:00:00. > :00:29.Now on BBC News it's time for Witness with Tanya Beckett.
:00:30. > :00:36.Hello, and welcome to Witness, with me, Tanya Beckett, here at the
:00:37. > :00:39.British library in London. We've got another five people who have
:00:40. > :00:42.experienced extraordinary moments in history.
:00:43. > :00:50.This month on the programme, a French artist recalls the protests
:00:51. > :00:53.in Paris in May, 1968. The son of a famous British sailor remembers his
:00:54. > :00:59.pioneering solo voyage around the world. And we get a personal account
:01:00. > :01:09.of the launch of the world's most famous photo agency. First, we are
:01:10. > :01:12.going back to 1939, when a ship with Jewish refugees on-board fleeing
:01:13. > :01:18.from the Nazis was refused entry by US authorities. And forced to return
:01:19. > :01:31.to Europe. Gellibrand stills on board. -- Joa Granston.
:01:32. > :01:43.Prejudice against Jews started virtually immediately after Hitler
:01:44. > :01:46.came to power. It became clear even to a five-year olds that I am a
:01:47. > :01:59.nobody. My father and my grandfather were
:02:00. > :02:08.planning, where could we go? And one of the few countries that took you,
:02:09. > :02:15.albeit for money, was Cuba. Jews from all parts of the Reich
:02:16. > :02:19.liquidating their properties, Kim Little generations, and drift into
:02:20. > :02:26.hamburg... Cuba was a stepping stone to get us come at two get us to the
:02:27. > :02:40.United States. The voyage was, to me, a two-week delight. I remember,
:02:41. > :02:44.still to this day, drinking fizzy lemonade, all the things I shouldn't
:02:45. > :02:54.have done. The treatment on board the ship, and what was happening in
:02:55. > :03:00.Germany, was a huge, huge contrast. When we got to Havana, immigration
:03:01. > :03:06.and customs came aboard and they were very pleasant, very nice, but I
:03:07. > :03:14.learnt my first and only word of Spanish, which was manana.
:03:15. > :03:21.Everything was "Tomorrow". We left Havana after five days. Captain
:03:22. > :03:24.showed sailed up and down the Florida coast fairly certain that
:03:25. > :03:34.Bruce Billson would relent and let the ship come into an American port.
:03:35. > :03:38.-- certain that result would relent. -- Roosevelt. All to no avail.
:03:39. > :03:45.Roosevelt was standing for re-election. Rather than have his
:03:46. > :03:51.political enemies say, you let another 900 Jews in, decided, keep
:03:52. > :03:57.them out, let somebody else worry. We were going back to Germany, where
:03:58. > :04:12.there was no hope whatsoever for the Jewish people. My father didn't hide
:04:13. > :04:23.his emotions very easily. And more than once, he cried. It became known
:04:24. > :04:29.that four countries were prepared to take us, and this was the
:04:30. > :04:35.Netherlands, Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom. The sad thing is
:04:36. > :04:41.that those people who made it to France, the Netherlands, Belgium,
:04:42. > :04:47.those who were still there wants the Nazis conquered them, they were the
:04:48. > :04:59.first of the arrested, because they were German Jews. -- once the Nazis
:05:00. > :05:06.conquered them. Lucky is a word I use many times. If my father and I
:05:07. > :05:12.had not come to the United Kingdom in 1939, I wouldn't be here now.
:05:13. > :05:24.Gerald Branson at his home in London. Next, to post-war Japan,
:05:25. > :05:27.where a musician developed a revolutionary method to teaching
:05:28. > :05:34.violin to very young children. It would later take off around the
:05:35. > :05:36.world. Our next witnesses are two brothers, who were two of his first
:05:37. > :06:20.pupils. VADS here is that from the age of
:06:21. > :06:23.three, Japanese children can be taught to play simple tunes by ear.
:06:24. > :06:27.As the Japanese teacher Shinichi Suzuki himself says, they learn to
:06:28. > :06:28.speak with the violin at the same time they learn to speak their
:06:29. > :09:36.mother tongue. Still playing violin decades later.
