Anthony was born in the UK but moved out to Homa Bay on the Shores of Lake Victoria when he was 5 months old. Being the child of British Council teachers he grew up in a school environment and finally left the country at the age of 18 to study in Manchester England. Kenya has always been a a huge part of his life and living abroad was something he had no desire to prolong. The only thing that kept him in the UK was his rugby career, but sadly it never took off to a degree that it could support his lavish student lifestyle. Despite being paid in the Officer Training Core, where he was the only person in the entire unit who could speak the ‘Queens English’ and thus was chosen to show her around our barracks, his money soon ran out and the call of home was too strong to ignore.
On moving back to Kenya he started his first job in safaris by running a small camp on the border of Amboseli. That was how Anthony got his foot into the door and he has been running lodges all over Kenya dotted with privately guided trips since 1997. He took a brief break from running lodges to work with the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust setting up anti poaching units throughout Tsavo. At last his military skills were put to good use and it was a period of his life which was an enormous amount of fun – too much fun in fact, an adult version of the boy scouts!
Anthony is passionate about reptiles, but of late his attentions have turned towards the Insect groups of Kenya – in particular scorpions, having been stung by a particularly bad and dangerous scorpion in his mid 30’s. Since then he has found these creatures fascinating but was surprised to find out that very little is known about them and in 2018 he discovered his first species now named Gint Childsi or Childs Scorpion.
When he is not on safari, he is based at The Emakoko, a small boutique loge which his family owns, on the border of Nairobi National Park. Anthony lives there with his wife and two children. Together they run the lodge and their guests are usually those starting or ending their trip in East Africa.