old tvIn the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Tom Harrison and his wife Barbara produced two series of documentaries on Borneo for the British television. Tom Harrison was at the time the curator of the Sarawak Museum.

Below are links to the 9 episodes (via Vimeo). Each is of 25-30 minutes.

These films are themselves historical documents. Although the perspective they present is dated, they contain precious and interesting scenes of Sarawak’s cultural fabric which may have vanished since.

Episodes broadcast by the BBC in 1957*:

 1-“Borneo from the Beginning”

2-“Birds Nest Soup”

3-“Peoples of the Tijar River”

4-“The Dyaks”

5-“Fisherman of the Coast”

Episodes produced for ITV in 1962/63*:

6-“Cavemen of Today”

7-“The Rainforest”

8-“Highlanders of the Equator”

9-“The Swamp”

With thanks to the Friends of Sarawak Museum, who spotted these links.

These links can also be found on our page “GoodReads/Goodviews

[* dates from Wikipedia article on Tom Harrison]