49 Up (2005) Movie Script

I'm going to work
in Woolworth's.
When I grow up, I want
to be an astronaut.
When I get married, I would
like to have two children.
My heart's desire is
to see my daddy.
I don't want to answer that.
(narrator) This is no ordinary
outing to the zoo.
It's a very special occasion.
We've brought these children
together for the very first time.
(screaming)
They're like any other children,
except that they come
from startlingly different
backgrounds.
Stop it at once.
We've brought these children together
because we wanted a glimpse of England
in the year 2000.
The shop steward and the
executive of the year 2000
are now seven years old.
(Michael Apted) In 1964,
World In Action made "Seven up!"
and we've been back to film
these children every seven years.
They are now 49.
Is it important to fight? Yes.
Tony was brought up
in the East End of London.
Want to be a jockey
when I grow up.
Yeah, I want to be a jockey
when I grow up.
At 14, he was already
an apprentice
at Tommy Gosling's
racing stable at Epsom.
At 15, he'd left school.
This is a photo finish,
when I rode at Newbury.
I'm the one with the white cap.
I was beaten a length
and a half off third,
and I had a photo finish.
(Michael) Do you
regret not making it?
I would have given my right arm
at the time to become a jockey,
but now...
Well, I wasn't good enough.
(Michael) What will you do if
you don't make it as a jockey?
I don't know.
If I knew I couldn't be one,
I'd get out of the game.
Wouldn't bother.
What do you think
you would do then?
Learn on taxis.
At 21, he was
on the knowledge,
and by 28, he owned his own cab.
It's surprising who
you pick up, you see.
I once met Kojak.
I picked him up.
And Warren Mitchell,
Alf Garnett, you know.
Have you got a girlfriend?
No.
Would you like to have
a girlfriend?
No.
You understand four F's?
Find 'em, feed 'em
and forget 'em.
The other "F" - I'll let you
use your own discriminish.
I mean, this one
I tried to do the 3 F's,
but I couldn't forget her.
I went to a discothque.
He was in the pub earlier on,
and afterwards we
went to a discothque.
And Tony was standing there,
and I just -
From there, I just - that was it.
(laughs)
Couldn't get rid of him.
(laughs)
We have our ups and downs.
No more than anyone else.
I think you gotta work
at a marriage.
I think all marriages
go through stages.
You can't stand each other.
You go through, you know -
I think, "Oh, god, I hate him.
I wish he'd get out." I do.
We've been to the
edge of the cliff
and looked over
a couple of times,
and we've always seemed
to sort of go back,
and we've sort of
stayed the course.
But I must say - I mean,
it's not easy being married.
By 42, Tony and Debbie
had left the East End
and moved to Woodford in Essex.
We were going to put a conservatory
here, but if you look along here,
we put a patio in and
the pond for the fish,
but the only thing I ever done
was I planted them three trees.
Well, since you was
last here, Michael...
We had small trees,
if you remember.
Now they've sort of grown a bit.
(Michael) So why
are the trees singed?
We was burning some
Rubbish at the back
and set light to the tree,
and there we all were,
sort of like throwing
all buckets of water over it,
and sadly enough,
it singed the tree.
At 49, they've taken out a second
mortgage on the London house
and sunk the money in
a holiday home in Spain.
I'm very pleased with the house.
I said the progress we made in the
little space of time that we've had
to work here and get it
all sort of shipshape
I think is done, really,
to the testament
of my wife Debbie.
As per usual.
(Michael laughs)
(Tony) Debbie went
to the furniture shop,
and she sort of picked
all the furniture.
All what you see is all
Debbie's choice of furniture
and her, really, sort of style.
The floor -
We were led to believe
that we had a choice of tiling,
whether it's a light beige
or, you know, light brown.
That's the first I've heard
that we had a choice,
'cause I would have had plain.
I've just gone into the neighbours'
house, and they've got all plain.
Well, there you go.
I never got told that.
He said it was a choice that we
had when we suggested to buy it,
so that was where
the mistake was made.
Because you don't listen.
Say that again.
You don't listen.
Can't hear you. (laughs)
Tony and Debbie still
work as London cabbies.
We sold our cabs because we are
going to spend more time out here.
So it's not really conducive
to own a cab, is it?
Because the cab will be left
out on the drive or, you know -
It's pointless, so we just
hired a cab independently now.
I'm working harder now
than I really ever have done,
but I feel that
it's for something.
Son, why do you want to be
a cab driver for, mate?
All the holidays in Spain
every year...
But, son, it's hard work out there.
You're not reaching me yet.
Not getting to you. No, you're
not getting to me. All right?
Now be bigger.
Dominate me, all right? Son...
At 28, Tony was taking
acting lessons.
Now he supplements his income
with occasional TV jobs.
(Tony) Oi!
That's all I got on me.
Mate, if I had a pound for every time
I've heard that, I'd be a rich man.
Get him!
A guy contacted me
from my agency,
from my acting agency,
and I got in touch with him.
And he writes plays, and he's
been inspired by your up programs,
which go all round the world,
and he saw it.
And we got together
and we wrote a biographical play
all about my life story.
We took one of these episodes over to
New York and done it on a play reading.
And I got up, playing
the lead role, you know,
and it just blew the roof off.
And we're looking for someone to
pick it up and put it on stage.
(woman) Would everybody please sit
round now, get on with their work?
I don't want to see
any backs to me.
Shouldn't be anybody
turning round.
Tony, do you hear as well?
Get on with your work
at the front.
Tony!
Don't turn round again.
There's only one ambition,
and, really, I want a baby son.
If I see my baby son, that will
be my ambition fulfilled.
No one knows that.
Only you know.
Debbie and Tony
have three children -
Nicky, Jody and Perri.
Nicky's doing quite well.
He's still a French polisher.
It's an old-time profession,
as you know.
He's working for a firm,
and he's very happy
in his work, isn't he?
He's been brought up
very respectful to people,
very well-mannered person,
He's a hard worker.
Jody, I mean,
at this present time,
she's just - relies on us
a great deal, and...
She's been very scarred with
a relationship that she was in.
Her relationship with her
first love of her own life
was very turbulent,
but he's the father of her kid.
We're going to make sure
she gets through it.
And it's been quite a
strain on Debbie and I
to see her in that
sort of situation.
I'm very proud of Perri as well.
She got in the post office,
and that's what's she doing.
Postman Pel.
That's our postman Pel.
She loves it, you know.
She works hard.
She's up at four
in the morning.
She's got a lovely boyfriend.
He loves her more
than you can imagine,
and he's certainly
got my blessing.
