Simon Gikandi argued that Kenyatta, like some of his contemporaries in the Pan-African movement, was an "Afro-Victorian", someone whose identity had been shaped "by the culture of colonialism and colonial institutions", especially those of the Victorian era. During the 1920s and 1930s, Kenyatta cultivated the image of a "colonial gentleman"; in England, he displayed "pleasant manners" and a flexible attitude in adapting to urban situations dissimilar to the lands he had grown up in. A. R. Barlow, a member of the Church of Scotland Mission at Kikuyu, met with Kenyatta in Britain, later relating that he was impressed by how Kenyatta could "mix on equal terms with Europeans and to hold his end up in spite of his handicaps, educationally and socially." The South African Peter Abrahams met Kenyatta in London, noting that of all the black men involved in the city's Pan-Africanist movement, he was "the most relaxed, sophisticated and 'westernized' of the lot of us". As President, Kenyatta often reminisced nostalgically about his time in England, referring to it as "home" on several occasions. Berman and Lonsdale described his life as being preoccupied with "a search for the reconciliation of the Western modernity he embraced and an equally valued Kikuyuness he could not discard". Gikandi argued that Kenyatta's "identification with Englishness was much more profound than both his friends and enemies have been willing to admit".