my name is godfrey henry oliver palmer and i was born injamaica in1940. big set. carmen esme — e—s—m—e — steele. i am mrs munroe. lacita alexander reid. 20th may 1931, in- manchester, jamaica. yeah. piano refrain plays. history is — thankfully and finally — beginning to accord a rightful place to those men and women of the windrush generation. you look beautiful. how are you? it is, i believe, crucially important that we should truly see and hear these pioneers who stepped off the empire windrush at tilbury injune 1948, only a few months before i was born. and those who followed over the decades to recognise and celebrate the immeasurable difference that they, their children and their grandchildren have made to this country. many served with distinction in the british armed forces during the second world war, just as their fathers and grandfathers had in the first world war. once in britain, they worked hard, offering their skills to rebuild a country during peacetime and seeking opportunities to forge a better future for themselves and their families. when they arrived on our shores with little more than what they were able to carry with them, few could hardly have imagined then how they and those that followed them would make such a profound and permanent contribution to british life. we were often ex—servicemen, to come back to britain. to build the country back. during the war, a lot of things that shouldn't be done wasn't done. . britain was flattened by the germans. and a lot of west indian come. there was a shortage of workers here. england have the money, but jamaica have the men. i heard about it three months before i bought my ticket. . £28 something. and i remember something pence. and i was looking forward to it. this year, as we honour the legacy and achievements of the windrush generation, i dearly hope that we can continue to embrace differences, listen to each other�*s stories, and learn from one another�*s experiences. it is these stories that help light the path of progress and remind us of a fundamental truth — that though we might all be different, every individual, no matter their background, has something special to contribute to our society in a way that strengthens us all. well, it's not every day that you're approached by the king. honestly, when they first _ emailed me, i thought it was a scam. i was like, ok. so the king selected me? yeah, right. and your sister and daughter, your daughter, your sister is an olympian? three times. yes. well, i don't know. 400 meters. oh, amazing. a lot of my work is about escapism. i'm going to get right in here. don't mind me. and in this sense, i'm engaging with a man and his family and his story in a very real way. that would be perfect. jesse's a remarkable woman. she's from an incredible generation and she's seen so much history. and it's nice to be able to document just a tiny bit of that history. i'm here to take a few photos of her and do a few sketches and try and take something back to my studio that i can use. in her portrait. what do you think? leave it. i thought you wouldn't fit... |as an artist, it's opportunitiesl like this that offer me a chance to tell people stories that i'm sure consider themselves unseen. - it's nice. it's important to understand history. a project like this where i guess we're dealing with a lot of histories that oftentimes feel swept under the rug, it's good to get, you know, from the source, and then maybe it can make a start in a direction of rectifying some of those gaps in some of those stories, some of those bits that are missing. well, this is clifton powell. he's going to be i doing your portrait. it's a pleasure to meet you. pleasure meeting you. this is new to me as well. you know that. i have to call my niece on my landline to ask her what's going on on here. i was so nervous when i first met carmen because i've literally grown up seeing her on television. what does it mean? the question of the windrush generation, which is my parents' generation, that question of migrating from one place and all the kinds of expectations and then the actual of what happens once that move has taken place and that person's perspective on the life they've lived here. so, those things were immediately fascinating and interesting. have you had your - portraits painted before? no, no. it's going to be your first time? the photos on the wall has inspired me. - what family means to you. yes. you know, and it's a beautiful thing ithat i will try as much as possiblel to touch base on the process of making the portrait. - i'm actually working - on my uk visa documents. i'm going on them and i feel| like it's very symbolic for us. when i go back to ghana, i'm going to, like, put- all the images together. i'm looking forward to bringing your portrait to life. _ my name isjohn mitchell richard. my name isjohn mitchell richards. i was born injamaica, the parish of portland, the district of prospect. alfred garner, born in kingston, jamaica, 27thjanuary 1926. delisser augustus bernard. i was born 1928. i was born in at the time, british guyana. oh, gosh, it's very difficult. i have to sort of come away again in order to tell you what it was like, because it wasjust like home. how do you describe home? you know? my family was very orthodox methodist, and so i inherited that christian background with discipline and hard work. it was a big family. 11 siblings and the parents. my father died early, _ in the early '505, so i stay home with my mother to lookj after the younger ones. i don't like to remember some of it. but one thing i decided, i wasn't going to steal l to help the younger ones. i work and i work. my father sent me to learn dress—making. when i small, i used to do, make my own clothes for myself. i did everything a boy should do, everything. at one time, i thought i could do anything a boy could do. idid. i didn't know that there was a life to come. - edna may henry. born in jamaica. when i had the phone call about they wanted to do a portrait for my mum, i was over the moon. i kept it quiet for a while before i'd even told my mother. i think it's fantastic. she deserves this because of what she contributed for wales. i have not been to wales before. it's part of my process to dress my models and i decided that it might be fun just to spend some time with her, to get to know her and to warm up together over shopping. because who doesn't like to shop? well, that's