Big lad, very nice guy,
loves his football.
You know, typical East End kid.
Go. Aah!
Head up, son.
That's too quick.
We are the backbone
for the kids, aren't we?
Yeah, but I think your parents
are anyway, you know.
Your parents are -
You never visualize anything ever
happening to your parents, do you?
You think they are there forever.
Toni's five, Harry's
four, nearly five,
and little Pru, she's nearly two.
No, three.
She's three.
I'm an hands-on granddad.
I love my grandchildren
more, if you can imagine,
I'd say not my own kids,
but in a different way.
It's an obsession
of love, you know.
You see these grandchildren,
and they're part of you.
No, granddad. No.
They're hard work at times.
We don't mind, though,
Michael. I mean -
'cause you slow down and you don't
realize you're slowing down.
All I understand is dogs' prices,
girls, knowledge,
roads, streets, squares
and mum and dad and love.
That's all I understand,
that's all I want to understand.
By the time he was 35,
both Tony's parents had died.
I'm at the graveside.
I'm talking to her, little things.
I've got all images
running through me mind,
sayin' like, "Tony, go downstairs,
get me fine weights."
You know, "one and a penny."
And I used to go in the shop.
She used to throw the cotton
in an hair curler
over the landing,
and I used to tie the cigarettes
on this bit of cotton.
She used to pull 'em up,
and she goes -
See her in the end -
(inhales)
"Thanks, Tone. See you
after school. Be good."
And that's the way it was.
We knew my dad
was terminally ill,
although having said that,
still didn't make it
any easier for us.
When my dad died,
I took it really hard.
I can't.
Nellie Rose is - my mum,
'cause her name is Nell,
and her mother's name's Rose,
so my Jody and all the family
were conjuring up some names
that we could name it.
Jody at the finish
said "Nellie Rose",
the name of our mums.
Sometimes on a Saturday morning
I go to the pictures,
sometimes with my friends
and sometimes with him.
You don't.
I do.
She don't.
(Michael) And why did
you fall in love with him?
Don't know.
I don't know how you put up
with me for so long.
I don't know how. Sometimes
I don't know how I stand him.
Who's to say
in another ten years
me and him might have split up.
Quite possible, you know.
You don't know.
When we filmed
Debbie and Tony at 42,
the marriage seemed
to be in trouble.
I'm not proud at all to say this,
but situations arise that -
I have - have had regretful
behaviour various times,
but through...
You got caught, and that was it.
That's, you know -
I'm not lying about
the fact, you know.
You could always cover it up
and suggest other things,
but, you know, it's true
and let it be true.
You caught him?
Yeah.
What happened?
Well, you know, it was touch and go
whether we carried
on from it or not.
I did feel, you know, I wish
things that were said then
was never said.
I mean, Perri wouldn't go
to school for three weeks.
She wouldn't go out
the door, you know.
She was quite upset
about it all, and, you know.
I think it was a big shock,
because, you know,
you are their mum and dad.
They're tangerines, ain't they?
We got on from there.
It's sort of seven years
down the line,
and we are happy as can be now.
Karen told me
to get me knickers here.
She said they're better
than Marks & Spencer's.
(laughs)
(laughs)
Well, let's hope
they're easy to get off.
There's 96% English here
who bought all their houses in Spain,
and this is where they
shop every Saturday.
It's just like an old petticoat
lane market, sort of years ago.
How much are they, darling?
(speaks Spanish)
What I like - it's so relaxing
down here, Michael.
You just walk along, and things
are happening, the music's playing.
There's an English pub there
you can just go in,
and it's really home from
home but with the weather.
From here - it's
about 200 yards along -
There's going to be
all commercial units here.
My intentions would be to turn one
of these units into a sports bar.
We're putting all tellies
round in a sports sort of way,
football shirts and
all that memorabilia.
This is tomorrow for me.
This is my future here.
If I happen to get
some sort of business
and I was to bring my Nicky
or bring my Jody
and my Perri out here,
then I'll have
the best of both worlds.
I'll have my family here,
plus, the kids could be schooled.
Well, they can get what
they want, can't they?
If you have got to work for it,
and it's them who can just
ask for money and get it,
and they can buy what they want.
I feel that the economy
will bust within five years
because people like myself have been
giving and giving all the time.
We're hardworking,
family type of people
who have contributed everything
under this Tony Blair's government.
We have to work, we have
to maintain the mortgage,
we have to bring up
the families,
and I feel that I've had enough.
I've had enough of
working all these hours.
Congestion charges,
40 a week now.
Zero tolerance with the police
with parking tickets.
We're paying.
Now someone's gettin'
it at our expense.
Does it make you sad
that you're going to have to
leave your roots, your country?
I can't even go out in the
East End now to have a drink.
The pubs are literally
closing down.
It's - other cultures are buyin'
all my old tradition up.
Everyone likes their own culture,
and I'm no different
from anybody else,
but being in England,
if you suggest this,
you are targeted as,
you know, an oddball.
"Oh, you mustn't say that."
Safety by numbers, eh,
is that what they call it?
On the contrary,
I would say, I'm sorry.
If you don't like it,
it's not to be offensive,
it's just to let you know
that my way of being brought up
was all my own people,
and I like being with me own people,
and I'm a traditionalist.
How much do you want
play for? Fiver?
10 pesetas.
Whoa!
(Michael) What's the dream now?
It is to be happy, which I am.
I am happy now being healthy
with all my family.
We all want happy and health for our
family. Anything else will be a bonus.
And that's all I really want.
And that's all I'm really after.
I don't want no more
or less than that.
Ohh.
Unlucky Tony.
Unlucky.
Some people from Africa come here,
but they - when they go,
they put their clothes on.
Jackie, Lynn and Sue
all grew up in the
East End of London
and were friends in
the same junior school.
With this school, we do
metalwork and woodwork,
and the boys do cookery.
We had a teacher at school
that his favourite ploy was,
"All you girls want
to do is walk out,
get married, have babies
and push a pram
down the street
with a fag hanging
outside your mouth."
I think that we
all could have gone
any way that we wanted
to at the time
within our capabilities,
I mean, we just -
we chose our own jobs.
But we only had a
limited choice anyway.
I mean, truth be told, we didn't
have a choice of private education,
because they couldn't
have afforded it anyway.
Change is too much, Mike.
Our lives are changing
far too much, all of us.
To be honest, when you look
at the seven-year-old us,
it's difficult
to believe it is us.
I mean, it's like it's someone
else you're looking at,
this little cute thing.
I mean, I can't remember being...
Well, I wasn't cute.
