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. obviously wearing gloves to protect my fancy nails from the paint. i had a degree of ambition that drove me. i felt also that i could achieve more here. i was born on 26th of january, 1933, which meant that 26th january this year, i'm 90 years of age. i'll start off by sectioning off the different parts of the canvas. using acrylics, acrylic paints, spray bottle. i use these large brushes. i believe they're like painting brushes for like, homes, but they're really thick and they hold a lot of water and colour. hello. how are you? that you would recognise because that is a picture of the caribbean scene. i think it's a negril. 0k. that is in jamaica. usually when i'm approaching the painting, i try to find the connection between myself and the sitter. so miss linda is from jamaica, but she's had her hand in a lot of different countries, a lot of different spaces and communities. so she says she classifies herself as a caribbean woman, but with african roots and like this worldly impact. when she was actually saying that, we were actually looking at a painting by an african artist. this is a picture representing an african village. i guess the colours and that as well have inspired the colors i've chosen for this piece. these are some of my earliest memories of my childhood, and this is actually my first british passport. really? my mother, she, in fact, saved to ensure that i had the opportunities that she didn't have, because in those days, girls were more inclined to be married and, you know, to be home—based. this is when i was appointed the first woman of colour to the independent police commission. and this was my first day at the office. i was appointed by the home secretary at the time, who was kenneth clarke. i was responsible for a number of police forces throughout the kingdom. wow. you look like you're ready for business as well in this in this picture. yes. some of the largest forces in the country. i oversee the police discipline within the legislation. being the first black woman in this role, how do you feel maybe your experiences growing up influenced the way you approached? that is important. my experience of growing up in what i would describe as a humble home, but a home that gave me great sense of purpose, grounded in character, discipline, respect and more important, my christian beliefs came from my early upbringing. why is this photograph so important to you? because it in perhaps a small way, helped to break down the barriers, cultural barriers, to set an example for others to follow. and i have to say, whatjamaica gave me, which was a strong sense of identity of who i am. so you can be british and you can be caribbean or you can be jamaican. and i am very proud of both. i guess as an artist, when i first see this photo, because my practice is, you know, uplifting the the black female experience, you know, trying to bring light to our stories and our accomplishments and seeing understanding the background of this image and then seeing how proud you are and understanding you're your background and upbringing. i think this is like the perfect image to work from to represent you. somebody said that you're the first black professor in scotland. and i found it very surprising because i've never seen myself in that way. i wasn't made a professor because i was black. i was made a professor because i started my research in 1964 and this was i980—odd. i can't remember the date. and therefore i felt i'd achieved something which i probably deserved. you know, ithink a portrait at its best is a likeness. but i think when you can reveal something about the inner life of a person and and how the portrait is rendered, i think that's when something more interesting occurs. so i'm really hopeful that i'm able to to get a bit more of his interior life. sir geoff, how are you? what a pleasure to meet you. it's nice meeting you, too. i did a degree in honours botany. i had no idea what i was going to do with the honours degree. no idea. i went back to london to my mum and i went to the labour exchange and i stood in the queue and i went up and i said to the guy, "i'm looking for a job." and he said, "well, what can you do?" and i said, i've got a degree. and he turned to his friend and he said, "hey, johnny says, "this guy's got a temperature." degree temperature. and he was making fun of the fact that it was a black guy in the labor exchange at seven sisters road who said he got a degree. he didn't believe it. and one may think, oh, that was racist. a couple of days ago somebody said, "who are you?" and i said, "on your list you'll see it's professor sir geoff palmer." and she said, "is he the person you're looking for?" and that was last week. my own father is someone who i think experienced success despite great odds. i know at some point sir geoff palmer was a potato peeler with even after he finished university. and a lot of that is evidence of the structural racism that he was working against. and i think 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 be keeping beneath the surface and how we can bring that into a richer understanding of who he is. so my parents are from ghana. oh, yeah. and so fathers are not expected to raise their children. the women raise the children. and, you know, and my mum would leave me with her sisters. yes. and when i was leaving jamaica, my great aunt, a lovely lady. i'll show a picture of her. who was the boss. yeah, my gran aunt in kingston. and she called me over and wrapped me in newspaper my chest. so i was not cold when i got to the newspaper. yeah, the actual newspaper. newspaper she was reading, she wrapped it around. she got me to take my shirt off and wrap my chest in it. and then you put your shirt... my shirt on and got the paper. so you were insulated? i was insulated with paper, with newspaper. london compared with georgetown in guyana. vast, you think? oh, my god. yeah. and you can see that you're able to actually look at those buildings that you read about. it's exciting. hear about britain, the world biggest and i want to know what britain is like. but you're young and you're... well, i wasn't that young. i was 26, but still is young to leave home and don't know where you're going, what to expect, and so forth. it was quite fascinating, exciting, exciting and sometimes a little bit depressing. not just the weather but some of the the the behaviours you saw. not just the weather but some of the behaviours you saw. "why would anybody do that?" i come down here with the money from london. i was satisfied with newport. it was brilliant. everybody was so friendly. black and white. it put me in my district home. i came here the saturday and the monday i get a job straightaway. assembly, car batteries and lorry batteries. that's the onlyjob i had in newport. and that's where i lived first. this 29 mill parade was here. yeah. yeah, they knocked them all down. when i was in london, i had a terrible job and i couldn't get anywhere up there to buy. i could, but the agents told us not to buy the houses in battersea. for they was going to knock them down. and the house is there right now. he just lied to me, but you know things. what's going on with they see the blacks buying houses and they decide to put a stop to it. have you heard the saying, "no blacks, no irish, no dogs"? that's what they said. you didn't expect us to have that type of hardship. we have got it now. it hasn't gone away. it's still around. you might heard about the teddy boys in them. that was in the early '60s. they were late... yes, late '70s. early '60s. they were vicious, but still, we managed to comb through them for it. they used the bicycle chain. that's what they used to hit people with. and that cut you. so that was the way of life here. and we come through it, so. there's a lot i... isee. but it's human being. we shouldn't be like that to each other. but what are you going to do? idon't take on everything because, as i said, people don't— say things here and they don't realise that it is wrong. so you have to look at it and say it is wrong and everything. - you jump to it, you have to say, well, you know, | i forgive her. she said, but i rememberjust ijust said, there is one more than one. but i rememberjust ijust said, there is one more than one. . i went into the shopping mall and there was a long queue. so i stood to the back l of the queue and i went there until when i my turn, this lady, this white lady, i she sat up in front of me - and she should go up to the front. so i said, i was here before you. she says to me, go i back to your country. i said, i pay my fare to come here. i met norma in the dance hall. the mecca dance hall. you danced and she told me if i want to really go to that, i had to see her parents. so i decided i'll go and see your parents. i went to the house and you invited me in. i walked in and the mother greeted. herfather was in the kitchen after me and he just walked in and he said, what's he doing here? get him out of here. i just turned without saying a word and walked out she just came and said, i'm coming with you. and that's that. you went into a pub and the landlord was putting bottles on the table for white guys to throw them at you. and you had to run. you know, the police was called and the police did not turn up. then, you know, a judge is making a decision in a court about whether you're evicted or not. a school says you're educationally subnormal, but you didn't see it as race because we weren't educated in the british colonial education. that was race. with each canvas, there's lots of preparation, much of it you cannot see. there are these kind of subterranean levels underneath paper and cardboard. these are hundreds of small pieces of paper that have been adhered to the surface of newspaper by hand. in the case of sir geoff, where he talks about, for example, being wrapped in newspaper by his aunts because he didn't have a coat, and so i love the pairing between the use of newspaper and paper here to prepare him in a very similar sense. there's a conceptual tie to his story that i enjoyed, but i do think that this idea of working with scraps, working with what's left over and trying to imbue it with a sense of dignity is very appropriate for this portrait. one of the things that i try to avoid getting into the pitfall on is that everything was horrid. it wasn't. although i know that prejudices against people of my colour existed, what i did, even at those young earlier years, is to rise above what many people rightly describe as discrimination and racial discrimination and not allow it to go away and became a burden to you so that you become disaffected and disenchanted, but that you tried to see the positive side of life. it was just disappointing, but when it was good, i it was absolutely incredible. you saw amazing people. but then you had people - who were who took a naturally dislike to you as though you had done them wrong. _ you know what i mean? so what have i done? just being me could create this. just being who i am. another human being could create this. - well, i can't say very, very good. that was very disappointing i and you kind ofjust swallowed the lump and carried on. carmen monroe is one of britain's most experienced actresses. she's been in the business for over 25 years, working in both theater and television, and will be well remembered for her performances in general hospital and the fosters. most recently, she starred in channel four�*s popular comedy series desmond's. i saw myself on the stage at the earliest when i could think. how many plays are there that's written that got a black person in it? somebody's got to be brave enough to say, well, i'm going to cast her, you know? and that that speaks for itself. it's not it's not in your literature. it's not in in the canon. you're not there. and if you are there, you'd be what we saw at home. you'd be standing there with a tuft of hair, a bone through your nose, and and a loincloth. and tarzan would be the master. so that was black. if you got a black agent, would suggest you and... no, no, no, we're not seeing her. she wouldn't be right or whatever without her looking. but, you know, you struggle, you keep on because there's got to be...there is going to be someone who is going to say, yeah, come on, let's, you know, and you're in. what are you going to do? just not do it? just decide it's too hard? i can't imagine that. i cannot imagine that. i'm looking for the multi—millionaire rock star, movie actor and international businessman who drinks in this pub. my knowledge of her really has been on the screen and so i wanted to do a print of her where she's in a cinema looking at images of herself. the idea is that these are kind of prompts for you to kind of think about. oh, yes, i remember doing that. everywhere i worked. i was the only black person at the time. itjust seemed, well, you know, it's these are early days. we have a mission in a way. i didn't see it as such, but i deeply held something in there saying, i have a mission to be in these places so that i can, so that black people could be in these places. and then we started making our own situation, you know, own companies and helping the other person and so on and so forth. but it was difficult and very frustrating. wonderful. i was very fortunate to be constantly working at something or other and in some other capacity, some other group, some other something at the edinburgh festival, something groundbreaking for us to be seen in this. in that capacity, i was always there. out of that series of stills, i've chosen an image that i hope she'll like. that i think really captures her brilliance. i hope. she was born when like women, especially like black women, there was so much against them. and she, like, rose above it. yeah, she's really inspirational. this isjust, like, another step to show that the windrush generation is important and we do care and they deserve a spot in the royal gallery. like, that's a pretty big thing. wow. as we had three saturday night, showers still with us across northern ireland, breezy and some western coasts and elsewhere dry with clear skies. high pressure anchored towards the north—west overnight, high pressure towards the south—east and the north—west, south—east and the north—west, south—east split sticking with us into sunday. through the early hours, showers continuing, many areas dry and not assumed as last night. temperatures in the low teens in towns and cities. on sunday, all ice on sydney and after a lovely winter's day of weather but the timing which kick off in the evening, temperatures with 17 degrees with a light prize. dry clear skies. sunday morning here, sometimes kick off happens, seung chan around and anyone wanting to watch the game outdoors, there will be showers at times across the north—west, warmest and south—east with temperatures in the mid 20s. into next week, low pressure sticking with us, high pressure nearby and things turn a bit more unsettled for all by the mid to end part of next week. weather front bringing rain into the west coast of scotland and parts of northern ireland, else when mostly dry to misty start across southern england but that will lift and the afternoon is fair with sunshine. temperatures climbing to the mid or high 20s. on tuesday, showers through parts of scotland northern ireland. dry through southern england and temperatures again, mid 20s, cool and fresherfurther temperatures again, mid 20s, cool and fresher further north. further ahead through the wednesday, midweek period, low pressure but getting squeezed away meaning the warmth we are seeing across parts of the near continent not coming our way very much at all. thing is taking a turn for a more unsettled outlook into next week. live from london. this is bbc news... at least seven people are killed in a russian missile attack on ukraine. one of the victims is a six year old child. more than a hundred are reported to be injured. every once in a while you have a scene of devastation like this. more questions about the british nurse convicted of murdering seven babies — did the hospital properly investigate lucy letby? a state of emergency�*s declared in western canada — as the country deals with its worst wildfire season on record. and counting down to glory — one more day before spain and england compete for the women's world cup. hello. i'm gareth barlow. we start in ukraine, where officials say a six—year—old child is among seven people killed in a russian missile strike on the city of chernihiv. more than a 100 are injured. they say a theatre on the main square was targeted. video from the scene shows glass and debris blown across nearby streets, as well as a number of bodies. president zelensky, writing on the telegram messaging app, said russia had turned an "ordinary saturday" into "a day of pain and loss". chernihiv is close to the border with belarus. videos of the moment the strikes took place in chernihiv have been appearing on social media. this is an image from one video which shows a woman in a white dress posing for a photo as a missile hits a building directly behind her.