and a half years i've spent in the navy. but there are some memories that will not fade away. you have to picture me standing on the attack of hms dunbar looking at the beach, a young soldier with his rifle runs up that beach and then quite suddenly stops running. forever. iwas that beach and then quite suddenly stops running. forever. i was very lucky because prior to joining this minesweeper i had spent about a year out on the atlantic with the famous captainjohnnie out on the atlantic with the famous captain johnnie walker, second support, killing u—boats. i had a little bit of experience but on all

those landing craft we were surrounded by, there were thousands of young men just like surrounded by, there were thousands of young menjust like me surrounded by, there were thousands of young men just like me who for the past year or so had been getting ready just for this day. charles, thank you so much for talking to us, charles somervell made d—day vetera n, charles somervell made d—day veteran, a great privilege to talk to you, iam veteran, a great privilege to talk to you, i am afraid we have run out of time. —— charles somerville. now on bbc news, it's time for echoes of empire. in this programme the bbc‘s correspondents around the world, consider the legacy of imperialism as continuing controversy over the future of some public statues and protests by the black lives matter movement

have shone a light on aspects of britain's imperial past. the british empire was the largest the world had ever known. at its height it ruled about 20% of the earth's population. but the legacy of that empire is now subject of passionate debate. issues of exploitation and brutality have come to the fore, thanks to the black lives matter protests. in bristol and the south west of england, the statue of the slave trader edward colston was torn down amid angry protests. clive myrie has been to bristol and reflects now on the struggle over memory. who owns history? who who dictates memory? is it always the victors?

what would you think about coloured people coming to work on the buses? i don't like the idea very much. what about the others, those marginalised like the windrush generation? you know, i was willing, well, i fought for which was my country and obviously it's not. the city of bristol is a place where different memories vie for supremacy. but why can't there be a past we all can embrace? i'm a proud northerner, born in bolton of jamaican heritage, but it could be argued bristol is the place where i came of age. where i got my firstjob in journalism, the only career i have ever known. like many west indians and their descendants living in the uk, my lineage stretches back to africa and the trade in human bondage

involving ports like bristol. ships loaded with goods would sail from here down to west africa. they would then be exchanged for slaves, that human cargo would go across the atlantic to the caribbean. there they'd be exchanged for cotton and sugar and tobacco. that would then sail back to the uk. the triangular trade. and slavery underpinned great wealth and it's that wealth that helped build cities like bristol. the legacy of slavery and the ships that sailed from here is a fractured past for me. this is true for all britain's west indians. the children of empire. asha craig grew up to become bristol's deputy mayor. i'm searching. i want to know who i am and i may take the dna test too. i need to pass down this legacy

to my own children, so when they're ready to have children, they can kind of pass on that legacy. now the end of theirjourney is near, what will they find in the land they regard as an eldorado? slavery had obliterated one part of their history, now west indians were being encouraged to create another — asked to help rebuild britain after the war. mike lord was a schoolboy, a little too old to be carried over england's threshold, when he arrived in 1960, one of the windrush generation. the new arrivals were construction workers, bus drivers, theyjoined the nhs. mike arrived on his godparents' passport with no other paperwork. years later, when he was forced to prove he had a right to live here, he couldn't. i felt like a leper. you know, ijust had a... a tag on my back saying i'm not british, because no one will accept it, because the government made it not to employ you if you have no paperwork to prove who you are. slavery, windrush, toxic

legacies of empire, history written by the victors. but this empty plinth tells a new story, that the marginalised have had enough. the statue of the 18th century slave trader and philanthropist, edward colston, was toppled in the heart of bristol. now, he awaits restoration. but the graffiti is to be preserved — a symbol of a new understanding that the experience of victor and vanquished are part of the same story. well, this is one history that's been brought low, covered in mud, by people who were hoping to create a new history. but the fact is both our faces represent bristol. i think nobody owns history. no one race, no one group owns history.

