The Flame Trees of Thika
is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 television mini-series of seven 50-minute episodes made by Euston Films

Euston Films

Euston Films was a British film and television production company. It was a subsidiary company of Thames Television, and operated from the 1970s to the 1990s, producing various series for Thames, which were screened nationally on the ITV network...

 for Thames Television

Thames Television

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

 in 1981. It was adapted by John Hawkesworth

John Hawkesworth (producer)

John Hawkesworth was an English television and film producer and writer best known for his work on the period drama Upstairs, Downstairs.-Early life:...

 from the 1959 book of the same title by Elspeth Huxley

Elspeth Huxley

Elspeth Joscelin Huxley CBE was a polymath, writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government advisor. She wrote 30 books; but she is best known for her lyrical books The Flame Trees of Thika and The Mottled Lizard which were based on her experiences growing up...

, and is set in and around the town of Thika

Thika

Thika is an industrial town in Central Province, Kenya, lying on the A2 road 40 km north east of Nairobi, near the confluence of Thika River & Chania River. Thika has a population of 200,000and is growing rapidly, as is the entire greater Nairobi area...

 in Kenya's Central Province. The story deals with the lives of British settlers in this part of East Africa

East Africa

East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...

 in 1913, when the country was a British colony, up to the start of World War One.

The series stars Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills is an English actress. The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Tiger Bay , the Academy Juvenile Award...

 (in her first starring role after a six-year performing hiatus), Holly Aird, David Robb

David Robb

David Robb is an English actor.Robb has starred in various British films and television shows, including films such as Swing Kids and Hellbound. He is well known for playing Germanicus in the famous 1976 BBC production of I, Claudius and as Robin Grant, one of the principal character in Thames...

 and Ben Cross

Ben Cross

Ben Cross is a British actor of the stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the British Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire.-Early life:...

.
The Flame Trees of Thika was filmed on location in Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

, directed by Roy Ward Baker

Roy Ward Baker

Roy Ward Baker , born Roy Horace Baker, was an English film director, credited as Roy Baker for much of his career. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for Best English-Language Foreign Film in 1959...

 and produced by Hawkesworth and Christopher Neame

Christopher Neame (writer/producer)

Christopher Elwin Neame was a British film producer and screenwriter. He was the son of film director Ronald Neame and of Beryl Heanly...

 with Verity Lambert

Verity Lambert

Verity Ann Lambert, OBE was an English television and film producer. She is best known as the founding producer of the science-fiction series Doctor Who, a programme which has become a part of British popular culture, and for her association with Thames Television...

 as executive producer.