during the conservative leadership campaign. the government has refused to comment. now on bbc news, witness history. hello, i am shanequa paris, thanks forjoining me. i'm here at new broadcasting house in london for this edition of witness history, bringing you important moments from the past, as told by the people who were there. now, in this episode, we are celebrating 100 years of the bbc, and will look back at five incredible stories from the corporation's history. coming up... we will hear from the tv chef who taught the west how to cook indian food. plus the iconic moment the bbc beamed the beatles all around the world. the fight to film queen elizabeth ii's coronation, and how it changed the public�*s relationship with the royal family. and teletubbies, the bbc children's programme which became a worldwide phenomenon. but, first, in 1945, bbcjournalist richard dimbleby was the first person to report on the liberation of belsen concentration camp. jonathan dimbleby looks back on his father's harrowing radio report which revealed the true horrors of nazi germany. and just to warn you, this film includes scenes of suffering which some viewers may find distressing. i find it hard to describe adequately the horrible things that i've seen and heard. but here, unadorned, are the facts. my father had seen terrible things in battles, in dead bodies. he had seen a great deal of suffering, but he had never seen what he was going to witness as he entered belsen concentration camp. i passed through the barrier and found myself in the world of a nightmare. the living lay with their heads against the corpses, and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people. this is what the germans did during six years of war. this is what the germans did. during six years of war, his voice became as familiar as the sound of big ben. this is richard dimbleby. my father was the bbc�*s first reporter. he was the first war correspondent. in a week, we'd swept forward 65 miles in what must have been the fastest advance of the war. he was in germany with the second army after d—day. they came to belsen outside a village called bergen, bergen—belsen. as i say it, it makes me shiver. there were a group of correspondents and most said, well, it's just another camp. they had liberated camps before, but they were prisoner of war camps exclusively. my father said, well, i'm just going to have a look. richard was going back to do his dispatch. he was deadly serious, in fact, rather overwhelmed. and he said to me, you've got to see it, go up there. it is appalling. and he said, i neverthought people could do this to each other. far away in a corner of belsen camp. there is a pit the size of a tennis court. it's 15 feet deep and at one end it's piled to the very top with naked bodies that have been tumbled in one on top of the other. one of his close colleagues and good friends told me that he had broken down on several occasions, but that he wanted it to be cool. if your voice breaks down, it suggests that you have lost your skills at observation because you've allowed your emotions to run away with you. the bbc was reluctant at first to transmit it because it needed, wanted corroboration from others. there was no other corroboration immediately available. that so dismayed my father that he said, if you don't put my broadcast out, i will never broadcast again. 20 years later, i remember how many bodies we saw sprawled out under the trees. there were 40,000 people in this camp when we came in. 20,000 were dead and unburied. it was for the 20th anniversary. it was also the year of his death. in that time, he was a sick man. and i think the reason he went back was, i have to see it one more time. it was a measure of how extraordinarily important it was to him personally as well as professionally and, you know, he died a few months later. this day at belsen was the most horrible of my life. his belsen report has become a very important document in thejewish archive because it is regarded as unimpeachable evidence that this happened firsthand from an observer who was trusted. jonathan dimbleby on his father's belson report. next to 1953 and a key moment in the history of television in london. bbc bosses asked a reluctant winston churchill for the right to film queen elizabeth the seconds coronation. witness history spoke to ladyjane lacey, who was one of the queen's maids of honour. when we arrived, we all got into a procession, and then the queen turned round and said, are you ready, girls? we said, of course, yes, ma'am. i was a very unsophisticated 19—year—old. i have to say, i was really very frightened. i didn't know at that point that was going to be televised. the cinema newsreels had filmed previous coronations, but for the first time ever, television viewers in their homes would now be able to watch the crowning of their queen as it happened. we never, ever had a television before. my father bought one months earlier. as soon as he knew. but the big question was whether permission would be granted to televise the service from inside westminster abbey. there seemed some suggestion that the coronation couldn't be televised at all. that's the service in westminster abbey, which was clearly the thing everybody wanted to see. churchill was against it. several of the government were against it. the queen, i don't think, had been asked at that stage. she was keeping out of it. we got up every trick in the book. whenever we got another