I would like to get married
when I grow up.
Well, I don't know
what sort of boy,
but I think one that...
That's not got a lot of money
but he has got some money,
not a lot.
(Michael) Have you got
any boyfriends?
Um...
Um...
That's personal, innit?
By the time she was 21,
Jackie had married Mick
and moved to the
outskirts of London.
It was horrific, really, what
happened to the wedding cake.
I mean, it was sitting right
in between Mick and myself
when suddenly the columns
just completely gave way
and it just all
sort of fell into one.
I would say on average,
19 is probably too young.
By 35 she was divorced.
We decided ourselves, I mean
just between the two of us,
we knew it wasn't
going any further.
We both knew, I think,
that at the end of the day,
we would be happier
leading our own lives.
...Jackie.
She and Mick had decided early on
that they didn't want children.
Basically I would say
because I'm far too selfish.
I enjoy doing what I want
when I want and how I want,
and certainly at the moment
I can't see any way around that.
Oh, and... This one on.
Here we go. Oh, yeah.
Had a brief but very
sweet relationship,
the result of which was Charlie.
Give us a cuddle.
I don't really want
Charlie to be an only.
I'd love him to have
brothers and sisters,
but not necessarily loads of 'em.
Just, you know -
one would do, actually.
Right, Charlie.
There's yours.
Please eat it all up.
And James.
Thanks, mum.
Good boy.
And last but not least...
Going to eat that one for me?
After her relationship
with Charlie's father ended,
she met Ian, and they
moved to Scotland
and had two more sons.
James.
(James) All right.
By 42, they had split up.
Lee.
Go on, Lee.
Go and get 'em.
At 49, despite the split,
the family all live in
the same area of Scotland.
There's your dad!
Lee and Charlie's birthdays
are only a month apart,
so we tend to do
something in between
so that we celebrate
both their birthdays.
So we usually go somewhere
like amusement park.
(Michael) That Lee's got
a lot of nerve, hasn't he?
And a little bit
of bravado, I think.
Because his older
brothers had said no,
I think he decided,
"I'm going to do this one."
Yeah!
(laughs)
Whoo!
Has Charlie shown any interest
as to his father?
No. Ian's his father
as far as he's concerned.
He knows and the other boy knows,
the whole family know
that biologically he's not,
but in every respect
Ian is his father,
always has been,
he just done everything with
him, been everything to him,
taught him everything.
What would you do if you had
lots of money, about 2?
I would buy meself
a new nice house,
you know, one that's
all nice and comfy.
Oh, quite like that.
Jackie suffers from
rheumatoid arthritis
and lives off disability benefit.
(Michael) How is money for you?
Could do with more, as just
about everybody would say,
but we manage.
We cut our cloth accordingly.
You've got x amount,
and that's what you do.
I can imagine you in that.
(Michael) Has Liz got
anything to do with that?
Liz has always got something
to do with that.
Ian's her son, but she
also says that I'm here
and she's got three grandchildren
here that she loves dearly,
and she will be there for us.
James has just had a trip
to Alton Towers
with the school.
Suddenly she'll say,
"You pay the trip,
I'll give him
his spending money",
Which is brilliant, because it
just makes life easier for me.
Now, you've moved in
the last seven years.
Tell me about that.
Because of the arthritis
that I've got,
I needed to come
to the ground floor,
and this particular
area that I'm in now
is an area that I like.
It's close to Liz,
my mother-in-law,
so from that point of
view it's - it suits.
The school's across
the road for the boys,
good neighbours,
which makes a difference
wherever your property is,
it's how the East End used
to be about 30 years ago.
Doors used to be open, the neighbours
all watched for each other.
If one neighbour had a problem,
the other neighbours helped out.
That's how it is here.
That's what this place is
like. It's like a village.
We deal with the problems with
the boys as and when they arise.
I mean, you've always
got the problem of drink
and drugs and smoking
and not smoking
and, you know,
that sort of thing.
I mean, Charlie's of an age now
where I can't mother him, but
I can't be his friend, either.
He wants to work,
he wants to leave school,
and he wants to get an
apprenticeship to car mechanics,
but the chances of him doing
that are probably very slim.
Lee, take your time, babe.
You'll make yourself ill.
Don't care.
James tends to be a bit
of a computer freak.
He wants to produce
and make his own games.
(boy) That looks just
like your brain - mush.
Lee tends to be, like,
the outspoken one
and a bit like I was
at his age, really.
In fact, he's very much
like I was at his age.
Is that a worry?
I think that's -
that's terrible.
How dare you say that to me?
Is that a worry?
Why would that be a worry?
Do you think I've turned out badly?
No, but sometimes
when you look at yourself,
you don't always see things
you like in yourself,
and then you see them
in your child and you think...
Yeah, but I never said he'd
picked up all of my traits.
I actually think he's
picked up probably the best.
(fussing) If you're not
going to play nicely...
Right, go to bed, then.
No!
He has a temper that isn't as
bad as when he was younger,
but it is something
that he knows about
and he tries very hard to control.
Does your temper
get you into trouble?
You're probably the best
one to answer that.
Does it?
I mean, you and I have had
arguments on occasions.
Did you meet enough men before
you decided who to marry?
I mean, what do you mean
by "settle down"?
I mean, if you think that getting
married, as far as we're concerned,
is a case of going to work,
come home, cook tea for hubby,
going to bed, getting up, going
to work, you're totally mistaken.
(Michael) I like it
when you shout at me.
I'm not sure you do, really.
What happened at 21?
You asked me if I'd had enough
experience with men before I got married,
and I thought that was actually
an insulting question,
and I got very angry,
and we actually stopped
filming because of it.
And if you look
at the tapes of me at 21,
I am sitting, and to all
intents and purposes
I might as well
have not been there.
But I was really angry
that you even thought
you could get -
You wouldn't have asked some of the
other people in this program that question.
You will edit this program
as you see fit.
I've got no control over that.
You definitely come across
as this is your idea
of what you want to do
and how you see us,
and that's how you portray us.
This one may be - may be the
first one that's about us
rather than about
your perception of us.
So how up to now
have I got you wrong?
How have you got me wrong?
The last one was very much
based on... The sympathy
and-and the illness that I've got
and what I may or may
not be able to do.
It should have been
about what I can do,
what I am doing,
what-what I will do.
Don't make that mistake, Mike.
I am no way - I am -
I am down and I am depressed
about my illness,
but I'm certainly not down
and depressed about my life.
And there are
a lot of the times
that I sit and I cringe
when I watch those programs,
not just for me,
but for other people.
