End of Empire Britain on Film

Black Africa. The Africa of the war drum.

The Africa of the ritual dance.

The Africa of the war canoe.

And of the witch doctor.

This is the only Africa most people know, but it's an Africa

which is disappearing over the horizons of history.

New buildings everywhere.

Mud huts and native cooking pots

smoking behind the modern houses and flats.

Skyscrapers shooting up out of the bush,

modern liners edging out the old picturesque fishing boats.

Everywhere, change.

# This day will never be forgotten

# The 6th of March 1957

# When the Gold Coast successfully

-# Get their independence officially!

-Ghana

-# Ghana is the name

-Ghana

# We wish to proclaim

# We will be jolly, merry and gay

# The 6th of March, Independence Day! #

For years, international smugglers have used Hong Kong's duty free port

to make fortunes out of human suffering.

So serious has the problem of narcotics become that the

Hong Kong government has launched an all-out attack on the smuggler

and the drug peddler.

New fast launches have been built, at a cost of £60,000 each,

but that's a small price to pay,

compared with the human suffering that's caused by the drug smuggler.

With speeds of over 20 knots,

the new launches can outrun almost anything,

and it's getting more difficult every day for the smuggler.

The smuggler is always thinking up new ways

to conceal his illicit cargo.

An ordinary piece of board may seem innocent enough,

but cunningly hidden inside it is heroin.

One of these tiny packets is a week's supply for an addict,

and it would cost him most of his wages.

Many of the victims of this deadly trade are found by accident.

A policeman on routine duty questions a man on a street corner.

His answers are evasive, and the policeman arrests him.

This has become an almost everyday occurrence.

At the police station, the man is searched.

Hidden in his clothes is a packet of heroin.

That's enough to set the wheels in motion.

He's charged with illegal possession of drugs,

and confirmed as a drug addict.

When new prisoners arrive at Tai Lam,

they have already been in custody for ten days without drugs,

and for most of them the worst is over.

Nearly all of them are men and most of them take heroin,

which is derived from opium.

They call it chasing the dragon.

Lack of housing, unemployment and poverty often drive many people

to seek relief in forgetfulness, but instead they find only more misery.

Tai Lam prison can accommodate 700 men, and it's always full.

But the routine is more like that of a hospital than a prison.

The men are treated more as patients than prisoners

and the aim is to mend broken lives.

These men are building a cinema,

they've already built a swimming pool.

In fact, the more they work, the less like a prison Tai Lam becomes.

And there are no bars to spoil the picture either.

A short time ago, these men had lost all hope.

Today, many of them are learning a trade which will get them

a living when they leave Tai Lam.

They've made flower gardens and green lawns,

and now Tai Lam doesn't even look like a prison.

For those who leave Tai Lam, there is a second chance.

And most of them will take it.

From the earliest days of civilisation,

men, women and children have taken refuge

from fear, suppression, hunger and want.

Here outside Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan,

tens of thousands of people still live in appalling conditions.

They are victims of partition.

Most of these people are Muslims.

They fled from religious conflict that broke out in India.

But they found little comfort in the newly created Pakistan.

The Government had little time for refugees.

In 1958, a peaceful revolution took place in Pakistan,

and a new leader emerged, General Mohamed Ahmed Khan,

who welcomed the Queen on her state visit to Pakistan.

One of the first jobs the new government began to tackle

was the refugee problem.

In 1959, a new town took shape at Kurangi on the outskirts of Karachi.

Within the first six months,

75,000 of the refugees had already been housed.

By the time the town is finished,

there'll be homes for five million more.

But the problem of housing the refugees was only the start.

With the modernisation of Pakistan's factories,

more and more people are finding employment.

Many of the people of Kurangi are employed in the local textile mills.

Pakistan has always produced cotton as one of its major exports,

but independence brought a serious problem to the industry.

For a while the cotton was grown in Pakistan,

the mills remained in India.

Today, within an industrial framework begun in the days

of British rule, modern mills are being built all over the country.

Cottage industries have been encouraged,

and men who until a short time ago sat in village streets with

nothing to do are turning their hands to new crafts

that will sell in the tourist shops in the nearby cities.

There's a new life for the women of Pakistan too.

After centuries of veiling themselves

against the outside world, they've become wage earners.

It puts them on a level for the first time in their history

with the men.

But for their children, it's the beginning of a new era, and they

begin like children all over the world by learning to read and write.

These are the citizens of tomorrow.

They will have their place in the new Pakistan, which,

with a background of 3,000 years of civilisation,

is shaping a new destiny for millions.

Open Day at Khormaksar, where the busiest airbase in the RAF

was even busier than usual, as 50,000 people of all nationalities

crowded in to see a flying display.

Mohammed Amedali has been a sweeper at the airbase since it opened,

so his retirement brings him many congratulations,

a pile of presents and a long-service gratuity of £150.

Aden was major port at the time of the Queen of Sheba.

Legend has it that Noah's Ark was built here.

