saeeda mahmood, who was born and brought up in southern afghanistan, explores a remarkable set of films shot in the 1950s by american glenn foster and his afghan assistant. this is precious. i love this sweet. and ijust ate half of it and kept another half because i thought i will never, ever have them again. for me, this is a diamond. reminds me of my childhood. and the golden time. i was so excited to discover these films. my family had many photographs, but we lost them when we fled the afghan wars as refugees. most afghans have no pictures of their past. nothing to show their grandchildren. it is a terrible gap in our lives. these films, kept safe for half a century, are the only ones i have ever seen that have survived the wars. they show my afghanistan — to me, the real one. a land full of life and hope. they tell a special chapter of our story that's almost forgotten. half a century ago, an american, glenn r foster, from california arrived in southern afghanistan. he stayed on for seven years, a keen photographer in black and white and marvellous colour. glenn took his 16mm film camera through kandahar and helmand. he toured through villages and deserts. sometimes, he just let the camera run. people chatter horses gallop foster's family kept the films in a trunk at home, and they kept a reel of tape, noting his impressions as plain as the day he recorded them. their calm and optimism surprises our 21st—century heirs. we tracked down foster's assistant, now living on the far side of the world in america. he hadn't seen the films in 50 years. the films capture a time when afghanistan was changing, modernising, filling with ideas. king zahir, the last afghan king, imagined a forward—looking country, united under one flag. all asia was emerging from the second world war. the old imperial power, britain, in retreat. new countries were born. india and pakistan, afg hanistan�*s most intimate neighbour. in 1956, pakistan drew up its first constitution. it declared itself as something completely new — an islamic republic. drummers play mehtabuddin crossed the border into pakistan to film the celebrations. the schoolchildren are queuing up for an orange as a gift. it was a time of moral ambition, of aspiration for all. zahir shah saw his country as at the heart of a modern asia. here he is, greeting the visiting president of turkey, celal bayar, in 1958. zahir shah cautiously opened up state and society. he reformed the army. he promoted afghan national independence day, known as thejeshn. it's hard to imagine now, but then, kabul had money in the bank — $100 million. zahir shah decided to place his investment strategically into the south of afghanistan, where the river helmand cuts through an immense desert. dr farouq azam was adviser in the afghan ministry for power and energy. zahir shah hired the best foreign engineers with state—of—the—art equipment from a company called morrison knudsen. everyone called it �*mk'. explosion and that's how our filmmaker, glenn foster, came to be there. he was an engineer with morrison knudsen. mk drove roads through the desert and canals through the sand. it built three colossal dams at lightning speed. foster and mehtabuddin went out to film each stage of the project in detail, from the grand opening of the dams to the narrowest canals spreading across the desert. not many americans still remember the old days in helmand, but there are a very few. we went to afghanistan in, er... my daughter was about a year old. i went ahead of you because we didn't have any house for the family for the first six months, and we were working on the new kandahar international airport. mm—hm. and then they came over about six months later. we lived in this little bungalow... it was a duplex. was it a duplex? yes, and it had one bathroom, a living room and a long kitchen with a table at the end with two chairs. yeah, quite small, yeah. that was the dining room! well, it had been built in a huge compound that the government of afghanistan had made available to mk quite a few years earlier when mk went in in 19116 and �*7 to start the helmand valley project. the way these guys are so self—sufficient and so... if you're working here and you have to move a 20—tonne generator from here to there, you can't call upjoe blow at the crane outfit and tell him to send over the 200—tonne crane! but they knew how to do it. the american technicians didn't come to afghanistan as single men forjust a few weeks as they do now. no, they brought their families, their phonographs. they brought their swimming costumes. music plays helmand was a fun place to grow up. my neighbours were american. we used to go to their picnics and 11th ofjuly parties. we used to invite them to our eid celebrations. i went to a co—educational school. my father opened a cinema in helmand. everything seemed possible then. i remember santa claus arriving on a donkey in lashkar gah and the presents he brought. really nice coloured pencils, books, dolls and sweets. afghanistan's irrigation projects had many difficulties in the early years. the land flooded, salts rose up through the earth and the early settlers were herdsmen with not much idea how to farm. it took a lot more investment and loans — huge loans — to green the desert. afghanistan's debt grew as the age of independence slipped into the age of international development. the new us government aid agency, usaid, replaced morrison knudsen. we afghans felt safe in those days to go wherever we wanted, even after dark. so did the americans. we weren't afraid of each other then. adhan resounds. more than a million people moved into southern afghanistan in these boom years, seeking jobs in schools, hospitals and factories. glenn foster had no doubt in the power of technology to bring about profound social change. kandahar�*s brand new airport used the latest technology. the outside world was drawing closer. we didn't see our new airport as the product of far away cold war between the united states and the soviet union. to us, it was a marvellous new opportunity. we were building the international airport. the airport included large underground fuel tanks, very high capacity fuel tanks. it included very sophisticated refuelling system, electronically controlled, right out of the apron. it included overnight facilities for maybe 100 people. back in the �*50s and �*60s when a plane stopped to refuel