Just last night I received word that my good friend, the legendary geologist Campbell R. Bridges has been murdered by a mob near his Scorpion Mine in Kenya.
I first met Campbell Bridges in 1995. He hosted my wife and I when we visited Nairobi on a gem buying trip. It was my second and my wife Rebekah’s first trip to Kenya. I was Gemology Columnist for National Jeweler Magazine at the time. I had been referred to him as one of the foremost experts on East African gemstones and I had corresponded with Campbell for several months before the trip.
Campbell Bridges judging rough ruby. Photo: Tsavorite USA
My first meeting with him tells much about the man; , it was about 8:00am, we had arrived at our Nairobi hotel around 3am. At 8am the phone rang. Half asleep, I groped for the phone. A voice boomed out, “welcome to Africa, Richard. We leave for the mine in one hour, I’ll pick you up t your hotel.”
Two hours later, our mouths crammed with greasy samosas, we were careening down a two lane highway in an aging Subaru wagon on our way to Campbell’s Scorpion Mine near Vo i (halfway between Nairobi and Mombasa). We were doing 100km and Campbell was urging his Kikuyu driver to go faster. Weaving from lane to lane, we whizzed past huge lorries with canvas tops like Conestoga wagons and wheels large enough to crush our little Subaru wagon. Road accidents were the number one cause of death in Kenya at that time. More than once, I thought my time had come.
Four and one half hours later we arrived at Campbell s Boma, a primitive mine site, a fort really, surrounded by giant sisal plants. The camp was in an uproar. Zarrurra (bandits), or midnight miners had been poaching on another of Campbell’s mine site called GG3.
Campbell was amazingly charismatic. As darkness fell, I found myself part of a punitive expedition on our way to surprise the Zarrurra at the mine site a few miles into the hills. Campbell had a panga (machete) and a steel mesh shield, I was armed with an Irish shillelagh. in the back of the truck several Masaii askaris carried the traditional club and spear. Fire arms were outlawed in Kenya, only the bandits had them. Campbell’s askari’s were required to have a permit to carry a bow and arrow.
Tree House, The Scorpion Miine, Tsavo National Park, Voi, Kenya. Photo: Tsavorite USA
Well, to my great relief, we encountered no bandits at the mine site. We found nothing but the smoking remains of a cooking fire. Campbell’s askaris were also no where in evidence. We returned to our camp at the Scorpion Mine and went off to bed. That was my first day in Kenya.
Later I found out the just that weekend, Campbell had been robbed, his office broken into and years of backbreaking work in the form of “millions” of dollars in tsavorite garnet stolen. That was a loss that would have staggered most men, it hardly even slowed Campbell Bridges down. That was the measure of the man.
Campbell Bridges was my mentor and my friend. A man of the old school, rough around the edges, tis true but a man of honesty, integrity and honor. We had many conversations and not a few arguments. Campbell never really accepted the new political realities of East Africa. For him, The Raj, the period of British rule during which he grew up, was the greatest time and he mourned its passing.
Campbell loved to quote his favorite author w, the novelist Wilbur Smith. I remember him telling us, that you had never really understood Africa until you had heard the lion’s roar in the night. Well, Campbell Bridges was a real life character who would have been an apt subject for one of Smith’s novels. My wife calls Campbell a lion. They feared him when he was strong and only dared attack when he was weakened by age.