START 10:49:13 Views filmed in Diego Suarez, a large naval anchorage on the northern tip of Madagascar, showing a plinth on which there is a copper plate dedicated to Marshal Joffre (1852-1931), Hero of the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 and French Army Chief of Staff from 1911 to 1916 - but his name is not revealed in these shots.

10:49:24 Footprints on the sand on a tropical beach near Diego Suarez in use by the Royal Navy as a leave centre. The owner of one set of these footprints wearing sandals, long socks, shorts, bush shirt and slouch hat. A strong wind blowing at the coconut treees trees on top of the beach. A stray chicken strides across the sand. From high ground overlooking the beach, the camera observes Royal Navy personnel relaxing on the beach. The gateway leading to 'Orangea', a villa requisitioned by the Royal Navy as a leave centre outside Diego Suarez.

10:50:26 A tropical sunset (?) view. Dhows - small coastal vessels with lateen rigs common in East African and Arabian waters - moored just offshore from the old port of Mombasa. Approaching one of the dhows. African sailors line up on deck and are chosen to crew a vessel requisitioned by the Kenya government (?) by a Greek-born officer or NCO serving in the King's African Rifles. A typical dhow boatman, bare-footed, wearing a bright red robe, khaki shirt and a striped turban. Two crewmen climb up the boat's rigging and fly a Red Ensign to indicate that their vessel has been requisitioned by the authorities. They climb back down with the flag. The Red Ensign, defaced with the Lion Rampant symbol, the offical flag for British Kenya, flies from the dhow.

10:53:00 A Westland Lysander belonging to RAF 1433 Flight based in Madagascar takes off from a grass airstrip near Diego Suarez on a metereological mission. Aerial views from the Lysander as it flies over the coast of Madagascar with glimpses of Diego Suarez (?) and the bays and headlands on the northern tip of the island, part obscured by low cloud. The cloud cover appears to increase as the aircraft gains height. A view of the grass airstrip coming up to meet the Lysander as it comes into land.

10:55:28 Views of a stretch of river and river shallows in lush tropical terrain in Madagascar. Madagascan labourers, shouldering baskets, hollow wooden tubes, walking along a dirt road. Framed against a deep blue sky, palm or coconut trees sway in the strong breeze.

10:56:51 A large freshwater Madagascan crocodile gobbles down lumps of meat (left for it by Royal Navy sailors on leave) at the edge of a lake or river; most of the time, it lies half in and half out of the water. The cameraman gets closer and closer to the beast as it lurks at the water's edge.

10:58:07 Views of reeds growing at the edge of a lake in Madagascar and the surrounding tropical vegetation. A young local man and two young women sing and clap hands - their appearance reflects the mix of African and Indonesian peoples in Madagascar's population.

10:58:32 Madagascan women washing clothes in the shallows of a river, either on their own or, in one instance, with infants beside them. They beat their washing against rocks and use them as washing boards on which they scrub their laundry with soap. Their laundry is left to dry in the sun, stretched out on stones lining the river or on the river bank.

11:00:54 Views of a narrow street in Diego Suarez built in French colonial style; there are few pedestrians about and the traffic, consisting of several US-manufactured saloon cars and a bullock cart, is light. Close up of a street sign on a wooden fence, 'Place Clmenceau' (a square named after France's First World War leader Georges Clmenceau). Views of a park and a bandstand overlooking the anchorage at Diego Suarez where a Royal Navy armed trawler is seen moving through the bay past two supply vessels at their moorings.

11:01:30 Views of a bust of Marshal Joffre on top of the plinth erected in his honour.

11:01:40 Close up of a street sign, 'Rue Jeanne d'Arc' (Joan of Arc Street). A large French tricolour flag hangs from the first floor balcony of a two storey house built in colonial style in Diego Suarez.. A European woman and a Madagascan girl, both wearing solar topees, take a ride in human-powered rickshaws (know locally as 'pousse-pousse') through the town.

