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 London took to wearing a fez and cloak and carrying a silver-topped black cane. He adopted his surname, "Kenyatta", after the name of a beaded belt he often wore in early life. As President he collected a variety of expensive cars. Murray-Brown noted that Kenyatta had the ability to "appear all things to all men", also displaying a "consummate ability to keep his true purposes and abilities to himself", for instance concealing his connections with communists and the Soviet Union from both members of the British Labour Party and Kikuyu figures at home. This deviousness was sometimes interpreted as dishonesty