You can ask me about Ian,
and you know full well
I'm going to say to you it's none of
your business, I'm not talking about it.
Now, there are people in this
program that don't do that,
that, quite of their own free will,
will talk about their marriages
or their divorces
or the state of their lives,
but I don't think
you should be into that.
I don't think you should
even be asking that.
It's part of people's lives,
and this program is
about people's lives.
Yeah, but that's -
See, to me, that's
a part of my life
that will never go
on this program.
You know I'd married. My ex-husband
never took part in this.
My partner now will never
take part in this.
But that's not my fault. No, but that's
because that's the way I want it.
But it still doesn't
stop you trying
to get that information from me.
So what would you
like to talk about
if you want me to represent you?
We've talked a bit
about the children.
What I want to do.
What I hope to do.
I just don't want
that personal conversation.
OK, well, let's talk about that -
What you hope to do and
what you hope for the boys.
What I hope to do.
I'd, actually -
I'd like to go back to school
so that I can hold a conversation
with anybody in the world
and know what I'm talking about.
So that I'm not stuck -
"I know a little bit about that,
but I don't really know enough."
I'd love to know...
Actually, I'd really love to start
my education all over again.
My mum, 'cause she got five girls,
she had seven -
um, seven years' bad luck.
That's why she's got five girls.
I'd like to be able
to have a happy family.
I mean, I know that it's not possible
to be happy all the time,
but as much of the time
that it was possible.
I don't know what Suzy's had.
What's Suzy had that I haven't had?
I mean, until I know that...
(Michael) Are you different
from what I should have expected
at 7 and 14 and 21?
Maybe not enough, but I've got it.
I think I'm actually more intelligent
than you thought I would be.
I have reached a level,
um... in my life
that I'm happy with,
and I enjoy doing - being -
I enjoy being me,
but I don't think you
ever really expected me
to turn out the way I have.
How was that, Lee?
Great!
(laughing, indistinct)
If we did all love Geoffrey
and we all want to marry him,
I think I know the one that
he likes best, and that's her.
I don't think I'd...
Get married too early.
I'd like to have
a full life first, and...
I'd like to enjoy myself
before I -
Yeah, before you can commit
yourself to a family.
Marriage means a different thing
to me. I've still got my ideals.
I don't know
what it's all about.
Sue was 24 when she married Billy.
They had two children -
William and Catherine.
I think that to
get married young
there must be things
that you miss.
You must miss that crucial
stage of being yourself,
because the minute you get married,
you're no longer a single being.
You're a partnership, and that
should be the idea behind it.
By the time she was 35,
she and Billy had divorced.
I've never sat down and thought,
well, what was it?
Was it this, was it that?
I just knew it wasn't working.
There have been relationships
when I could have settled,
but they didn't feel quite right,
so I've always come
away and pulled away
and just waited until
the right one come along,
if they ever do.
Don't you remember you told
me you loved me, baby?
At 42, when we filmed Sue
in the karaoke bar,
she brought Glen along
to watch her sing.
...Baby, baby,
baby, oh, baby
We've just met and
things are going well,
but now obviously things
have gone very well.
(Michael) Is this love?
Oh, I think so, yeah.
We've known each other for a long,
long time before the seven years,
and we've always,
always liked each other.
He's good looking.
He's very good looking.
He's not bad, is he?
Everyone says he looks
like... Paul Weller.
Whether that's true or not,
especially now he's growing his hair.
(Jackie) Susan most of all
likes Lesley. Do I?
She keeps changing
her mind, though.
Yeah. I don't know
which one, really.
Everything's not
that cut and dried.
It's not either a career
or family or -
But it's what's in the middle.
Am I just going to carry
on as I am now for -
And end up on a shelf,
or am I just going to get
married, could be any day?
I've been married, and I've
not got that urgency.
Glen - we sort of
say maybe we will.
We're engaged, you know,
we're committed.
We've bought a house together,
and to me, that's a big commitment.
Every house needs money spending
on it when you move in.
To have a wedding, you gotta
put some cash into it.
When I got married,
the primary reason was because
I wanted to have a child.
The two, to me, went together.
Have you and Glen thought
of having your own child?
Well, Glen got with me when -
We got together, I should say,
when I was in my 40's,
and you don't have a baby when
you've just started a relationship.
I didn't want to
do all that again.
I would have loved to
have had a baby with him,
because he would make
a wonderful parent,
but the timing was off.
So she's your baby?
She's my new baby, yeah.
Yeah, my kids are my babies,
but she's my new baby.
She's our baby, mine and Glen's.
She's a wonderful terrier.
She's got such character.
What does she do?
Well, she watches TV with us.
She's got her own
favourite programs.
And she adores Rolf Harris,
absolutely adores Animal Hospital.
She's at the top of the house,
and the music comes on,
she runs down the stairs and
puts herself in front of the TV
for Rolf Harris.
So, the house looks nice.
You pleased with it?
I am very pleased with it.
It's a lovely step for us.
We feel like we've got
more space around us,
and we've got to do
everything inside,
but we can build on it,
and that's what we want.
I've been promising to have a
housewarming party since we've moved in.
We've been here four months now,
so I thought it was
about time we did that.
So people are just
starting to arrive now.
So, you left the East End. Why?
Well, I've always
wanted to move out,
but you don't do that, or
the opportunity isn't there,
when you are own your
own with two kids.
I wish I had done it before.
It's timing, you know.
Now was the right time, obviously.
The East End has changed.
It's changed a lot.
He was even playing
"tie the tooth."
Mum comes down to me.
It's so easy for them.
They can jump on a train, and, you know,
the station's within walking distance,
so it's worked out
wonderfully well.
Some people are just born into
rich families, and they're lucky.
I don't see why they
should have the luck,
when people have worked
all their lives
and haven't got half as
much as what they have,
it just don't seem fair.
(Michael) So have you
moved up a class now?
That's difficult to say.
Up a class.
Um, I suppose it feels
like that to me.
No, there ain't
no need for food...
Now you've got the sense of pride,
you've got your own house.
I feel like I'm building
for the future.
(laughs)
I've been a single parent
for a long while.
I've brought them up
on my own, really,
because Catherine was
only two when Bill left.
It's been extremely hard
and it's been - sometimes
it's been very lonely.
I only had to have
one filling, right.
That was about the only
thing that I had done.
William's - he's a computer addict.
He works in the industry
and he also constantly
has a computer on indoors.
He-he could have
gone to university,
and he knows that and I know that,
and I do regret that for him.
But I've been there.
I can just remember I didn't
want to do that, either.
