Tibet Remembered

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23/09/2013

BBC Radio 4 - Tibet Remembered

A portrait of pre Chinese Tibet through the voices of the British who worked there.


Tom Alban paints an audio portrait of Tibet with the British working there before the Chinese arrived in the 1950s. From 2013.

BBC Radio producer Tom Alban's godfather Charles Searle spent three months as a medical officer in the Tibetan hill fort town of Gyantse in 1940. 

His memories of marching across the high mountain passes into this extraordinary country were familiar to close family but it was only when the Dalai Lama spoke of the importance of what appeared to be 'colonial' memories that they took on a new life.

Tom sets out to gather the memories of the few remaining British people who visited Tibet before the arrival of the Chinese in 1950, including:

*   Dick Gould, son of Sir Basil Gould who served in Tibet

*   Colonel Alan Jenkins who travelled there in 1947.
 
While the recollections of the Himalayan vistas and rugged high-altitude plains of the so-called 'roof of the world' are dramatic, it's the details about the food, the basic transport systems, the juxtaposition of poverty and ceremony and the friendships made with Tibetans themselves which makes this so much more than the Hollywood version of the mystic land featured in films like 'Seven years in Tibet'.

Reader: Joel MacCormack

Producer: Tom Alban

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2013.

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