Revd Ian Gilmour - St Andrew's & St George's

In the Footsteps of Livingstone?
Jack Thompson writes from Malawi
arrived in 1969: „who are these weird people, and what kind of
silly clothing and equipment are they carrying with them?‟
The village had been chosen by the producer during a previous
planning trip, because it is likely that David Livingstone passed
this way in 1859 and because it still looked very much as it
might have done then: apart, of course from the brightly
coloured plastic buckets and the fake Manchester United and
Chelsea shirts available in the tiny local store. And so, after
around four hours of travelling came what was to be my big
moment (and when the programme is edited and finally goes
out it probably will be a moment!). Surrounded by hordes of
curious and very noisy children Neil Oliver and I chatted about
David Livingstone, his character and his achievements, his
strengths and his weaknesses.
Then for me it was back to the Game Park in one of the boats,
and then straight on to Zomba by car, while the camera team
carried on for a couple more hours in the sweltering heat. By
the time my driver got me back to base I had been on the go for
almost nine hours – most of it under the hot African sun. It had
been a fantastically interesting experience, with the opportunity
to photograph African wildlife at close quarters from the river
and also to see as an „insider‟ how a modern television outdoor
documentary is made. But it also raised questions for me about
the relationship between Europe and Africa. Both in the
planning and the execution the BBC team had been very
sensitive to local people and their customs; they were treated
with great courtesy and respect. But seeing African village life
at its poorest, with children bare-footed, with many dressed in
little better than rags and some clearly suffering from skin and
other diseases, while we with our sophisticated equipment were
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