ABSTRACT
By the time news reached Blighty that Kenya’s government had declared an Emergency on 20 October 1952, Mau Mau already meant something to many in the United Kingdom – whether young or old, white-collared or working class, rampant English bulldog or critical Celt sulking on the fringe. That something was scarcely nice. For many it was disturbing. 1 Parents disciplined delinquent offspring by threatening that Mau Mau would come and get them if they did not eat their greens. MPs compared each other’s rowdy behaviour in the Commons with Mau Mau terror. 2 Mau Mau even had its own pop song, the first line of which appears in this chapter’s title. 3 Clearly, Mau Mau had become a British household word. It brought empire into everyday language and popular culture in a way not seen since the phrase ‘the black hole of Calcutta’ had entered colloquial speech over a century before.