and i would like for us to start thinking about history in a collective sense as a british history and that i think will encourage people to feel british, to feel they have a stake in british society. british colonialism defines who we all are. it's left a family album of different people and different races. it is our story. every single moment. britain's first attempt at colonisation was much closer to home — across the irish sea, in ireland. i grew up in the province of munster, listening to stories of english conquerers fighting irish rebels. i've gone back to munster to see what a modern generation feels about the legacy of empire. these days history is a beautiful tourist trail. here, where empire took root,

in the fields of munster. there are traces everywhere of that long ago conquest when the energy of elizabethan england overpowered its enemies. the irish were not made slaves, but there was massacre, dispossession and assault on gaelic culture. catholic ireland, with her continental allies, was a threat to england, but also an opportunity for english adventurers. this part of ireland saw some of the worst atrocities carried out by men regarded as heroes in britain and they would take the tactics and methods of colonial conquest and export them from here across the world. men like sir walter raleigh, who took vast land holdings after the destruction of the native lords. the great poet edmund spencer was among those who defended starving civilians to deny food to rebels.

thousands died in the famine which swept munster in the 1580s. i'm going back into the landscape of the munster conquest along the river black water to meet a leading expert on the elizabethan era here. how ruthless was the imposition of colonial rule by these men? whatever it took, they didn't, i mean, they killed men, women and children. that's very much part of how the british empire emerges. it's forceful seizure and occupation. but go to the town of youghal at the river mouth and walter raleigh is a tourist attraction. raleigh left ireland for other colonial adventures, but others prospered, settled and

rest in ornate tombs. in a stable, modern republic, their legacy can be studied, not fought over. it is much better for us to try to understand what happened, why it happened, how perhaps raleigh or these other individuals could treat irish people, particularly badly. people particularly badly. often they do so, because they consider them almost to be a different species of humanity. "grim houses beckoned in the swelling gloom of munster fields where the atlantic knight fettered the child within the pit of doom. and every where at the going down of light. . . " memories of oppression became imbedded in our culture. but historic acts of reconciliation are helping to heal old wounds. i feel the hand of history upon our

shoulder in respect of this, i really do and i just think we need to acknowledge that and respond to it. with the benefit of historical hindsight, we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently, or not at all. history throws up complexities. thousands of irish served as imperial soldiers and civil servants. i had relatives who fought the british and others who benefitted from and served empire. but i wanted to hear what some younger people in munster felt about the colonial past. we want to show both sides of the coin, put people in the shoes of the participants of these events in the past. you know, history is very complicated, there's a lot of greyness, but you know we try to give them the facts and let them decide their own opinion after that. i know some people would really love an apology, but for the like of us, we just want to learn about it and not to make those mistakes

again i think is better than getting an apology. you look at people of your generation who are black british, black american, they're looking back at the history of the empire and they feel real rage and anger over what happened to their ancestors. you don't feel that? we don't suffer injustice as much as they do. we live privileged lives, we are not being injusticed every day, as much as they are. their roots were taken from them, so i can understand why you would be so angry. i'm i'm very proud to be irish and i love my heritage and i love my roots. so i can't imagine having that taken away from me. history is no longer a gaping wound in munster. the colonial past is distant. it really is the past. india was the so—called jewel of the imperial crown. but the role of the british, specifically war—time leader, winston churchill, in one of the great tragedies of modern

india, the bengalfamine of 1943, is coming under ever scrutiny. our correspondent considers the view in india of the decision taken by in india of the decisions taken by churchill during the turmoil of war. in london, he stands tall. for millions here, winston churchill is a hero and one of greatest britons of all time. but in a colony he once presided over, many point to a dark legacy. he might be an icon in britain, but in india, he is seen actually as the precipitator of mass killing. because of the policies that he advocated and the policies that he followed in bengal in 1943. at the heart of the anger against him, a famine in bengal.

it was triggered by a cyclone and flooding, but many blame winston churchill and his government for making the situation worse. it's a painful chapter in india's colonial history. only a few surviving images show the horror of hunger. those who didn't die in villages went to cities in search of food. every day, bodies had to be removed from calcutta's streets. at least three million died. more than six times the british empire's casualties in world war two, raging at the same time. this man has lived through it.

british troops had been forced to retreat from burma by the japanese. and, fearing they could also invade bengal, anything that could aid the enemies, like food stocks and boats were seized or destroyed. british officers in india sent telegram after telegram describing how grave the situation was. but, for months, mr churchill's government's turned down requests to urgently export food that could have saved lives. they feared it would reduce stockpiles in the uk and take ships away from the war effort. he felt more could be done by local politicians to help the starving. viceroy to india, archibald wavell called the bengal famine one

of the greatest disasters to have befallen people under british rule and said the reputational damage was incalculable. during one government discussion about famine relief, secretary of state for india leopold amery recorded mr churchill saying that, "any aid sent would be insufficient, because indians bred like rabbits." it is a man made famine. it is because of global conditions during the war. but i don't think we can blame churchill for causing it. what we can say is that he didn't alleviate it, or send relief when he had the ability to do so. we can blame him for prioritising white lives and european lives over south asian lives. when a fraction of the food supplies asked for finally came, they were carried over this bridge. it's borne silent witness to history. remnants of india's colonial past

remain imprinted on it. but, do they matter today? at independence, india was a nation born in hunger, some have said. and so in immediate priorities shrunk any retrospection about british rule. but today a generation of indians more confident about our place in the world are questioning why there hasn't been more widespread condemnation of the dark chapters in our colonial history. judging leaders of the past through the lens of the present might leave the world with no heroes at all. but there is likely to be little progress on equality without accepting the full truth of their lives. land, the whole question of who lost it and who took it is central to the debate about colonialism and nowhere is this more true than in kenya, where white settlers took the best land available. our correspondent has gone back to the rift valley,

where she grew up to look at the legacy of colonial land policies. the highlands of rift valley, where i was born and raised. it is here that the colonial administration faced one of the fiercest resistant movements in east africa. at the turn of the 20th century, british settlers arrived here and found conditions perfect for agriculture. rich volcanic soil, constant rain fall and high altitude suitable for growing tea. these fields have supplied britain's breakfast staple for over a century but it came at a huge cost. 15 years of resistance by the ethnic group then led by the talai clan. translation: the settlers used divide and rule tactics. they turned the community against us. they convinced them

that the talai were evil people. you see, they had guns and bombs and all we had were arrow and spears and we fought against them for more than ten years. so they said we were evil. once they had subdued the locals, laws were created in nairobi and london allowing them to push the locals to the fringes, what are called the natives reserves, and the best land was divided up amongst a handful of settlers. they also introduced taxes and because the locals did not have money, they had no choice but to work in the settler farms in order to make money to be able to pay the taxes. that subjugation lasted about five decades. in the 1950s, resistance was growing again across the country and continent. closer to the colonial seat of power in nairobi was the mau mau movement. they fought for freedom from colonialism and to get land back. many were rounded up, detained and tortured. the official death toll is disputed. some historians estimate that

more than 20,000 died. newsreel: at midnight, the union jack was lowered for the last time and kenya seized to be a colony. 1963, statues of colonial leaders were removed and later replaced with kenyan faces. good luck to kenya in her new role as an independent nation. and decades later, as statues of leaders of colonialism and slavery are brought down across the world, some kenyans are now questioning how deep the change here really went. we just changed the face of the monuments. we were conned at independence. we handed over to the people who were you know, who were subservient to the colonial authorities. the biggest beneficiaries of independence, they say, were those who worked for the colonial administration and fought again their opponents. controversial views in kenya today.

what have i done? they landed this activist in trouble with the authorities last month. police raided his home and arrested him. i do a lot of social media activism and my premise is that kenya has never gotten independence. the tread i did before the arrest that traced this all the way from colonial chiefs to the current political elite and their intermarriages and their linkages and their business linkages and that kind of thing and kenyans could now see, they could actually connect the dots. and i guess there are people there who are are not comfortable with that. the elites grabbed the independence and ran off with it. and the mau mau were left landless. nothing had changed. and, in the rift valley, the talai are today some

of the poorest people living here. translation: when land was being subdivided among the locals, we asked for some, but we got nothing. they said we were the evil ones. for decades this was a detention camp. they're not allowed to interact with other communities, the colonial government tagged them an evil clan and even after independence, that tag remained. the lasting legacy of colonialism in this village. a lot of the land in kenya is now owned by locals and tea remains one of country's biggest exports, but the inequalities created during colonial times and adopted at independence persist. there may be no precolonial statues here, but this is a country still ill at ease with its past. imperialism and slavery are fatefully intertwined. it was an act of the british parliament in 1833 that abolished slavery throughout the empire. but it was also the british