fantastic. to know that, you know, _ i'm painting somebody from jamaica — the same place that i'm from... it's an experience. it's a new experience for me. you know, it shouldn't be, but it is, you know? - oh, that's lovely. my name is gilda eunice oliver, and i was born in and bear road district. so i was wondering if... if you like this with like a blouse underneath? yeah. or a scarf. like a silk scarf or something like that. i don't know much right now. i'm looking forward to speaking to her. i do know that she worked as a health care professional and that she's a very proud woman and raised a family here and has, i think, probably as deep connection to herjamaican roots as she does to her british roots. i spent 23 years in the hospital. nursing assistant. i was a nurse auxiliary. i washed the patients, i feed them, comfort them, let them feel good. yeah, we have a laugh sometimes. there's some that can't feed themselves and we have to feed them. we have to bathe them and have to dress them and sometimes some of them dirty themselves. and we have to take them to the bathroom. and we have to bathe them. i didn't likejust... i used, i like to put them in the bath and give them a good bath. i know that they're clean. dress them and put them in the chair to sit. sometimes they try to be rough to me, but i don't, i didn't take no mind. you don't pay no mind. some of the rest of them, as soon as they get that, they stick to you. because we were so kind to them. they stick to you. it was a hard job. it was hard. to be truthful, i didn't know i would spend 23 years in the hospital. i want it to look exactly like her. everything here is about mrs oliver. at the end of the day, everything connects. and it comes down to a point. mrs oliver is the point. because this is going to touch her soul, to see herself in a painting. i really just want to try to pull her story out of this. hello. hi. how are you? that's important for me in the making of the portrait, is to just know how she feels about this, know how she feels about the life that she lived here. i just want you to try on tonight... yes. is this one? i used to do long hours. i used to work 7:00 in the morning till 8:00 in the evening. i've got five girls and three boys. yeah. in then night when i go in to work, i kiss them and say good night. i and in the morning, sometimes if they're on holiday, _ they don't wake up so early. so before they wake up, like i started sometime, they don't realize that i go to work. - they've always been very good to me and the country has been good to me as well because it allowed me to have a job that i can get. and look after the children. because it's not every yearl you work, you can get a job to fit in with the family, like the children. - but some of the patient then was, you know, prejudice. this girl came up and she said, "oh, i don't want your tea." and i always say, "all right, then." "you go. "if you don't want it, you go. "you lose weight." when i'm going out, she come back and she said, "are you here tomorrow morning?" and i said, "yes, i'm here tomorrow morning." okay. you know, but ijust laugh it off and walk away from it, you know, it didn't... i didn't think nothing about them, you know, because, you know, they're not as sensible as me. so therefore, ijust leave them alone. how does she feel about this commission? about her relationship to her own identity and to bring a deeper meaning into this? for me, just through her words and not my own. i'm proud of myself to, you know, to be so faithful to the nhs and the ward that i work because i work hard on that ward. all right. i think we're good. my father left us in 1947, probably. he went to america. hisjob that he was doing probably wasn't making enough money- to look after the family. you leave jamaica for there was no work and a crowded house. yeah. jamaica was a crowded house. when you leaving your own country, you always feel not too great to leave it because you are leaving your family and all your friends. and that's how things goes. part of life. it was quite normal. it wasn't unusual. you know, this is a i result of our history. historically, slavery provided work, in a sense that you were working. i however, when slavery ended, i then the, you know, the colonial period was one where men walked about looking for work. _ you don't know what you're going to make until you make it. i guess it'sjust, between now and the finish line, it'sjust attempts, you know, knowing that there's going to be a struggle. glasses off. knowing it's a process of not giving up. and that's that's what that's that's what would take me there. same as last time, i guess, i'll do five minute sketches. my challenge is to make something that big john feels is familiar, resembles him. appreciated by himself and whoever he deems important to see it as well. he's a role model, so, you know, let's try and put him in a position of being that role model. i noticed that he's in a lot of, like, photographs from back in the day. so he was, i don't know, to me, he's almost like this, like handsome pin up kind of character. there's a certain generation who, if it wasn't for the way they carried themselves, the way they survived, then, you know, we might not be here with such strength. there was a pride, able to stand our ground. so, yeah, that's what someone ofjohn�*s age and energy represents to me. my work is about investigation and rediscovery. for a kid who i was at school, who loved reading stories, but never felt reflected by them, any opportunity to build on that, to share that, grow that... that's my take. i'm here to go to alfred's house and meet him for the first time, introduce myself and get to know him a little bit so that it can inform what sort of painting i produce for him. and get photos. because i am a realist painter and i work from photos predominantly, so it's all about the photo. the better the photo, the better the painting will be. hello. nice to meet you. i've got really cold hands. just so you know. i want to capture the true essence of alfred. just like the kind of normal man that he is. i think a lot of paintings can add a level of sort of pomp, which i'm not about. ijust want to capture something realistic and raw and honest. i'm going to do a hyper detailed portrait for you. so the more the camera captures, the better. i do know a little bit about alfred already because i did some research and it looks