everybody got out and stayed over night wherever you were on the way while the aircraft was serviced, and then the pilots and everybody would get back on it the next morning! it was designed to use the maximum of local materials. and all construction around kandahar was all adobe and brick — there was no timber and no steel — so the airport was designed as brick and it was designed as arches. we had huge, big parabolic arches like this out facing the apron, and then a barrel arch that went behind them to enclose the terminal building. and the afghans were, they were experts on that kind of construction. well, the russians had built this beautiful airport in kabul, so usa said, "wait a minute, we can't have the russians building..." that's my opinion — building airports up in kabul, we've got to do something too, so they built one up in kandahar with usaid money. correct? that's right. yeah. in 1973, king zahir shah's cousin daoud khan overthrew him in a bloodless coup. he declared afghanistan a republic and himself the first president. daoud khan rode the tiger of his times, balancing big investments from the americans against those of the soviet union. i was part of that lucky generation, the first who would reap the rewards of all the hard work. we were ambitious girls. we had big ideas — to be lawyers, to be doctors, to transform our country. we could not have known how very quickly the best of times would become the worst. in 1978, a group of communist army officers overthrow president daoud khan, the saur coup d'etat. it began a generation of war and invasion — the war we are still living with today. my parents were worried for our future. my sisters and i dressed in old burqas and plastic shoes. we managed to catch a bus across the border into pakistan as refugees. we tookjust a small bundle of things. mehtabuddin escaped too, along the road he had helped to build in the 1940s. in december 1979, soviet troops entered kabul. they broke open pul—e—charkhi jail. dr azam escaped, like us. he fled the country and spent years abroad as a refugee. the years of war brought the dams, canals and power lines of southern afghanistan close to dereliction. kandahar airport, though, is still largely intact. the andersons didn't think they would see it again, until a different technological innovation made that possible. i went on the internet here not too long ago to see what i could find out about the international airport in kandahar and ifound out that the nato forces were using it but that also the afghanistan national airlines was using it for domestic flights all over afghanistan, and also for some international flights in the area. i would go back there, yeah _ yeah, those were the days. we had a good life, we really did. we had a really good life. hello there. snow has been falling across the hills of scotland through the night. that will continue, although it is tending to peter out. we could have several centimetres lying towards morning. and also, fog is going to be an issue for those travellers on friday morning — quite thick patches in places reducing the visibility — and that's because we've had a lot of mild and moist air move northwards during the day on thursday. still with us friday, but so too that cold air and where those weather fronts bump into the cold air, as i say, across scotland at the moment is where we are likely to see the snow, but that boundary may come further southwards into christmas day. so, several centimetres over the hills, relatively low levels — that's 100m or so. some fog, though, under the clearer skies further south where it's at least milder, but it's the light winds that we've got an issue with here. so, going through the day on friday, we've got that mild air with us, the fog issue slow to clear, and then our rain starts to sweep into the south—west across wales later. some drier weather — just drizzly rain for northern ireland. our weather front petering out across scotland and northern england. the best of the sunshine will be in the far north here after a frosty start with some fog patches here too. but it's here where we keep that cold air through the day, whilst for most, because we've still got that legacy of atlantic air, it is a little bit milder — 9, 10, 11 degrees. but that cold air looks like it may well be on the move, so as we head through friday night, christmas eve into christmas day, that may well push a little bit further southwards. our weather fronts still with us coming into that cold air. so the likes of the pennines, possibly the hills of north wales just might see a smattering of sleet or snow but it looks like some good spells of sunshine across the north and perhaps northern england, and then further south on christmas day, we've got some more wetter — some more rain to come in. so, again, we will have the contrast, still that mild air across western areas but perhaps a crisp start in northern and eastern parts. a little bit of wintriness, as i say, over the hills. so we are not going to beat the records. these are the records of christmas day across the four nations. they are not going to be that high, the temperatures, as i say — more likely 4—5s in the north, 11—12 in the south — but the next few days, we are most likely to see, if we see snow, it will be over the high ground of the northern part of the country — from north wales northwards. at lower levels, most likely we'll see some rain. so for boxing day, still that cold air around with us and you can see we've got some unsettled weather as well. you can keep up to date online. this is bbc news. our top stories: a former minnesota police officer is found guilty of manslaughter for killing daunte wright during a traffic stop. the moment that we heard "guilty" on manslaughter one — emotions, every single emotion that you could imaginejust running through your body at that moment. japan says it will not be sending government officials to the beijing winter olympics in a protest against china's human rights record. and the us brings in a law requiring companies to prove they're not using uyghur muslim forced labour. but does it go far enough? we speak to a leading uyghur activist. the former south korean president park geun—hye, who was jailed on corruption charges, is to be pardoned by the government. and the renowned american journalist and author

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