11:02:18 A view from the headland overlooking the tropical beach where the Royal Navy has established a leave centre outside Diego Suarez and the large bay beyond it; the beach appears to be protected by a net to keep sharks out. The White Ensign flutters in the breeze on the headland. A close-up of the sign 'Orangea' at the entrance to the grounds taken over by the Royal Navy as a leave camp. A view of the grounds of the 'Orangea' villa and its proximity to the beach. Views of the sandy tropical beach, the row of coconut trees lining the shore swaying in the breeze and a local dug out canoe left on the sand. Sergeant Wernham walks along the beach towards the camera and removes his slouch hat as he approaches. A derelict fishing boat at the top of the beach. The fronds on coconut trees framed against the sky sway in the breeze. The leaves of another tree species, similar in appearance to pea pods, being blown about by the wind. Views of a stretch of coastline where trees are growing on or close to the edge of the sea; there are two trees seemingly growing out of the bay near the shore.

11:04:41 Scenes filmed in either Mombasa or Nairobi showing a crowded street in a commercial district, African men standing in the back of a row of parked trucks, two Sikhs riding past the camera on bicycles, African and Asian children on the pavement outside a shop selling cold drinks, and a woman in Arab dress walking past the camera.

11:05:21 A view of dhows and commercial buildings along the waterfront in Mombasa's Old Port. Filming on board a small dinghy powered by an outboard motor, Sergeant Wernham records the journey on the stretch of water between the mainland and Mombasa Island that takes him and his two companions, a local boatman and the Greek-born officer or NCO in the King's African Rifles (seen here manning the outboard motor,) underneath a floating pontoon bridge linking the island with the mainland and past local boatmen in canoes and in a dhow in full sail. The dinghy arrives at its destination, a mooring where there are several dhows. Rowing boats are seen ferrying Royal Navy sailors from the mainland to Mombasa island. Scenes filmed by Sergeant Wernham as he is transported by a rowing boat manned by an African skipper and two oarsmen to a landing stage on the mainland. Here, he encounters an RN petty officer and two ratings ready to cross over to Mombasa island in another rowing boat. Three other sailors, wearing swimming trunks, use the landing stage to dive into the water.

11:11:55 Views from a first floor window and on the pavement of a busy street in the centre of Nairobi (River Road ?), showing cars parked nose to pavement on both sides of the road, with only a handful of pedestrians willing to walk in the sun. Almost all the commercial businesses seen here - for example 'Bombay Bazaar' - are Indian-owned. All the people in the street, seen here dodging the traffic as they cross the street, are either Indians or Asians.

11:12:22 Views of the large mock-Tudor mansion near Nanyuki, the home of a wealthy British settler, complete with its well-maintained English-style lawn, ornamental fountain, shrubs, herbaceous borders and flowers, including geraniums, gladioli, lupins, lilies and poppies.

11:14:37 Scenes in a Masai village somewhere in Kenya's Rift Valley showing long low dwellings made from mud, animal dung and wood and members of a Masai clan congregating for a coming-of-age ceremony for its young men (?). They are seen wearing tribal dress and body markings appropriate for the occasion - some with beaded hair and heads and torsos completely covered in a red dye, and left legs decorated in a chalky white colour; others wear headwear consisting of circular feather ruffs or are completely naked save for the chalky white powder applied all over their bodies in the form of patterns. Unmarried women - distinguishable by the copper earings and necklaces they are wearing (?) - and married mothers, the younger ones carrying babies, the older matrons sitting down (and in one case objecting to being filmed), watch the coming-of-age ceremony from the side lines. The young men taking part carry spears or brightly-patterned banners. They appear to rehearse their rhythmic 'adumu' or jumping dance before they take part in the communal celebrations. Older male clan members observe their dancing skills. One of the young men participating in the coming-of-age ceremony has to be restrained by one of his fellows after getting over-excited and he is led away. At one point, one of the clan's matrons is seen dancing on her own.

END 11:20:24

A miscellany of scenes filmed in Madagascar and Kenya.

Notes

Summary: In his recorded audio commentary over this film made on 14 May 1992, (DVD Reel 5-6 "Reel 21" from 25.00 to 6.20.) John Wernham identified the European officer or NCO seen taking charge of the dhow at Mombasa as a Greek.

As several flashframes indicate, John Wernham began to edit the scenes shot in Madagascar. The work was never completed, hence the random sequencing.

Remarks: An extraordinarily diverse range of subjects in just one roll of film. This footage, together with the rest of Wernham's film record of his time in East Africa and Madagascar, constitutes a valuable and possibly unique pictorial record of this period in the region's colonial history.