Colmore arrived in East Africa via the Empire Flying-Boat service (he
appears in documentary footage of Lake Victoria in the late 1930s). He
assisted in the drive by the British Army recapturing Ethiopia from the
Italians during WWII. He returned to Kenya in 1947 to start various
ventures, notably in advertising and as an impresario ("Peter Colmore's
African Band"), and eventually took Kenyan citizenship.