The North West Frontier — extracts

1928

In October 2006 Prince Charles and Camilla cancelled a planned visit to Peshawar due to increasing unrest in the region and in May 2007 a bomb planted in a Peshawar hotel killed 24 people. Pakistan's North-West Frontier — located on the edge of the Khyber Pass and one of the major centres of the ancient Silk Route — has had a long and troubled history.

This travelogue offers not only a vivid portrait of life in the province in the 1920s (then part of British India), but clearly demonstrates the political unease. The film features a portrait of Peshawar, the village of Kabla (with its slightly alarming gun-making industry) and the town of Landi Kotal (just 5km from the border with Afghanistan) with its mud fort — described as "the last outpost of Britain on the central Asian road".