Windrush Portraits

Precious little comfort in the news, so when an uplifting documentary comes along, it’s something to savour. For me “Windrush: portraits of a generation” came into that category. Not a new idea. You get a collections of people, you pair them up with an artist each, you record he development of those relationships, and then at the end you show them all milling about, admiring the results.

But this time there were two elements that made it special. The subjects of the portraits, hugely varied, were all Windrush veterans - who’d survived that turbulent history. Many of them had the wit,wisdom and vitality to demonstrate what a triumph that was.

The other distinctive feature was that the climax was at Buckingham Palace, because the patron of this whole project was King Charles III. I’m not a huge fan. For all sorts of good reasons he’s remote, a bit impersonal, often stuffy. But on this issue he does seem o have inherited his mother’s respect for the best part of the Commonwealth tradition, and he was insistent that the Uk should see the Windrush generation as a huge asset, to be celebrated as much as famous writers, generals or political leaders. Hence the portraits. And how far that attitude is from the blinkered hostility of our elected government.