refusal from the government, would come the banner headline. government still opposing bbc tv�*s absolute scandal said we were using every kind of pressure unashamedly because we knew we were right. we knew the public not only wanted to see it, but deserved to see it. the bbc mustered every outside broadcast camera it possessed to bring viewers live pictures of all the day's events. i was privy to all the rehearsals, so i actually produced the coronation as if it was a play using the rehearsal to try out different lenses, different mixes. so it was a pretty mammoth operation, but i think god was on our side that day because none of the equipment broke down. it was an absolute miracle. i never, everfelt for a moment that i was being filmed because there was too much going on. for the next few hours, the thousands outside the abbey and all along the route can only wait again and listen. but for the millions of television viewers, there came the scenes from inside the abbey as when the queen made her way towards the coronation theatre. when it came to her anointing, she didn't think that that part of the service should be filmed because it was too sacred. we could see a bit of it because we were quite close. it was extraordinarily moving. she looked so vulnerable and just a bit lonely. and i kept thinking, here you are. this young person had all the weight of the world on her shoulders. and so the royal stagecoach itself comes home more than six hours after setting out this morning. afterwards, i think i was told how many million people watched it, and i think it brought the people closer to it. it really would have been a crime, i think, if they'd been denied that. the coronation was a watershed as far as television was concerned. and it did so much for the industry because television receiver sales absolutely took off after that. i mean, from then on, television was respectable and the royal family was very firmly established. lady jane lacey and the story of the coronation. our next witness is sir paul mccartney's brother, mike. he was there as the beatles performed. beatles performed all you need is love live to an estimated global audience of 700 million people. the beatles were playing live in an ambitious global linkup across continents time zones. there are 1a countries involved and the programme broke all audience records. this is steve reese in the beatles recording studio in london, where the latest beatle record is at this moment being built up, notjust a single performance, but a whole montage of performances. none of us knew what the hell was going on, but everyone went along with it and it was just a magic thing. # all you need is love. # all you need is love love, love is all. and it was all such an experiment. it was that ridiculous. three, two. what? your life. 700 million fever. # all you need is love, love, love is all they need. in 1967, i was in a comedy group. it was a satirical comedy, poetic word imagery group called the scaffold. and i used to stay with my brother in his house. and so he said, there's this big thing coming up. do you fancy coming along? the our world broadcast was this extraordinary idea to link all these countries. for the first time, we can see right round our world from sunset to dawn by television, in 43 control rooms all around the world, production teams are monitoring and selecting the hundreds of pictures and sounds in five continents, which will combine to make this historic program. and so how do you wrap up what was happening in in london in the �*60s in one song? and thenjohn had written this thing called all you need is love, which was a piece a piece song without the vietnam war, kennedy had been shot. and it seemed to sum up the hopes and positive thinking of that era. all right. this is very good. thank you, john. that's fine. i think that will do for the vocal backing very nicely. we'll get the musicians in and we'll do that. 0h, great, great. everyone was rather polite, very quiet, because it was such a big thing. here then is final mixed track. take one of a song which we offer to the whole world. and then to actually experience the slow and the format of the song you hear had all the little bits fitting in and then the orchestra joining it and it building up and upo and is getting better and better and better and bigger and people relaxing more. # nothing you can sing that can't be sung. the whole thing built slowly. it was very slow and then into it. and johnny and our kid delivering the harmonies, delivering the song, and then building up to the crescendo. and then it was party time. # all you need is love. so a lot of friends were there. jagger from the stones, marianne faithfull, his girlfriend, all the cream of pop society. everyone is on such a high. the placards are going around. the balloons, the confetti is like snow. you're covered in snow, etc.. and this atmosphere was electric and beautiful. then it goes to another country. and then this beautiful atmosphere in the studio. it's a rap, love. sir paul mccartney's brother, mike. and remember you can watch witness history every month on the bbc news channel, or you can catch up on all of our films along with more than 2000 radio programmes in our online archive. just search for bbc witness history. now to the 1980s and how a bbc programme showcased indian cookery to the world. madhurjaffrey�*sn indian cookery was the first mainstream series about indian food to reach a mass audience. the programme was