Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Rift Valley Voters List

Midday Sun - 'Loder was a forthright, uncompromising Cockney lady who ordered the houseboys about in a manner one would have expected them to resent - 'them black bamboos' she often called them, bamboo being her version of the Swahili word for bloody fool, pumbafu - but she removed the sting by solicitude for their health and frequent cups of tea liberally sugared. Bamboos later graduated into bastards. She outlived her employers and became housekeeper at Muthaiga Club, where she never pulled her punches when commenting on those members who did not, in her opinion, behave as ladies and gentlemen should. 'Airpins in 'is bed again,' she would announce in disapproving tones.    

Cameron - Muthaiga Club - It is not long before the new arrival becomes aware of Miss Loder, the housekeeper and guiding spirit of the place. You can generally hear her querulous voice echoing down the long linoleum-lined passages as she admonishes one of the native houseboys. She has lived out here now for some 30 years and knows exactly how to get the maximum out of the lazy African. The place is spotlessly clean. Miss Loder is bent and arthritic and stumps rather than walks. She is of the old school, wonderfully snobbish and alarmingly quick. With an economy of h's she thoroughly squashes some unfortunate guest member who has unwisely tried to impress her. "Who does she think she is?" snorts Miss Loder. It is no good, for Miss Loder is really used to the great houses of England. Her flower arrangements are eloquent proof of the fact.

Alice - Memories - Miss Loder had established herself as something of a local legend. She was everything: housekeeper, nanny, cook, dairymaid. My aunt left her in complete control and accordingly she would be on the go all day - cursing, screaming, shouting and generally bullying the African 'boys', who took it all with the greatest good humour.Loder had gone to the Muthaiga Club as housekeeper, a job for which she was very suitable. She had very strict ideas about the social scale and once, when the club was full and a duke arrived to stay, she was heard to remark: 'Don't know what this place is coming to, there's that A. C. 'oey inside in a room and 'is Grace outside in a tent!' Another time when the Secretary told her a certain lady was expected, she said: 'I'll put the complaint book in 'er room — save 'er walking to the 'all.' Once when I had been staying there I had been bitten by fleas. I told Loder this and she said: "Oo was 'ere last? Um, Delameres — I don't think they'd 'ave 'ad fleas.' Loder worked at the club until she was seventy-five, when she retired to Harrison House — the East African Women's League home for old pioneers. She died there aged ninety-three.
Mills - 1945 - Muthaiga Country Club - A new housekeeper was needed, and Miss Loder, who had been with Lord Francis Scott's family for many years, was suggested. Lord Francis seems to have doubted if Miss Loder, after 40 years service with his family, would be fit enough to do the work; however she took the post and for the next 14 years was a 'terror' to members, especially those who were late in vacating their rooms, though it has been suggested that this severity was tempered if they happened to have, or be related to, a title. Retiring in 1959, "Old Loder" lived at the Club's expense, in the East African Women's League 'Harrison House' until her death in 1974 when she was well over 90 years old.

Gazette 13 Apr 1974 probate

Langata cemetery, Nairobi Ada Loder / 1881 - 1974 / in loving memory, died 2 Apr 1974 Harrison House, Nairobi

Anne Scott, A Nice Place to Live, 1991: My parents made up their minds to go to East Africa and have a look round with a view to settling. It was easier, just after the war, to get a passage to Bombay than to Mombasa, so they went first to India and spent six weeks visiting their old haunts. They sailed on my father's fortieth birthday, 1 November 1919, accompanied by my mother's maid, Miss Ada Loder. She had been my Aunt Violet Astor's parlourmaid in London during the war. She was a real Cockney, though she used to say her uncle had been Mayor of Birmingham. She had gone into service as soon as she had left school, always 'in the best 'ouses', she would tell you. It was the custom to call lady's maids by their surnames without a prefix, so she was always known simply as 'Loder'.

All these people in our household were ruled over by Loder with a rod of iron. They used to call her 'Gateru' which means 'beard' because of her somewhat wispy chin. She used to keep them up to the mark all the time and tried to train them to be like the servants she had known in England in the 'best 'ouses'. She used to scream at them in a torrent of Cockney abuse. We heard shouts of, 'Oo do you think you are, you great big bamboo? A gentleman?' When she said 'You great big bamboo', she meant 'Bumbafu' which is Swahili for 'fool'. My father always said that he expected any day to see the cook come rushing in with a chopper dripping blood, saying he could stand this abuse no longer. But in fact they were really quite fond of her because she used to look after them very well. She was forever making them cups of tea, giving them medicine when they were ill and so on. One day she appeared in my mother's room and said: 'Oo m'lady, the boy is killing the cook with a knife, the blood is pouring. 'E says 'e'll take an axe to 'im.' So my mother had to go out and bind up their wounds and forbid any more fighting. Loder must have lived a lonely life because she always ate alone and sat in her own room. She never came to our rooms except when she was working. She used sometimes to come to my father when he was working in his office and say 'Is it true, m'lord?' and he would say 'Is what true, Loder?'What they say in the papers, m'lord."No, Loder,' he would reply, 'never believe anything you read in the papers.' She was a first-class cook and a very economical housekeeper and woe betide anyone who overcharged on anything. Her greatest pleasure was to go shopping in Nakuru and bargain with the shopkeepers. My father said he thought a day shopping in Nakuru gave her as much pleasure as a game of polo gave him. Loder had a little dachshund dog called Tim. She would hug him and croon endearments to him in baby talk — 'Tim's Mama's little darling baby boy' and so on. My father used to say: 'Disgusting! Fancy talking to a dog like that!' Many people at that time had Somali upper servants, as very few of the local Africans were trained. But as we had Loder this was unnecessary and we only had the local people.

In WW2 Loder left Deloraine and went to run a convalescent home for airmen in Nairobi. Loder then went to the Muthaiga Club as housekeeper, a job for which she was very suitable. She had very strict ideas about the social scale and once, when the club was full and a duke arrived to stay, she was heard to remark: 'Don't know what this place is coming to, there's that A. C. 'oey inside in a room and 'is Grace outside in a tent!' Another time when the Secretary told her a certain lady was expected, she said: 'I'll put the complaint book in 'er room — save 'er walking to the 'all.' Once when I had been staying there I had been bitten by fleas. I told Loder this and she said: "Oo was 'ere last? Um, Delameres — I don't think they'd 'ave 'ad fleas.' Loder worked at the club until she was seventy-five, when she retired to Harrison House — the East African Women's League home for old pioneers. She died there aged ninety-three.