And Catherine's temping
because she wants to do a
bit of traveling next year.
People say she's me reincarnated.
I mean, she looks a bit like me
and her mannerisms
are exactly like me,
and she likes to enjoy herself.
To walk into a relationship
with someone who's
got two teenagers -
It must have been
very difficult for him,
and they do clash occasionally.
I absolutely hate it,
because I'm just
an easy-going person
and I don't like strife.
They are doing things
the way I've brought them up,
which isn't the way that Glen
would like things to be done,
so you've got to learn to live
together in the same house.
It will always be a learning curve.
I'm a peacemaker.
When the children were
old enough to go to school,
Sue went back to work and
had a series of office jobs.
She now helps run the MA courses
in the legal faculty of
the university of London.
Still work for the college,
but we moved to central London.
Now I am sort of the main
administrator for the program
instead of an assistant, you know,
and I've got a couple of people
that help me with that.
Could you fax that to Mary
for me, please? Thanks.
So you like the responsibility?
Yeah, I love the responsibility.
I think I was born for the
responsibility. Yeah, I love it.
Well, I've never been abroad, but -
No, nor have I.
I have.
Oh, yeah, 'cause you went on
that cruise, didn't you? Yeah.
Once a year we go
to Cornwall or Devon.
We try to find a
different spot every year,
and we just bring the dog.
It's just such a lovely place.
Every time you turn a corner,
there's a different sight,
there's a different -
You just never know
what you're going to find.
Everything's just so beautiful.
We'd both had childhood holidays
here and good memories,
and we decided to come back,
and we've been coming ever since.
It's nice for us just to
be a couple for a week.
When we retire, or maybe
before, if we get lucky,
then this is the sort of
place we'd like to come to.
That little one there, right in
the middle nearest the beach -
That would be ideal, absolute
perfect - the perfect place.
(laughs)
Oh, that was good.
Vesto, vestas, vest...
Vestat.
Vestamus, vestatis, vestant.
(man) Here, speak up.
Fill out the gaps
on the board there.
When he was seven, Bruce was at
a preparatory boarding school.
At 14, St. Paul's in London.
They don't sort of enforce
being upper class
and things like that
at St. Paul's, you know.
They suggest that you don't have
long hair, and they do get it cut if,
and they teach you to be
reasonably well mannered
but not to sniff on
the poorer people.
At 21, he was in his last year
at Oxford, reading maths.
You can show that
this is irreducible.
Then you do a transformation on this
polynomial - x equal to t plus 2.
Good. That's a nice
way of doing it,
particularly using
Eisenstein down here.
His test is very powerful.
(Bruce calling children's names)
Yes, sir!
At 28, Bruce was teaching maths
in east London.
Well, I'll go into Africa
and try and teach people
who are not civilized
to be more or less good.
At 35, he was teaching in Silet
in northern Bangladesh.
And I also got the chance to learn a
bit of Bangla, which is very difficult.
Not doing very well at.
(instructor) Bangladesh,
Bangladesh. Bangladesh.
Bangladesh.
Bangladesh.
Bangladesh.
Before you do anything,
you have to make sure...
By 42, Bruce was back
in the East End
running the maths department
at a girls' school.
After naught hours you can see
that it would be 60 litres.
OK, now you want to put this
information... ( choir singing)
At 49, he's teaching at St. Albans,
a large boys' independent school
which has girls in the sixth form.
I sing in the choir.
That happens twice a week.
On Mondays and Fridays
we go to the abbey,
because in the early days,
the school was in the abbey,
going back to 948.
(Michael) 948?
Yes, so the head
quite likes to say
we're in our third
millennium, you know.
So the school's over
a thousand years old?
Yes, in one form or another.
You have to make x
the subject of this equation,
so what's the first thing we do?
Multiply both sides by three.
You don't multiply...
Divide. Sorry. Divide by three.
(Michael) Tell me, then, what's
exciting about teaching here for you.
There is a higher
academic level to teach,
and then you can see pupils
at a more developed level,
that flash of recognition
and then engendering
their love of the subject
that I had at their age.
There is a class society,
and I think public schools
may help its continuance.
So you're in the lead,
you see, because...
has it been a kind of compromise
of political principles
for you - this?
Well, I would say, you know,
have a million angels
in front of every teacher
who's prepared to slog away
at an inner-city comprehensive.
"Make way, make way.
"This is somebody who's prepared
to turn up each day
and do that job."
(Paul) Where's the graph?
(girl) 60?
60, right.
So when the tank is full
after naught hours...
That motto "Water
weareth away a stone
by dripping upon it,
not by smashing it"
was, as a motto for teaching,
that you kept on teaching them,
and that eventually
it would get through,
and the pupils would change
and learn and develop and so on.
But I think in the end
the reverse happened.
That water dripping
on me wore me away.
I just thought, "I don't think
I can do this till I'm 60,
and therefore I'll have
to do something else."
Do your old friends give you a
hard time about what you've done?
They certainly do.
They absolutely do.
They say, oh, you know, "Have we joined
the tory party, the golf club, the masons?"
"You're driving a much better car
than you used to" and so on.
Well, my girlfriend is in Africa,
And I won't - I don't think I'll have
another chance of seeing her again.
Have you got any girlfriends?
No, no, not yet.
I'm sure it will come, but not yet.
I mean, I do think a lot of
people think too much about it.
I think I would very
much like to, um...
...Oh, become involved in a family
- my own family, for a start.
That's a need that I feel
I ought to fulfil
and would like to fulfil
and would do it well.
Yes, I haven't got
married or whatever,
and I was supposing, you know, that
that would have been something
which I hoped had happened.
(Michael) You're getting on a bit.
Are you getting worried?
Well, not particularly.
I mean, I'm always optimistic.
I mean, who knows who
I might meet tomorrow?
And in the middle
of a conversation
about something
completely different,
he just asked if, um,
if I'd like to marry him,
and if I hadn't been
listening carefully,
I would have missed it completely.
To love and to cherish.
To love and to cherish.
Till death us do part.
Till death us do part.
Is this a beetroot or something?
I think it's just a weed.
Do you enjoy gardening?
Well, under Penny's
directions, you know,
I do whatever she asks me.
I don't know what to do here,
what order to do things in.
She and her mother
are quite good at this.
So you're the labourer?
Yes, I'm the unpaid labourer,
the serf,
the feudal vassal or whatever.
Well, Penny will give you
the correct medieval terms.
We don't argue very much.
Not really.
I mean, we haven't really had
a sort of full-blown row.
No, our arguments sort of
tend to be two sentences,
and I go off and sulk for 24 hours.