an instant success and made its presenter a household name. in this series, i'm going to show you how to cook all kinds of indian food. some of it you may be familiar with the kind of food you've had in indian restaurants and some of it you've probably never eaten. it's the kind of food you get in indian homes. when my programme came on air, there weren't any cookery programmes. not indian cookery. it was an immediate hit and nobody expected that. madhurjaffrey grew up in delhi but left in her 20s to study acting in london at rada. a mission to excite western palates led to her being described as the original spice girl. it was an educational program, so people were supposed to learn from it, learn culture. what makes indian food indian really is a mixture, a blend of selected spices. the most important element became the excitement of the cooking. one of the things i'm going to make is roganjosh. this is a classical north indian dish. it's lamb in a red rich sauce. i wanted people to have the authentic indian food from homes and to give recipes from specific regions of india. so people understood that indian food is not hot, hot or hottest. it all started with the people in the studio. they loved the smells, and the minute i finished cooking, they were ready to eat. it was last september when madhurjaffrey began her cookery course on bbc two. nearly 2 million people have watched spellbound as she unravels the mysteries of indian cuisine. there were letters. there were people calling in, people getting so excited. as i came in at immigration, they would say, well, so what are you making today? to be able to do it yourself and have something tasty that nobody�*s ever served to you before was quite something in people's homes. whatever i was making that particular evening would be cooked by everybody all over england. the day after i cooked a chicken with green coriander, they ran out of green coriander in manchester. this, i was told. so they were reactions like that, that whole city the following day, everybody�*s cooking, that particular thing. i'm going to put in some brown spices. the supermarkets started stocking the spices. so as i kept cooking, the the nature of the spices and the fresh ingredients they stocked became larger and larger and larger. now it has to go in the oven. and the people from south asia had never seen themselves on television as themselves. they'd been mocked. they'd been seen in forms that they didn't always like. but they'd never seen themselves as they were — ordinary, wonderful people and cooking absolutely gorgeous food. they felt i was representing them. i would wear wonderful indian cottons that i really thought was stylish and beautiful because i wanted to project an attractive india that had a sense of modernity. there was a deep, deep recognition and satisfaction that they were now on television in some way. i'm really proud of the programme we did at that time. i think we aimed it for people who had never watched an indian programme before and i think they reacted very well to it. what i started has not died. that's the wonderful thing and it's been picked up by other people and it'll have a life forever now. the tv chef who brought indian cooking to the west. now our final witness, who's responsible for one of the most successful children's tv programmes of all time. in 1997, the first ever episode of the teletubbies was aired on the bbc. and little did the creators know the show would end up being broadcast in over 100 different countries, making it a massive hit for the corporation and would anne wood reveals the surprising inspiration behind the characters. it aired in 97. but we first had the idea in 911, �*95. this time we were invited by anna hume at the bbc to submit an idea. anna had decided to let the flagship preschool programme playdates go in and replace it with another show. it was controversial to actually consider making program for two and three year olds. at the time, there was a big increase in new technologies. i mean, a small child of two or three would not be surprised if the toy train in the corner spoke to it. so i decided that they would be technological babies. the teletubbies were influenced by the fact that andrew davenport, who was a brilliant writer and i went to new york and to america on a selling trip to sell tots tv and other things. and we went to washington, but we decided we go to the smithsonian, and we saw the actual spacesuits of men who just not that long ago walked on the moon. then andy said to me, you know, isn't it amazing? there's all this technology and you look at them and theyjust look like babies with nappies on toddling about. of course, that made me laugh in my head. i'd thought far, you know, over the hills and far away teletubbies come to play. that was my line. and i said to andy, how can these guys receive the pictures? we can't have a big screen in the house. it's just too banal. we can't do that. he says, no, they could have them on their stomachs and that's brilliant. i then said, well, they've got to have antennas on their heads to receive pictures. and that's what we did. that was not in the least like the program that had previously occupied this slot. and so we stuck to our guns and of course we won the commission. then of course, we had to make it, which was terrifying because we didn't have enough money. everything there was real. if we had big characters in suits, you had to have a big landscape and you built real