Our Garden - Jhelum

This amateur film captures Colonel and Mrs Lord's garden at Jhelum, as well as soldiers at Karachi.

Unguarded shots of Colonel and Mrs Lord at home in Jhelum form the bulk of this amateur compilation, which includes footage from 1940 to 1945. The Lords are seen showing off their prize-winning garden, out and about and entertaining a military guest. But perhaps most interesting is the central sequence, which shows the jubilant homecoming of soldiers of the 2nd Battalion Baluch (or Baloch) Regiment returning to Karachi after the end of hostilities in September 1945.

The 2nd Battalion fought in Malaya during WWII, but spent three and a half years in a POW camp after being captured at Singapore in 1942. After partition, it was transferred with the rest of the Baluch Regiment to the Pakistan Army. The film, one of a number shot by Mrs (Evelyn?) Lord and her husband, was donated to the BFI National Archive in 2001 by the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge.