Home to China

When Bill Willmott was born in Chengdu, in 1932, Chiang Kai-shek was leader of the Chinese Nationalist government but feudal power was still rampant across the continent and five warlords were fighting for the rich farmland of Sichuan province.

Bill witnessed the poverty of local peasants, some forced to feed their children grass and his father supported the underground movement of the communist students.

President of the New Zealand China Friendship Association, for ten years, Bill, a Companion of the NZ Order of Merit, is now a Friendship Ambassador for China. This trip takes his family and friends back to the land of his birth to revisit childhood memories.

Unfortunately the earthquake in Sichuan shattered these plans just as the group was about to fly to Chengdu.

Diverted to the Tibetan border, producer Jenny Macintyre discovers Bill Willmott's footsteps have traversed the Chinese continent witnessing six decades of change as the nation emerged from communism and plunged into capitalism, this 21st century.