hills. you built a real technological super dome, and you had real rabbits. and of course, in the event we had people crawling across the fields with long lenses on cameras, trying to get a picture of the teletubbies with no heads on and all sorts, but of course, you don't know that when you start the bbc�*s role was absolutely essential in the selling of it internationally, because at that time bbc children's programmes were deeply respected in all the countries in the world. germany were the people who embraced it the most. but everyone around the world at the various film markets and tv markets would go to the bbc if they were buying children's programmes and always look at what the bbc had done. so we had that advantage. if it had been on any other channel, it would not have had the same power. it was dubbed everywhere. i'm astonished it's become part of history and whether it's because of the controversy or because it's phenomenally accessible around the world, i'm totally, totally astonished. the children's tv show, which became a global brand. and that's all for this edition of witness history here at new broadcasting house in london. but we'll be back next time with more first—hand accounts of extraordinary moments from the past. but for now, from me and the rest of the witness history team, goodbye. hello, the unsettled theme continues for part two of the weekend and low pressure takes over next week to bring spells of wet and very windy weather at times. low pressure with us to the north—west of the country for sunday. quite a few isobars on the chart so it will be blustery, pitifully further north and west, was still drawing in this very mild air from the azores right across the board. not quite as mild on sunday as what we have had to saturday, but still temperatures above the seasonal norm. plenty of showers, northern and western areas, some of them them quite heavy, early rain clears away to leave sunshine. blustery, winds touching a0 to 50 mph on irish sea coasts. 17 to 18 degrees as opposed to the low 20s we had on saturday. the mid—teens across the north. sunday night, showers are long spells of rain clear away from scotland and things are a little quiet through the early hours of monday with clear spells. winds a touch lighter, still quite fresh, and those overnight lows nine to a0 degrees. so for the week ahead, it is going to remain unsettled with low pressure always nearby. and with the air coming in from the west rather than the south, things slowly turn cooler and fresher. this is the pressure chart for monday. high pressure over the near continent, another area of low pressure in this weather front pushing slowly into western areas as the day wears on. not a bad start to much of the country on monday, variable cloud, some sunshine, one or two showers and it turns wetter and windier across western scotland and northern ireland later and irish sea coasts. temperatures again mild, 17 or 18 degrees in the south and the mid—teens in the north. on monday night, the weather front in the west starts to push slowly eastwards so pretty wet i think for much of the north and west of the country. we also start to see rain pushing into the south as this area of low pressure develops more and moves across the country. winds will be a feature, particularly across southern and western coasts. quite a messy pitch on tuesday, details a bit uncertain, stay tuned to the forecast. it does look like one badge of rain clears away to allowed sunshine and showers are long spells of rain feedback into southern and western areas. temperatures down a little bit with highs of 15 or 16 in the south, the low teens in the north. into wednesday, there is a brief bump of high pressure before the next low pressure system hurtles and later on wednesday to thursday. i think at this point, wednesday doesn't look too bad, in between weather systems. a cool start, some sunshine, but wetter and windier in the north and west later in the day. top temperatures around 60 degrees and that won't feel too bad in the sunshine. otherwise, the low teens in the north and west. be on wednesday, very unsettled and we could see disruptive areas of low pressure off the atlantic to bring gales and even severe gales and heavy rain at times. most of these affecting more northern and western parts, higher pressure always towards the near continent means the south and east should be a little bit quieter. generally on the mild side of the jet, but influxes of cooler air at times with this deep low pressure system. you can see that on the outlook, temperatures falling back closer to where they should be for the time of year, it will be quite cool across northern areas and you can see from the logos, it is going to remain on the logos, it is going to remain on the very unsettled side. this is bbc news. i'm rich preston. our top stories: at least 149 people have been killed in a crush in the south korean capital, seoul, during halloween celebrations. it was very clear that there was just to 70 people here, properly the most i've ever seenin properly the most i've ever seen in itaewon, and the crowds were just gathering more and more. ——so many people. city officlas say they've launched an urgent investigation into the cause of the chaotic scenes ahead of the incident. this is the current scene at the site of the acident in the itaewon, district of seoul. in other news: russia pulls out from a un—brokered deal to allow grain exports from ukrainian ports.