankets and fabrics, in later years we also diversified into making ready-made suits for the working class market and this, for a while, became one of our well-known brands, especially in urban areas with large numbers of office and formal sector workers. The suits used to stand out because of their unique colours and stripes, not to mention superior quality as they were made from thick wool.

In all, I had many memorable moments during my time at Raymond.

One of the most unusual moment, however, was the day when a Cabinet minister in the Kenyatta Government, the legendary Stanley Oloitiptip, visited our factory in Eldoret. He was a big man by all standards and although we wanted to gift him with a suit, there was none that was big enough to fit him. So, we called in one of our tailors to take his measurements so that we could make a suit for him and deliver it later. To our shock, we learned his neck was 36 inches thick. That was the size of a man’s waist!

Moi’s frequent visit to Raymond

A story is told that years after that visit, when he was jailed for failing to pay tax on one of his hotels in Kajiado, prison authorities had to use the equivalent of five shirts to make just one for Oloitiptip’s prison uniform shirt, then known as “Kunguru”.

Another memorable moment came when Singania, myself and other directors of the company went to pay President Daniel arap Moi a courtesy call soon after he succeeded Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, who died in office in 1978.

Singania had travelled from India and together, we made our way to State House, Nakuru, to congratulate the new President. We were all offered tea but President Moi, though a teetotaler, was sipping from a glass that had a red drink which looked like Vimto but was probably wine.

What I remember was that Moi took time to speak with each of the directors personally and he was very warm. After that visit, he often dropped by our Eldoret factory, many times unannounced. Workers would start scurrying around every time the presidential motorcade showed up at the gate without prior arrangement.

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Hiring advertisers

With our yarn business firmly established, we took another decision to diversify and bought spinning mills for making blankets. We hired a British company to do the advertising for us but all the concepts they came up with were too alien for the Kenyan market. As the man responsible for marketing, it was my job to approve the commercials but I felt that something was missing in all of them.

One day, as we were discussing one of the commercials, I had a brainwave. I remembered that in most Kenyan cultures, when a prospective groom goes to pay dowry for his prospective bride, the groom’s family must present a blanket to the father of the maiden. I explained the idea to the advertising executives and told them to try it out, only this time, the commercial must leave no doubt that the old man was receiving a Raymond blanket. The commercial was shot in Ngong and within days, the team was back in my office.

After I watched it, I said to them: “This is right but it is not complete.”

“What do you mean it is not complete?” they asked. I suspect they were on the verge of exasperation. I told them that once the old man accepts the blanket, it means he has blessed the impending marriage, and that calls for celebrations.

“We need a traditional ngoma dance at the end of the commercial,” I said.

Testing adverts

The team went back to Ngong to shoot the ngoma scene. To test the acceptability of the commercial, we asked the agency to air it at Leicester Square in the UK. Every time the commercial ran, audiences would be so mesmerised that they would rise to their feet and cheer when it ended. When it eventually hit the airwaves in Kenya, it instantly became a runaway success. And for my trouble, the agency gave me an award as a token of appreciation.

There was another advert we commissioned, showing an elderly couple sharing a Raymond blanket, creating the impression that it was so good it had literally brought the warmth back to their marital bed. Many people in Kenya still recall this advert because it evoked a happy home even in old age and it is not surprising to hear it mentioned figuratively during wedding ceremonies to this day.

I remember one day, the chairman, Singania, visited our factory in Eldoret and was received by Dr Njoroge Mungai, Kenya’s Foreign minister and close confidant of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. As they were chatting, Singania invited Dr Mungai to visit India so that he could see for himself what other ventures Raymond was involved in.

Dr Mungai decided to travel in his private capacity, taking the trip as a holiday. However, he duly informed the President who approved his travel. Once in India, Dr Mungai was taken around various cities in Singania’s private aircraft, visiting the factories run by Singania’s numerous companies. In Rajistan, he was shown the company’s polyester plant, which impressed him a great deal and he expressed interest in having such a factory opened in Kenya. However, as his tour ended, he stopped by the Kenya High Commission in New Delhi just to say hello to the staff before flying back home.

Dr Mungai’s trip to India

The Kenyan High Commissioner then introduced him to India’s Foreign Ministry officials, but they were at a loss over how to treat Dr Mungai, since he had breached protocol by travelling to India without informing them. They felt that even if he had been on a private visit, the responsibility of hosting him and taking him around rested with the Indian government. They were particularly unhappy that he had been in their country without any formal security arrangements.

The Foreign Office at once dispatched a letter to the Indian High Commissioner in Kenya, demanding an explanation on how such a high ranking government official could travel to India without the embassy alerting authorities back home.

The High Commissioner tried to reach me several times, to find out what exactly happened but I was too busy to meet him. Eventually, he hatched a plan, visiting the office of a lawyer whose office was on the same floor as mine. One day, the lawyer invited me over, saying he had a guest he wanted me to meet. When I walked into his office, I found the High Commissioner waiting for me. Since I could not avoid him anymore, I told him that Mzee Kenyatta had okayed the trip and Dr Mungai had travelled in his private capacity and since he had a great time anyway, there was no reason to throw a tantrum. Armed with this information, he filed the report back to his superiors and the diplomatic matter rested there.

On his return from India, Dr Mungai recommended that Raymond build a polyester fabrics factory in Kenya. He said he would offer his support for such a venture. So we embarked on a market survey, which indicated that there was a market for such fabric.

With Dr Mungai’s help, we met Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and asked him where he wanted the factory set up. He suggested Thika, on the Thika-Garissa highway and even allocated land to Raymond for that purpose. We embarked on the process of applying for the relevant licenses and other approvals and this was when we started running into headwinds.

When the applications reached the office of the Cabinet minister Gikonyo Kiano, we could not move. After eighteen months of waiting, however, we ran out of patience and went back to Dr Mungai. Back in those days, the two politicians, one from Murang’a District and the other from Kiambu, were bitter rivals, competing for the President’s attention. Indeed, a story is told that so bitter was their rivalry that Dr Kiano, Kenya’s first PhD holder, at one time stabbed Dr Mungai, a doctor who was also Mzee Kenyatta’s physician.

Meeting with Kenyatta

When we brought the issue to Dr Mungai’s attention, he said our best option lay with seeing Mzee Kenyatta himself. Dr Mungai was close to the First Lady, Mama Ngina Kenyatta, and he called her, seeking her assistance in securing an appointment for us. Mama Ngina gave us an appointment for 7am, saying that was the best time of the day to discuss business with Mzee.

On the appointed date, one of my fellow directors and I made our way to Mzee Kenyatta’s Gatundu home. It was a chilly morning and Mama Ngina served us tea and biscuits in an outhouse, where we were to wait for the President.

When he came and saw me, he said in a loud voice: “Mr Shantha! What brings you here?” Although he had difficulties pronouncing my name correctly, he had remembered me from our earlier meetings.

“Your Excellency,” I said him after the preliminaries. “We wanted to build a factory to create jobs for your people here in Thika but so far, we are yet to get the license and other permits that we need to get started.”

Kenyatta used to have a big diamond ring on his index finger. He picked up the phone on his desk, and with the index finger, he dialed Dr Kiano’s number.

“Gikonyo!” he growled into the phone. “Shantha is here with me. Why have you not given him the license?”

As they talked, all I could hear Dr Kiano, then infamously known as Mr Ten Percent, saying was “Ndio Mzee, yes Mzee.”

When he replaced the telephone receiver, Mzee Kenyatta informed us that we would have the license by 11am the same day.

The hurdle had been cleared in just ten minutes of tea with the President. It would be only a matter of time before the Thika polyester mills roared to life.