How are you doing, dear?
Fine.
And I think the one
positive influence on him -
I've stopped him apologizing.
When I first knew him, he
kept saying, "Sorry, sorry,"
and apologized for
all sorts of things
that there was no need
to apologize for.
Maybe it's just 'cause
we weren't married then.
Yeah, see, I was winning you over.
Yeah, that's right.
You're the world's greatest cook.
It's only pasta...
But if you have emotional issues,
will you talk about them?
Mm. Well, I have
the usual male reticence
about that kind of thing,
you know.
Great tea.
If Penny really wanted
to give me a hard time,
she'd have to say,
"Talk about your feelings."
That would be about -
That would be worse than
a 24-hour sulk, you know.
I think so, yeah.
I don't know whether...
(Bruce) We may have children.
I don't know.
I mean, if in seven
years' time or so
we're living in a slightly bigger
house with a young family,
that would be nice.
I mean, I don't want to pin all
my hopes on it and nothing happens.
We are quite old.
I can seeing bringing up, say,
teenage children in your 50's
might be a bit strange.
Come on, then, Henry.
Get on.
(boys laughing)
(Michael) Is it more
tiring than you thought?
(Penny) I don't think
until you're doing it
you realize how
sleep-deprived you get
and how totally
exhausted you are
all the time for several years.
I think that came
as rather a shock.
Sometimes I go to bed at 8:30,
which is ridiculous.
In fact, I sometimes go to bed
before Henry and George.
He looks like his father,
doesn't he?
Um, George has got the cheekbones
that run in Bruce's family.
And what have I got?
Uh...
Ooh, that's hard
to answer, darling.
(yelling commands)
We're at my first school, where
I was from about five to eight,
and this is where I
boarded for three years.
Squad, March...
I can remember being happy there.
I can remember also being miserable
because I can remember crying.
Squad, steady!
I always seemed to be beaten,
and I never used to understand why.
Squad, halt!
(Michael) You were
here because, what -
Your parents were...? My parents
were separated and were divorced.
And just to give me a stable
place to be and be educated,
it was a solution
to all those problems.
My heart's desire
is to see my daddy,
who is 6,000 miles away.
I did miss contact
with my father, and...
Well, I say it as a joke
to Penny, you know,
"Time to send them
boarding as I was",
And she says, "Over my
dead body", which is -
But I wouldn't want that, either.
Five years ago the family
moved away from the East End
to be near Bruce's new school.
It's very quiet,
its child-friendly,
and it just feels very safe.
That's really important when
you've got small children -
That the area feels safe.
( piano, percussion)
I mean, what can you give
them that you didn't have?
Contact with a father
that is loving,
and they can realize that
and show that love
to other people
and realize when they're letting
both themselves and me down.
That could be a sort of
guiding light for them.
Do you want any more children?
Well...
Bruce was originally talking
about a cricket team.
He's got his opening batsman,
and that I think is going
to be his lot, frankly.
I want you to play tomorrow.
I'm not gonna drop you
from sarcasm, all right?
I run one of the junior
teams here, the under-13's.
And there'll be nearly 200 boys
there doing that on a Saturday
rather than other things
that could waylay them.
It's that combination
of playing within a team
and the ability to back each
other up and form friendships
that's such a nice thing.
(clapping)
(man) Nice shot.
At weekends, Bruce
plays village cricket.
We don't really mind
who wins and loses,
we obviously prefer
to win, and, you know,
we go on tour every year,
so we go down to Devon.
You know, ever such
a nice bunch of mates,
and I've known some
of them for 25 years.
You can play at a reasonable
level till you're in your 60's.
(Michael) And what about
your batting skills?
I'm mainly a bit of a slogger,
so I tend to bat down
the order, 6, 7, 8.
It can be brief, but the last
time I played, I got 50.
Ooh!
Great goin'!
OK, "From their hiding place
in the bushes, William and..."
Do you have fears
for the future?
Personally I've kind of worried
that the boys will
turn out all right.
I hope they avoid drugs.
To see them sleeping
or carry them around
is just fantastic,
and just the smell of them
and the look of them is just -
You just want to protect them
from everything
that's harmful to them.
When you look back at yourself
at seven, can we see you now?
I can't really recognize myself.
He looks a little bit lost
and a little bit sad,
and I think I'm
quite sort of surprised
to be sort of contented
and reasonably happy.
Do you have a dream?
Well, I'd have probably liked to
have played international cricket,
but I just wasn't good enough.
You know, one's dreams go,
and the day-to-day living
of ordinary life and
family life takes over.
I think we just sort of
Live without our dreams.
(laughter)
I don't like the big
boys hitting us
and the prefects
sending us out -
Out for nothing.
When he was seven,
Paul was in care in a
children's home in London.
(Michael) Were you happy at
the children's home in England?
I didn't mind that, really, 'cause
we didn't know what was going on
'cause we were a bit young.
Well, as far as I know,
my mother and father -
Well, they separated
originally, I think.
They eventually got divorced.
I went to the boarding school
for one year,
and then we emigrated
to Australia.
Paul settled with his
father and stepmother
in a suburb of Melbourne.
(Michael) What mark
has it left on you -
The fact that you were brought
up within a bad marriage?
(Paul) The only thing I can say that
I think might have come from that
is just my lack of confidence
and being able to show my
feelings, really, I suppose.
Would you like to
get married, Paul?
No.
Tell me why not.
I don't like, um...
Say you had a wife.
They - they - say you had to
eat what they cooked you,
and say - I don't like greens.
Well, I don't.
Oh, no, I prefer
to be alone, really.
I can't say I don't want to get
married, 'cause I think I do,
but I want to be happily
married, you know,
and therefore I want
to make sure, I think.
(Michael) What is it that you fell
in love with? What is it about him?
His helplessness, I suppose.
It was the motherly instinct in me
to pick him up and cuddle him.
And he's also very good looking, I
think, but he doesn't agree with me.
In the summer he's got this
cute little bum in shorts.
I mean, I can tell
quite a few stories here,
but the one that really irritates me
the most is when we have an argument
he says, "That's it. Leave me."
And I say, "Fine. All right.
I will one day."
We had our 20th wedding anniversary
just before Christmas.
Which is the life sentence.
Yeah. Everyone reckons that we
should be out of jail by now.
To a certain extent
we started thinking,
"Well, do we really
know each other now?"
Because you just
get in the humdrum
of going to work,
coming back home...
Running kids here and...
Kids here and there.
I don't think you mean to, but you probably
stop thinking about each other a lot.