And that Adam's son Cain, who murdered his brother Abel,

is buried here.

Life in these villages has changed little since Old Testament days.

Progress in agriculture has been slow,

implements and methods are age-old.

But now the villages in the protectorate,

helped by British advisors and money,

are beginning to irrigate large areas, making possible the growing

of tomatoes, bananas, cabbages and cotton.

Britain's given advice and money for building schools

and setting up medical clinics.

This clinic is run by British-trained Arabs,

with British Army doctors on call as specialists.

The crown colony of Aden consists of 75 square miles

of black volcanic rock.

100 years ago,

Aden had declined to a fishing village of a mere 500 people.

Today, it's the home of some 200,000 people and one of

the world's busiest harbours, visited by over 500 ships a month.

Because of its harbour, Aden has become GHQ Middle East,

where for the first time in peacetime,

Britain's three services are under a single commander in chief.

While Suez controls the entrance to the Red Sea from the Mediterranean,

Aden dominates the entrance to the Indian Ocean.

Frontier disputes with the neighbouring Kingdom of Yemen

have been frequent, and relations have at times been strained.

Some 30 sultanates, sheikdoms and other tribal units

have treaties with Britain, relying on her for their defence.

Recently, 11 states of the western part of the protectorate

joined together to form the Federation of South Arabia.

Local young men are so keen to join the federal army

that ten volunteers come forward for every recruit accepted.

Units of British troops and marines support the federal army

which is paid for out of funds provided by Britain.

This proud and peaceful mingling of races, customs and religions

reflects credit on generations of Britons and Arabs alike.

Commonwealth protected Sarawak finds its internal peace

threatened by bands of armed terrorists

who come across the border from Indonesian Borneo.

By raiding villages and committing sabotage,

Indonesia is trying to create an impression of internal unrest

in Sarawak, and so throwing doubt in the eyes of the world

on the freely elected structure of the Federation of Malaysia.

As a member of the Commonwealth,

Malaysia asked Britain for military help.

Britain's marines are protecting

80 miles of Sarawak's 600 mile frontier.

At this post, 20 yards from the border, Marine Lieutenant Ashdown

has local forces as well as marines under his command.

The local Dayaks, a proud race who live off the rivers

and jungles of the interior, give every help to the security forces.

50 years ago, Dayaks were unrepentant head-hunters.

Today, Dayak officers are found in Sarawak's forces,

and in the government they hold jobs from ministerial level downwards.

This camp headman reported strangers in the district.

Soon after leaving the village,

the marine patrol comes across a derelict hut.

No risks can be taken.

In this sort of warfare,

the man who acts first has the greatest chance of staying alive.

Two strangers are found, resting up for the day,

and obviously travelling by night.

Possession of illegal arms found in the hut

will mean a stiff prison sentence for the two men.

From Singapore to Labuan in the north,

and to Kuching in the south, daily air and sea transports

have brought the bulk of service stores to Borneo.

Food supplies, 450 tons a month,

are specially crated for delivery up country.

Eggs by the hundreds of thousands, and even live chickens.

Most of the supply deliveries to the interior of Borneo

are made by Royal Air Force.

Fuel, food, and ammunition are packed,

fitted with parachutes, and the one ton loads fly out.

And another 20 tons of stores have landed safely

at an up country dispersal point.

But this is only one more stage in the delivery of supplies to the men,

like this Ghurkha patrol, who've been policing this wild terrain.

Three or four days out on patrol in the jungle, they would stop at

villages to check if any strangers had been reported in the area.

And in most villages some local supplies made the diet

of these patrolmen a little less monotonous.

The Royal Navy's policing duties in Borneo have included checking

and searching local craft along 1,300 miles of coastline.

So to break the monotony of this kind of patrol work,

each ship is delegated to a help the locals job ashore.

The destroyer HMS Cambrian is to build a community centre

for the hundred-odd people who live on a remote island.

So 14 of the crew, with plenty of stores,

are put ashore for a week while the destroyer goes back on patrol.

And when it comes to dinner time, there's plenty for everyone.

The helicopters of the Royal Air Force find time to go out

on a steady mercy patrol, ready to lend a hand to the sick

while still remaining alert for any outbreak of serious trouble.

In this way, they help a local civilian doctor who

comes from London and is employed by the Malayan government.

He's flown off to his cases just as normally as a family doctor

would drive off to see his patients back home in Britain.

He takes three days or more

on his monthly tour of the small police post up country,

putting down in tiny clearings on airstrips

built out of palm branches by the tribesmen.

The doctor does a job that covers a parish almost the size of England.

It's big and it's hard work.

He brings cure and hygiene and even education to

the simple peoples of the hot, steaming jungle country.

They learn the facts of modern health from his regular lecture.

He banks their money for them, he's even their dentist.

Now that they trust him, their thanks make up for the bumpy ride

getting down through the thermal currents of the tropics.

This is a part of the world where nature is rich

and living is simple, where life luxuriates in the moist jungle heat.

