DM,
Nilikuwa napitia ''archive'' yangu nimekutana na hii hebu soma:
I was amazed by the stories which Ally Sykes was narrating to me about life in Nairobi during the late 1940s.
Ally Sykes sensing my interest in his friendslife he called Peter Colmore there and then in Nairobi and he told him that hewas dispatching me to Nairobi and he wants him to talk to me.
That is how Icame face to face with Peter Colmore.
He came to pick me up at the Nairobi CityMarket where we had agreed to meet outside a shop owned by an Indian where he took his supplies in chauffer driven Mercedes .
The driver was in khaki uniformcomplete with a cap.
I sat behind with Peter Colmore.
He knew quite a lot aboutme from Ally Sykes and from the biography I had written on the life of AllySykes late elder brother Abdulwahid Sykes who Colmore talked with muchfondness.I have never seen such an organized person inmy life.
He had catalogued newspaper cuttings, photographs, records in wax,CDs, tapes, films, etc, he was a walking encyclopedia of the music and entertainmenthistory in East Africa.
I had planned to interview Peter Colmore for three days and my area of interest being the 1950s.
Whatever I had wanted to know was inhis finger tips, he would give me a cutting or play a tape for me or give me a narration in his upper class English accent.
Colmore could also speak Kiswahili well together with other local vernaculars.
I had all I wanted in less than aday and had lunch together.
I spent the rest of my time with him in his library going through his book collection and listening to very old recordings byEduardo Massengo and Mwenda Jean Bosco.