Got off the truck with guns...’
protesting that they had the right papers. “They just kept saying, ‘No, this is all wrong’.”
At the police station they agreed to sign forms acknowledging that the crew had been in the wrong area. “It turned out it was a naval area, but when we got to the police station we were shown in the side entrance, with the big clanging door with bars on it!
“You know that thing where you think, ‘Some people don’t come back from these things’, that’s exactly what I thought. People just disappear and you don’t want to disappear, not in Africa. And it did get scary. They took our passports off us, our phones, no calls to a solicitor. I thought, ‘We could be here for two or three or months’.”
Were you genuinely frightened?
“We were.we had no control over the situation, and had these big leering gentlemen shouting at us from these cages nearby, saying, ‘Come on in boy, come on in’. I thought, ‘Jesus Christ!’”
They were in the police station for four long hours. “Then suddenly a man came up and said, ‘Here are your passports, we’re sorry for what happened, good luck with the rest of your filming’.
“We just bolted out of the place.to this day, I have no idea what it was about. It was really scary. One of our crew was once locked up in Zimbabwe, so you just don’t want it to happen.”
A “big African traveller”, Tarrant’s new film traces the journey of the so-called Lunatic Express, a railway built across Kenya in the late 19th century to open a trade route from Uganda, rich with diamonds, to Mombasa on the Kenyan coast.the name “Lunatic” was coined by a British MP who thought it was ridiculous to build the 800-mile route across mostly barren terrain which included the Rift Valley. In the end, 2,500 people died constructing it, “four for every mile of track,” the former Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? presenter reveals. “It was building a railway across nothing,” he says in the film.
The route now dissects a “terrible slum – the second worst I’ve even seen”, outside Nairobi.we watch as a freight train passes through the shanty town, scattering residents, some jumping on the train, others off it. “That’s very African. They just get off the line at the last possible minute.
“The slum was just horrible, shocking. They had just spent £3billion on a new railway in Kenya.you would think they would spend it on people’s dreadful living conditions there.”
AFRICA By train also touches on the Empire, the so-called Happy Valley set of rich colonials, the famous Norfolk Hotel and one Lord Delamere who rode a horse into the bar and sprayed live ammunition about the establishment, which also hosted big game hunters.winston Churchill was another visitor and would shoot zebras from a train.
Tarrant also reveals how Mother Nature once turned the tables on the ruthless hunters. “I visited the ‘Man Eaters Camp’ in Sabo Park where more than 140 campers were eaten by two lions in the 1890s.these creatures would come into camp every night and drag a poor native out of his tent by his head. One of the beasts was finally caught. It was 9ft long, unbelievable!”
Were you recognised in Kenya? “Yes, because they show Millionaire all over Africa. But I have to say one of the best things about lockdown – I shouldn’t really say this – is that I haven’t done a selfie since the beginning of March.and no, I don’t want one now either.the other thing is ‘Phone a Friend’ they shout out. So that’s a plus but bless ’em.” He goes on, “I was once recognised in Sierra Leone, in the worst slum I’ve ever seen. Like the slum in Nairobi, there is an imbalance when looking at it as a visitor wondering where all the money has been spent.”
Given questions over the legacy of the Empire, and the toppling of statues, have we any reason to feel guilty? “It’s a moot point. When we did Cecil Rhodes, here was someone who achieved an enormous amount but he really mistreated everyone. I think statues may well have to go into museums, which is a shame.”
“It’s difficult.the railways made it possible for tens of thousands of people all over the world to travel and trade. Most people would have lived and died 10 minutes from their homes otherwise. But we did certainly mistreat a lot of people 300 years ago.”
Tarrant had a stroke when he returned from Myanmar several years ago. He’s made a good recovery, he says, thanks to a change of lifestyle. “That was really scary, but I feel really fit. I do things for the Stroke Association and people come up to me and say, ‘You look sickeningly well’, and I do feel good. But I was very lucky. I was rushed to hospital off the plane, a few weeks in hospital and then about six months of hard rehab.a woman would arrive to help me every day with a bag. On it it said ‘Pain equals pleasure’.
“I also did a lot of speech therapy because that’s an important part of what I do. I was quite slurry but it all came back.and my old lady’s been very good, changed my diet and I don’t drink whisky anymore.”
Tarrant was immortalised by actor Michael Sheen in ITV’S Quiz about the coughing Major affair. “Extraordinary performance but the weird thing was he picked up mannerisms and physical things that I didn’t know I had, with my leg for instance, which I waggle like a demented duck!”
Will it change what anyone thinks about Major Ingram? “I don’t think so. I’m still convinced he’s a crook.we hear there’s going to be an appeal apparently. Well, it’s 19 years too late.”
● Africa By Train with Chris Tarrant is coming soon to Channel 5