like he came from jamaica to england on the windrush and he joined the raf. my granddad was recruited for the raf in 1958 and i said, like, "did you enjoy it?" he was like, "not really." what about you ? he came at the wrong time. when i came here, i mean, the war was still on. the best thing was get to know where you were, get to know the people and... keep your nose clean. keep your nose clean? don't get involved with anything. what do you feel is the key aspect of who you are and what you want represented in the painting? hmm. really, it's up to you. sometimes you can have really serious portraits, but you've got such a great laugh, i feel like i want to capture some of the, some of the candid nature of your personality. really. yeah. a lot of memories go back into good reggae music. a lot of good memories, yep. all the teaching was english, everything you did in jamaica was english. how else do you teach anybody? it has to be like that, i you know what i mean? british guyana. one of my first experience says about britain was when, injamaica, you're taught many, many songs. that's part of education. you sang a lot in schools. one day i went home and my aunts said, "you know, what did you do "at school today, boy?" and i said, "we sang songs." and she said, "which one? "could you sing us one?" and i said, "yeah." and i sang my love is like a red, red rose. and my aunts went silent. and then they said, "why are they teaching you to sing these dirty songs for when you're just a boy?" the english history book was about two and a half inches thick. the jamaican one was about a quarter inch, so ijust didn't like it. it was a big taboo to me, english history. i would not learn it. after high school, you'll be working for the government. or as time went by and it became obvious that another thing you could do was to leave guyana and come to the mother country. the mother country. the term was used often, you know, during your education. so, most people of the windrush generation, like myself, were not formally educated to, you know, because they didn't go to private schools or posh schools. but we knew — or we were told — a lot about britain. why is this photograph so important to you? i because... ..it�*s in perhaps a small way, help to break down the barriers. hm. with figures like him, we see their accomplishments and they hide a lot of the scars. and i think for me, i'm interested in where the discomfort lies and what he might might be keeping beneath the surface and how we can bring that into a richer understanding of who he is. hello. once again, it's a rather unsettled looking weather picture for sunday. with low pressure so close by there will be quite a number of showers around. some places will escape, but it's difficult to say exactly where. the winds are a notch down compared with yesterday, but there's still a breeze out there. you can see there's tightly packed isobars and we've got another area of rain moving in later this evening and overnight. closest to that low pressure across the north and west, so scotland and northern ireland, will see the most frequent showers. some heavy with rumbles of thunder. we've had a few sharp showers through the morning hours, perhaps fewer across wales and the south—west this afternoon, but equally, one or two sharp ones could develop just about anywhere. temperatures are similar to those of saturday, so feeling pleasant enough in the sunshine. it is all change, then, as we go through this evening and overnight. the showers give way to longer spells of rain for much of england and wales. some quite heavy rain for wales and northern england, as you can see. with the high moisture content, the humidity is higher. a warm night. a scattering showers continues because we've got low pressure across scotland and northern ireland, but a little bit chillier here, or fresher, as we start monday. for monday, some good spells of sunshine across scotland and across northern ireland, but that rain fringes close by to the borders. it takes its time to clear out of the way. we may well brighten with a few showers rolling in across wales and the west of england later, but it's uncertain how quickly that rain will clear from eastern areas and, actually, it mightjust brighten up in some places and so still 2a degrees. but, on the whole, a lot of cloud and rain on monday. that low pressure clears away into tuesday, although that low pressure is still close enough to our shores to give us a few slow moving showers. the winds ease off considerably on tuesday, so when the showers come along, heavy and thundery, but slow moving, so lasting quite some time. some places will escape altogether and stay dry, but again, the devil's in the detail when it comes to showers as to exactly where, but there will be some lengthy spells of sunshine around. certainly so on wednesday and thursday because this high pressure starts to build in. it will draw in some southerly winds, so we start to see the temperatures lifting once again. but low pressure is never too far away, so although our temperatures are lifting late week, we still run the risk of that next area of low pressure coming back in, bringing with it a spell of showers once again. she live from london, this is bbc news. 89 people killed by wildfires in hawaii, as officials warn of a "significant" rise in the death toll. when we find these, our family and ourfriends, the remains we're finding is through a fire that melted metal. the british government is under renewed pressure to stop migrants crossing the sea in small boats, after six people drowned in the channel. hello, i'm anjana gadgil. we start in hawaii, where the governor is warning of a "significant" rise in the death toll following devastating wildfires on the island of maui. 89 people are now confirmed dead, as recovery crews continue to comb through the charred ruins of burnt—out homes and businesses. the historic town of lahaina — the worst—hit part of the island — has been razed almost entirely to the ground. hundreds of people are still unaccounted for, days after the fires broke out. many people forced to flee at a moment's notice had to leave everything behind. hawaii's attorney general has announced an investigation into why the island's warning siren didn't sound at the height of the emergency. questions are also being asked about whether power to the island

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