I find it hard to express
emotion most of the time,
although I'm getting on top
of that more now, you know.
Just the simple things,
to say to, sort of,
"Susan, I love you."
something like that.
I can tell you about it,
but I really haven't been able
to say it freely to Sue, you know.
It's a bit hard to talk about.
I did end up having
to get a bit of help,
and it wasn't directly due
to our relationship.
It started at work,
unfortunately,
which brought my self-esteem down,
which tended to affect
everything else.
And I was just very fortunate
that I saw a local doctor
and with her help, I started coming
back to normal thinking, probably.
I mean, I was feeling a little bit
worried about the relationship,
because I felt like I hadn't
progressed. I was going backwards.
And, I mean, I still believe that.
I was thinking that why would Susan
want to be with someone as -
Sounds funny -
but as boring as me,
'cause there was nothing there.
I mean, what do I do?
How do I say it?
It was a shock
that he got that low
and that he doubted
the relationship,
because one thing
I've always known is
that Paul's never doubted
his love for me.
You know, it's always been there,
and I've never doubted it, either.
Did the physical side
of your marriage suffer?
I think it did.
I think it did, really.
...For a little while.
We promised ourselves
when we first got married
that we'd never stop,
you know, touching
or being affectionate
towards each other.
And in front of the children,
we've always been -
And even now with the children,
we still embrace, a lot, both
Katy and Robert. I mean...
Katy will sometimes say,
"Mother, stop it."
I was gonna be a policeman, but I
thought how hard it would be to join in.
I just haven't made up my mind yet.
I was gonna be a phys ed teacher,
but one of the teachers told me
that you had to get
up into university.
At 21, Paul was a junior partner
in a firm of bricklayers.
By 28, he'd gone out on
his own as a subcontractor.
I think when I started
work for myself,
things were looking good for me,
'cause I was out of school,
something I was very
enthusiastic about.
And I was chasing
the dangling carrot
but never got there,
'cause, I mean, really,
I'm a worker and not -
not a businessman.
By the time he was 42,
Paul was doing factory work,
making signs for
a plastics company.
What's the future for you
at work, do you think?
Well, I mean, the job's still there.
I've had talks with them about whether
they were ushering me out the door,
and they say they're not.
Not that I'm that old,
but it's a bit of worry
about getting a full-time job
with my skill levels.
Sue had been a hairdresser
for most of her working life,
but at 49, she has a new career
as an occupational therapist
in a retirement home.
(Sue) You might be in your
40's and getting older,
but you still have a lot to add
and you can learn to go
in a different direction.
I call this my sea change.
Do you have ambitions?
Not really now.
I've been in this job ten years
and never asked for a pay rise.
That's just what
I've always been like.
Has it affected home life at all?
(Sue) It has affected
a little bit,
because I'm not there at home
as much as I used to be
for when Paul got home.
It can be - and I'm sure
I'm not the only one -
It can be quite startling. You get home
and you think, "There's no one here."
When I've been here for
30 years to be home to.
It's really different.
By the time they were 28,
Paul and Sue had two children -
Katy and Robert.
Katy did well at school
and got a place at university
to study archaeology.
They're photos of the dig
in Cyprus that I went on.
And we were digging
in bronze age tombs
that are around the village.
You're the first person in
the family to go to university.
Was it a struggle for you?
It was a bit, because I
had to do it all by myself.
I had nobody to really help me,
'cause mum and dad
couldn't help me
with my essays or things like that.
What does university mean?
I'm pretty happy with Katy,
and I'm not having a go at Rob,
but I've got views for Robert,
'cause he's struggling
a little bit.
Robert has trained
as a car mechanic.
He's got reading and writing
difficulties, and he's coping with that.
We'd like to see him be
a little bit more proactive
at doing literacy course
now he's a bit older.
But just day-to-day troubles
of making ends meet with money -
That's always hard.
He went nuts at me
for using the phone,
"No more fucking... You constantly
fuckin' do this all the time."
What's Robert got
that you gave him?
Moodiness. I think Robert's
even a little bit more moody
than what I've ever been.
He's not your average
relaxed 21-year-old.
Whatcha doin'?
We only had two children,
because we thought
that we couldn't love any more
children as much as we loved our two.
Now we've got our two grandchildren.
We just love them -
You love them as much, really.
As much, yeah.
Yay!
With Rob and Stacey,
we don't really know how
long they're gonna last.
I keep my fingers crossed
they will last.
We can only hope that they
work at it like we do.
That's better.
Thank you.
In their 20's,
Paul and Sue sold up,
bought an old van
and travelled across Australia.
I think it brought us
closer together,
because we really
got to know each other
and relied on each other so much.
One of the most important things
we ever did with our children
was spend time with them.
And particularly
when you've got holidays,
to actually - which a lot
of parents do, you know -
Go camping with them.
We've been camping
there now for 19 years,
'cause Robert was two
when we first went there.
So does this beat the old van?
This is the Hilton
compared to that old van.
Any plans for any big trips
now the children have gone?
I think we'd like
to do something again,
but you need to have the finances
to support yourself
for a few months.
The monitors opened the
washroom, sendin' us out.
"Well, there's no talking,"
and I wasn't talking today.
I'm more at peace around
the horses and the animals.
I can be upset, I can be on edge,
come down to the horses.
Within three or four minutes of being
here, and I've forgotten everything,
so it does calm you down.
(Michael) So last time I
came you had the horses.
What's happened to the horses?
Well, we gave Poykin
away to some people
because it was a
little bit expensive
and also the fun went
out of it, basically.
How do you get that peace now?
Well, I think I got it
through running.
Well, most Sunday mornings,
we go training.
When Paul is doing marathons,
when he's gotta run great distances,
I follow along with the bike
as a bit of support
and I take drinks for him
so he doesn't get dehydrated.
Something we can do together,
so we do that.
We're not doing any
great distances, we're just -
I've got an injured knee.
Just trying to build it up so
it gets used to running again.
The host city marathon was my
first marathon I did up in Sydney.
I trialled the Olympic course,
and it was open to anyone.
So I figured if you were
gonna do a marathon,
that'd be the one to do.
Nearly died, but I enjoyed it.
Happiness to me is a love for
life and a love for people.
When you look back on the
marriage and the family,
Any regrets?
No, we wish we'd had more
children, but who knows?
If we'd had them, might
have gone, "No, too many."
We might be both
in the nuthouse.
But without a family,
what have you got? Nothing.
Well, that's the way I feel.
More than work,
more than achieving...?
Yeah. Like, what you've got,
you've got nothing unless you've
got family and your health anyway.
