Zambia World Wide

In the early fifties when my Dad, Tommy Miller, was the Prison Officer in Charge of the Kasama Prison, he also operated a prison farm at Malema, a few miles out of town on the Abercorn Road.

As part of their chaplaincy work, the White Fathers would hold movie nights for the prisoners, showing the films of Charlie Chaplain, Laural and Hardy and other great silent screen entertainers.

On movie nights, my Dad and Mum, Margaret, along with one of the White Fathers most often Father Bonar, would pile into the front of the old brown Hudson vanette for the drive to the farm. I was relegated to the back where I kept an eye on the 16.mm projector,generator and large green canvas and wooden folding chairs.

Upon arriving at the farm, the vanette would be unloaded, the projector and generator set up. The screen was a white washed wall of one of the dormitories.

The prisoners, wardens, their wives and all the kids would congregate and sit on the ground patiently waiting for the show to begin. Behind the masses sat the good father and the Miller clan on their P.W.D. issue folding chairs.

Just as the sun was setting, with a pull of a rope the generator would come to life, sputtering and coughing, before settling into a constant roar and belching thick black smoke which reached up into the cool African night. The projector would start, the film racing over the noisy sprockets, to throw its brilliant light onto the white wall as it transcended all into the magical world of movies.

On more than one occasion to the consternation of everyone, the film would break, or the roar of the generator would die as the beast ran out of fuel. These unplanned intermissions were brief and the movies would come back to life after a few short minutes.

After the show, as the vanette was loaded for the return trip into Kasama, the departing audience made their way back either to the prisoner dormitories or warders lines they could be heard happily discussing the exploits of their silver screen heroes.