Jomo Kenyatta and Kenya. To Edna, he stated that he felt "like a general separated by 5000 miles from his troops". While in Sussex, he wrote an essay for the United Society for Christian Literature, "My People of Kikuyu and the Life of Chief Wangombe", in which he called for his tribe's political independence. He also began—although never finished—a novel partly based on his life experiences. He continued to give lectures around the country, including to groups of East African soldiers stationed in Britain. Kenyatta and other senior IASB members began planning the fifth Pan-African Congress, held in Manchester in October 1945.
Jomo Kenyatta Robeck became the District Officer, after which Kenyatta and the other inmates were treated more leniently. In April 1954, they had been joined by a captured Mau Mau commander, Waruhiu Itote; Kenyatta befriended him, and gave him English lessons. By 1957, the inmates had formed into two rival cliques, with Kenyatta and Itote on one side and the other KAU members—now calling themselves the "National Democratic Party"—on the other. In one incident, one of his rivals made an unsuccessful attempt to stab Kenyatta at breakfast. Kenyatta's health had deteriorated in prison; manacles had caused problems for his feet and he