:09:37. > :09:46.Now, we are going back to 1967 and the moment a British sailor called
:09:47. > :09:53.Frances CHichester completed an epic solo trip around the world. His son,
:09:54. > :09:57.Giles Chichester, was in the huge crowds that had gathered to give him
:09:58. > :10:00.a hero 's welcome when he returned to Plymouth harbour. This was the
:10:01. > :10:04.scene at Plymouth as a quarter million people had their long wait
:10:05. > :10:07.rewarded by the privilege of being the first to observe, from the
:10:08. > :10:13.shore, the approach of Gypsy Mok. A fleet of welcoming boats went out to
:10:14. > :10:18.meet him. People said he was too old and his boat was too big to him. He
:10:19. > :10:22.would never manage. Well, of course that was a red rag to a bull. It
:10:23. > :10:29.made him even more determined to go on and do it. That fleet ensures him
:10:30. > :10:33.a proud place in the company of the greatest of maritime history. My
:10:34. > :10:40.father was in his mid- 60s when he planned this voyage. In a way, the
:10:41. > :10:44.history of this goes back to when he did he is flying in the 1930s. He
:10:45. > :10:54.had this sense of adventure. So flash forward to the 60s, when he
:10:55. > :10:57.took up sailing. He made certain that all the saucy needed for the
:10:58. > :11:05.next 100 days were properly stowed away. -- stores. Gypsy Moth for was
:11:06. > :11:09.a very narrow boat. No fridge, no mod cons like that. He navigated,
:11:10. > :11:13.this is critical, using a sextant. Today people use satellite
:11:14. > :11:17.navigation. That is a big, big difference. From the Cape of good
:11:18. > :11:22.Hope he will follow the route of the bishops to Australia, turning around
:11:23. > :11:26.Cape Horn. -- the clipper ships. On the way out he was determined to
:11:27. > :11:31.celebrate his birthday. He was going to have his 65th birthday en route.
:11:32. > :11:37.And in order to do that, he took his green smoking jacket, which was made
:11:38. > :11:41.to him in the 1930s. He obviously took some champagne to celebrate. He
:11:42. > :11:46.was a very congenial fellow, actually. He enjoyed company. People
:11:47. > :11:51.may imagine somebody who goes single-handedly solitary and
:11:52. > :11:55.antisocial. Far from it. Probably the biggest crisis point was in the
:11:56. > :12:03.southern Indian Ocean in the Roaring 40s. It was gloom all round, when he
:12:04. > :12:08.radioed that this altar had broke, he was giving up. But he slapped on
:12:09. > :12:15.it, he devised his own temporary self steering device. -- slapped on
:12:16. > :12:19.it. And that saved the day. He made only one stop in the
:12:20. > :12:25.circumnavigation, in Sydney, to mirror the root of the clippers. But
:12:26. > :12:31.within the first few hours, leaving Sydney, he hit the tail end of a
:12:32. > :12:37.hurricane. And the boat was knocked over, so that he went way over the
:12:38. > :12:41.horizontal. He survived that, and he was fascinated, measuring this after
:12:42. > :12:45.the fact, by seeing the angle at which knives from the galley draws
:12:46. > :12:50.had stuck in the ballkid on the opposite side. Chichester had
:12:51. > :12:56.circumnavigated the globe. More than that, he had accomplished the
:12:57. > :13:01.stupendous foot feat alone. The voyage around the world was just
:13:02. > :13:07.over 29,000 miles. It took him 226 days sailing time. Perhaps this son
:13:08. > :13:12.assuming man would have preferred a private welcome. But deeds such as
:13:13. > :13:16.his demanded a hero's reception. He was a little pottery when he got in,
:13:17. > :13:20.so I did the celebrating for the family. I confess I stayed up all
:13:21. > :13:27.night, partying and drinking and having a good time. With Sir Francis
:13:28. > :13:31.Drake's soared, the Queen was to dub the sailor as Knight Commander of
:13:32. > :13:34.the British Empire. They decided to have a public investiture, which is
:13:35. > :13:40.an extremely rare event. This was a bit of a surprise. My father more or
:13:41. > :13:47.less took it in his stride. The whole thing was the most wonderful
:13:48. > :13:49.adventure. Giles Chichester talking to us from
:13:50. > :14:06.his family home in London. Remember, you can watch Witness
:14:07. > :14:12.every month on our website. Now, to one of the key moments of recent
:14:13. > :14:17.history in France. In May, 1968, revolution was in the air. Students
:14:18. > :14:27.and workers took to the streets to demand change. Witness has met an
:14:28. > :14:31.artist who joined in the protest. The worst street fighting in the
:14:32. > :14:36.capital since liberation in 1944. Students and police clashed
:14:37. > :14:57.following extremist political action against the war in Vietnam's. --
:14:58. > :15:06.Vietnam. It was 1968. Too many people were out in the same moment.