Now with the signing of a peace treaty between Malaysia

and Indonesia, one of the most remarkable supply operations

ever organised by British forces is coming to an end,

with Indonesia abandoning confrontation against Malaysia.

Something like 1,500 volunteers go out from Britain every year,

to 12 months of adventure and hard work

in the new countries of three continents.

Why do they do it? Not for the money,

since the majority work only for a living allowance.

Partly for experience of course, but mainly because they want to help.

Here at Dar El Salaam,

the capital of Tanzania on the African coast of the Indian ocean,

is a clinic that's really helping youngsters who need help badly.

Bridget Tilly comes from Hampshire, she's 26, an occupational therapist,

and her sole job is looking after crippled children.

There's no spare wealth to throw around in this part of the world.

But there's the other sort of wealth,

provided by the devotion of nurses like Bridget.

She even made lots of the equipment for these children herself.

And her treatment represents their main chance of getting

any sort of break in life.

Working for the African, working with the African.

David Crays is a senior practical instructor in forestry.

He comes from Lymington,

and he volunteered to work for the Forestry Commission of Tanzania.

Miles to the west of the mountain forest is the village of Katiti,

surrounded by what could be excellent farmland.

This poses a man-sized job for Jim Baxter, who is helping

the Africans to win wheat from an area through which great

herds of elephants trumpet their way on their annual migration.

In the thickly crowded places that are catching up with

the modern world, the volunteers are also doing valuable work.

In places like Mauritius.

No luxury hotels for the nurses out from Britain.

They live in the villages, they become absorbed in the local life.

Judy and Jenny run a village welfare centre.

These are not easy communities, with Pakistani, Creole, Indian

and even Chinese all keeping pointedly separate.

But the volunteers can help the villagers to become good Mauritians.

Volunteers from Britain, volunteers from inside Mauritius itself.

Here they go side by side in their rounds of the sick and the feeble.

Mauritius is a windswept island.

One great storm in 1962 did so much damage

the work of rebuilding still goes on.

In this, the volunteers also play their part.

After that, there'll be dancing all around,

and the work of another week in the sun will be finished.

Ascension Island.

Every few months, families fly off from London Airport

to live and work 4,000 miles away on this island

which is one of Britain's remotest possessions.

Alan Raimeylaws from Bridlesea in Essex has just arrived

with his family, while the Greys from Reading,

after a 15 month term, are packing up to go home.

Jim's a BBC electronics engineer, for the importance of the island is

that it's a link in the world network

of BBC broadcasts and the cable and wireless services.

The towering masts and aerials pick up the BBC broadcasts

from London for relay to South America and Africa.

'BBC World Service.'

A few miles away is Georgetown, and this. It's a shop.

The only one on an island miles from anywhere.

A shop where choice is limited,

where fashion fights a losing battle, where the womenfolk

consider themselves lucky to buy even one brand of lipstick.

Dominating the Ascension Island scenery today is a huge dish aerial

set up by Britain as part of the global communications system

for the Apollo man on the moon project.

It'll record the first American moon landing.

And in an island that has come to be known as Moon Country,

it seems to be in the right place!

Only those over 40 can now have adult memories of life

under the British Raj.

Permanent structures remain,

such as the Gateway of India in Bombay, built to commemorate

the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911.

India Gate, Delhi, and King George gazes down the long Raj Path.

A tourist attraction, like the snake charmers gathered at his feet.

The most enduring monument is New Delhi itself,

of breathtaking grandeur,

as though the British Empire had seen the night approaching,

and made one last proud imperial gesture while it was yet light.

But other things remain, like cricket,

significant not of domination, but of the ties of friendship.

The army of the world's largest democracy is trained

and equipped along British lines.

Although technically foreigners now, the British feel at home in India.

The ties are practical enough.

Here, a group of British doctors, members of the

International Cultural Exchange, are greeted by their Indian colleagues

with whom they'll study ways and means of further cooperation.

On the industrial front,

production has gone up by 160% in 15 years.

Indian engineers, here overhauling jet engines, scientists

and technologists, have proved themselves among the world's best.

They've built great dams, atomic power stations, factories

by the score, and mechanisation is coming slowly to the land.

India has her fair share of unrest,

which tends to obscure the peaceful workings of a very real democracy.

This is a century of revolution.

Politics, economics, science, education, the arts,

all in the throws of a radical upheaval.

In this struggle, men of all faiths

are today abandoning their old, bitter rivalries.

Turning friendly and enquiring eyes to each other. A revolution indeed.

The Prime Minister of India is a woman. Indira Ghandi.

Something of a political compromise brought her to office,

but since then she has gained worldwide admiration for

hard and honest work for her country and the causes of peace.

Her country is great in tradition, rich in beauty,

with an astonishing depth of religious life.

With a huge capacity for hard work,

and an inexhaustible supply of labour,

the Indian people are well equipped for the Herculean tasks ahead.

The first 21 years have given ample proof of that.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd