Horse racing was a popular sport and social activity among the colonists, and Markham’s father began to supply horses for the Nairobi racetracks. Markham spent her childhood on the horse farm, learning to speak several African languages from the families her father employed. She also learned to hunt wild game with a spear, and her father taught her how to ride a horse. In the course of her adventurous childhood, she was attacked by a “pet” lion and once killed a deadly black mamba snake.
As a young woman, Markham started a career of her own as a horse trainer. She was so successful that one of her horses won the most prestigious racing prizes in Kenya when she was only 24. This success helped her to become one of the most socially prominent young women in Nairobi. She met a wealthy young Englishman named Mansfield Markham, whom she married in 1927. The Markhams then moved to England, where Beryl gave birth to a son, but within a short time the marriage ended, and Markham returned to Kenya alone.
Back in the colony Denys Finch Hatton, a well-known big-game hunter, took Markham flying in his airplane.
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