:15:07. > :15:09.There was a factory strike and universities were a stroke.
:15:10. > :15:18.Everybody decided to go into the street. It was 6pm at night on the
:15:19. > :15:32.13th of May. Workers and students were together. Leaders from the
:15:33. > :15:49.Sorbonne were meeting with leaders of workers organisations to plan
:15:50. > :16:05.their next move. We've were fighting for our rights and for better lives.
:16:06. > :16:12.Me and my friend decided to go back and try to get involved in making
:16:13. > :16:21.posters for the movement. The first thing we did was to organise paints
:16:22. > :16:31.and brushes and paper for all the people coming down. The area became
:16:32. > :16:40.very famous and people wanted to posters to stick on the wall. My job
:16:41. > :16:48.was to work and get the posters out and on the wall. Contact factories.
:16:49. > :16:53.We had meetings so we could decide which were good and which word. And
:16:54. > :17:06.a ready had to say something about it. We worked like the workers. We
:17:07. > :17:17.could make 2000 posters, or maybe one big poster. Factories,
:17:18. > :17:26.universities, and unions, were now coming together. The government was
:17:27. > :17:33.trained to separate the people. We thought that was the end of the
:17:34. > :17:56.society. Instead of that, a new people, new students and workers
:17:57. > :18:02.came out and could work together. We stay in the French capital for our
:18:03. > :18:11.far north film. In May, 1947, some of the world's most famous
:18:12. > :18:32.photographers got together in Paris to form Magnum Photos. -- final
:18:33. > :18:41.film. Magnum was a committee of spirits. ICQ is a group of lunatics.
:18:42. > :18:49.Very passionate. -- I think it was. It was set up in 1947 by a few
:18:50. > :18:55.dealers photographers who suddenly found the world changed, but wanted
:18:56. > :19:09.to continue operating in the old way and were willing to take risks.
:19:10. > :19:16.That's me. In January, 1950, I answered this advertisement, and I
:19:17. > :19:21.think it was for a secretary research International, or something
:19:22. > :19:32.like that. The active and dynamic party of the group was, who was
:19:33. > :19:43.already famous from the civil war. -- of the group was Robert Carper.
:19:44. > :19:49.And his long-time friend, Jim, was an actor in Paris in the 1930s. And
:19:50. > :20:06.also in the Spanish steel wall. -- civil war. And that group was joined
:20:07. > :20:20.by George Roger, who was a nonconformist adventurer. I think
:20:21. > :20:31.they change photography in different ways. When you look at Robert
:20:32. > :20:36.Carper's wall pictures, he was more concerned with the pictures of
:20:37. > :20:46.suffering than any glory from the war. -- Robert Capa. I remember
:20:47. > :20:57.another picture of the independence of Indonesia. And Robert Capa's
:20:58. > :21:01.pictures from Palestine... They didn't want to be told what to do.
:21:02. > :21:12.That was more important to them than having a nice fat salary. This was
:21:13. > :21:20.from a big Magnum show. It was a cooperative at a family atmosphere.
:21:21. > :21:27.Everybody was very affectionate. When Robert Capa and Chim came in
:21:28. > :21:34.from Paris, they brought perfume and elegant things. There was never any
:21:35. > :21:41.idea of you being the boss, or the secretary. A Christmas parties, Capa
:21:42. > :21:51.would come and dance with the bookkeeper. I don't know whether I
:21:52. > :22:03.was more enchanted with the personalities of the photographers
:22:04. > :22:07.than with the photographs. And Magnum Photos is still going strong
:22:08. > :22:12.today. That is it from Witness for this month will stop next month,
:22:13. > :22:18.will be at the British Library going through five moments of history. But
:22:19. > :22:39.from me, for now, thank you for joining us. Goodbye.
:22:40. > :22:50.We'll do the easy bit first and then I'll give you the forecast,
:22:51. > :22:53.which is probably the bit you're after, anyway.