who first imported african slaves to north america. aleem maqbool looks now at the effect on that early traffic in human lives on american society. it was here on the coast of virginia that an english ship brought, against their will, the first 20 africans to what was already a british colony. and so began the horrific legacy of slavery here from which more than 400 year on some of the greatest ills in american society can be traced. there are those who feel some people in britain looked at americans with contempt during the recent race troubles, but need to acknowledge their own wrong. britain put its stamp on america from the beginning. if you claim that america has its foundational culture based on england,

then you have got to take it all and that includes slavery. that includes the systemic racism in our laws, in our practices and in our culture. policing in the southern united states traces its origins to slave patrols set up under the british, who also passed laws which regarded black people as inferior. the policing that we see that automatically assumes that a black person is a criminal, that starts from really the founding of our country that viewed africans as systemically different, as people. but americans of course have to shoulder responsibility too. they won in independence, but then there was civil war, with the confederate south fighting to keep slavery. many british elites backed

the south, but their side lost and slavery was banned. but decades later, statues to confederate leaders were put up here to rewrite history and remind black people of their place. we were told, don't look up at them, we were told keep walking straight, keep driving straight, you don't have to look up to that white man. they made it that big, so that you would have to hurt your neck to look up to them and we are done with that. in fact we are now going to create a space that's just comfortable for us to be around. statues in the former confederate capital of richmond have now been daubed with graffiti or torn down, including one of former confederate president, jefferson davis, who died utterly unrepentant about his role in fighting his own country over slavery. but some of his descendants say we need to look past that detail. none of the individuals that are being attacked today were solely

slave perpetuations. they had an illustrious history associated with many more acts that may preclude that scenario of slavery. britain may have brought slavery here, but some americans are still commemorating its legacy. remarkably, there are 11 confederate statues that still stand in the us capitol building. the question is, what message does it send to african—americans when some people whose fame, notoriety is derived from the fact that they defended — and even fought to keep the institution of slavery — are celebrated here in the most exalted corridors of american power? there are now moves to take away the statues. but progress towards a more complete representation of america's past is slow. the debate over imperialism and its discontents isn't new. but it's been revitalised by black lives matter — and by the emergence of a new generation of historians

and writers determined to put the experiences of the enslaved and the oppressed at the forefront of history. confronting that history can be deeply uncomfortable, but it's an essential part notjust of facing the injustices of the past, but the challenges of the presence. challenges of the present. hello, there is very little sign of any prolonged summer sunshine for the foreseeable future. but the ending half of the weekend is better

than the first. we have lost the blustery winds and for many the showers should be isolated. but we could see an organised line across northern ireland, northern england, perhaps stretching to the east of the pennines into lancashire and east anglia. in scotland a drier day with some showers. a northerly wind making it feel cool. these are mean speed winds and gusts up to 25mph this afternoon. cool in the north. 11 to 16 the high. up to 22 in the south. tonight scattered showers becoming more widespread across the south—west. in the north temperatures falling away and in rural scotland low single figures. here a showery start with rain

pushing across central and southern england. areas that have escaped the showers today will see showers tomorrow. top temperatures 21. cooler again further north. as we move out of monday into tuesday, a gear change. again we are likely to see more wet and windy weather returning with a significant area of low pressure drifting north and east. it will take its time to clear. so it will impact across tuesday and also into wednesday. it isa tuesday and also into wednesday. it is a wet start on tuesday morning. that is will push its way out of northern england into northern ireland, central scotland by the middle of the afternoon, leaving a trail of squally showers and gusts up trail of squally showers and gusts up to 50mph. it will not feel great out there. particularly when you fa ct of out there. particularly when you fact of in the or in the strength of wind. it does look as though

conditions may well quiet endown towards next weekend, which is a bank holiday for some. this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. schools are ‘safe' — england's chief medical officers seek to reassure parents as millions of children prepare to return to the classroom. many more are likely to be harmed by not going than harmed by going, even during this pandemic. opposition protesters in belarus plan another big demonstration in minsk — two weeks after president lukashenko's disputed election victory. we are expecting the opposition to put on a very large demonstration, something similar to last sunday when the centre was taken over by demonstrators. several thousand people. president trump declares california's wildfires