Beneath African Skies

As tiny children, brother and sister George and Molly Hudson witness the horror of a tribal castration just minutes from the family home in South Africa - which is later rased to the ground in a devastating fire. They suffer the anguish and heartbreak of their father's betrayal. At the age of just ten and eleven, they board a ship to start a new life in Kenya. They are the great-great-grandchildren of John Hougham Hudson and Elizabeth Ann Walker from Broadstairs in England. The couple, both aged 20, were amongst sixty-seven people who joined a small four-vessel fleet departing from Deptford in London on 12th February 1820, bound for Simonstown in South Africa. These brave young people became known as the 1820 Settlers. This is their story, too. Beneath African Skies is based on the true story of the siblings' young lives in 20th century Africa: hyena, crocodile and cobra attacks, gold rush mania, crater plunges, near-fatal accidents, typhoid fever and murder are just some of the ordeals they must face. It is the story of coping with death and the horrors of the Second World War: both as an RAF fighter pilot and as a pregnant and lonely bride in war-time Britain. Above all, it is the story of their survival and their love for each other.