You'd be awfully lonely
without family, I think.
(man) Tell me, do you have
any boyfriends, Suzy?
Um, yes.
Tell me about him.
He lives up in Scotland,
and I think he's 13.
(Michael) Have you got
any boyfriends, Susan?
What is your attitude
towards marriage for yourself?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, I haven't given
it a lot of thought,
'cause I am very,
very cynical about it.
But then, you know, you get a certain
amount of faith restored in it.
I mean, I've got friends, and
their parents are happily married,
and so it does put
faith back into you,
but me myself, I'm
very cynical about it.
When I last saw you at 21,
you were nervous,
you were chain-smoking,
you were uptight,
and now you seem happy.
What's happened to you
over these last seven years?
I suppose Rupert.
I'll give you some credit.
I'm now chain-smoking.
No, I think you can't
just walk through a marriage
and think it's, you know,
once you get married
it's all going to be roses
and everything forever.
You know, you have -
Everybody has their rows,
but we've never yet had a row
that we haven't managed to sort out.
It's very hard to
actually say what it is
that goes on between a couple,
it's either there or it's not.
We've been married 27 years now.
Any marriage has
its ups and downs,
but somehow, whether it's
through luck or determination,
we've worked through
the difficult times.
He's just always
been there for me,
and I know I can rely on him.
And, you know, he's my punch bag
in the same way as I'm
probably his, but it works.
When I get married, I'd
like to have two children.
I'm not very children-minded
at the moment.
I don't know if
I ever will be.
What do you think about them?
Oh, I don't like babies.
At 28, Suzy had two sons -
Thomas and Oliver.
By the time she was 35,
Suzy had a daughter Laura.
(boy) Mummy?
(Suzy) Yeah?
(Michael) So what are
the children up to?
They are - Tom is living
in London, having graduated,
and now working
and living in London,
Ollie is working
and living at home
and Laura is doing her as levels.
It was difficult when they
first started to move away -
All those memories
of the children growing up.
It's like a closed chapter now,
'cause you can't bring those -
bring those days back.
I think what I admire about the
young today is their confidence,
and that's what I wished I'd had.
They just seem to take
life and deal with it.
(Michael) What sort
of things do you do?
Ride, swim, play tennis, ping-pong.
And I might play croquet,
anything like that.
( piano)
(Suzy) I did have
a privileged childhood,
but you have to take responsibility
for your life somewhere along the line,
and some people take responsibility
earlier than others.
I was just a bit later taking it.
Maybe now is the first time
that I actually feel happy
within my own skin.
It's taken me a
long time to do it,
but I actually feel
that I can accept decisions,
wrong decisions, possibly,
that I've made in the past,
I am comfortable with it now.
I can live with it.
So what's it been like for you
being in these films?
Very difficult, very painful.
Not an experience
I've enjoyed in any way.
Every seven years,
it throws up issues
that I guess we all learn
to put into compartments
between the seven years,
and then it all gets opened up
again, and it's difficult.
(all talking)
We were all landed in it,
and most of us, have,
whatever reason,
chosen to go through with it.
I'm not an outgoing,
confident person.
I like my privacy.
I don't like however
many million people
picking over my life.
And is that what they do,
do you think?
I should think for a couple of minutes,
yes, and then it's yesterday's news.
And people seem to read into
what they think we all think,
which I find very hurtful, really,
'cause most of them come up
with things that they think,
which is nothing like
what's going through my head.
Oh, so she might be all right.
What's the point of people sort
of going into people's lives
and saying, "Why do you like
this?" and, "Why don't you?"
I just don't see
any point in it.
So have you had enough
of being in the film?
I mean, who knows
in seven years what -
Whether it'll be done again -
But this is me
saying hopefully I'll reach
my half-century next year,
and I shall bow out.
When I grow up,
I'd like to find out
all about the moon and all that.
Nick, a farmer's son,
grew up in the Yorkshire Dales.
I said I was interested
in physics and chemistry.
Well, I'm not going
to do that here.
At 14, he was away
at boarding school
and at 21, reading
physics at Oxford.
(Michael) So what career
are you going to pursue?
(Nick) It depends whether I'll be good
enough to do what I want to really do.
I would like, if I
can, to do research.
By 28, he had moved to America
and was doing research
into nuclear fusion
at the university of Wisconsin.
The fusion reaction
gives off energy
and produces the power that would
be turned into electrical energy
and sent out to the consumer.
(Michael) How hot is it in there?
In there, it's about
10 million degrees.
At 35, he was an
associate professor,
And at 42, a full professor.
And I've spent the last year and
a half writing a couple of books.
My ambition as a scientist is to
be more famous for doing science
than for being in this film,
but unfortunately,
Michael, it's not gonna happen.
Over the years, Nick's
research hit trouble,
and by 49, he's had to abandon it,
because the containers needed to store
the hot gasses couldn't be developed.
(Michael) Was there a moment when you
realized that all you'd been doing
wasn't going to work out?
I think it was more gradual.
I didn't want to admit
it for quite a while.
I mean, I really believed in it.
It was a huge let-down.
So the area that I'm looking
at is this times this.
I don't know why I've a
compulsion to teach, really.
It was always there in me. I wanted
to do it. I thought I'd be good at it.
When I go into a classroom
full of undergraduates,
I try and explain to them why
they might want to try and do it.
That's my little attempt to
open a little door for them.
So I'm hoping that you
remember me being very stupid
and going, "Ow, there's
arrows coming out of here."
Can we do that?
Any chance of that?
They can get information
from a book.
I have to keep them awake and make
the information a bit more interesting
than a book.
I'm doomed to do this
over and over and over.
OK, well, I didn't even
know it was happening,
so it was interesting...
Nobody's ever said that I
was a typical engineer.
The undergraduates
tell jokes about engineers,
and the only one
I can repeat to you
is, "How you can tell if
an engineer is an extrovert?"
And the answer is, "He looks at
your shoes when he's talking to you."
Even though he's clearly
a megastar, it's like...
Somebody came up
with a theory recently
that a lot of scientists
and mathematicians
are just borderline autistic.
I could easily be borderline
autistic, you know.
I don't quite get how other people
feel about things sometimes, you know.
(Michael) Do you
have a girlfriend?
I don't want to answer that.
I don't answer those
kind of questions.
I thought that one would
come up because when I was...
When I was doing the other one,
and somebody said,
"What do you think about girls?"
And I said, "I don't answer
questions like that."
Is that the reason
you're asking it?
I thought so. Um...
The best answer would be to say
that I don't answer
questions like that,
but, I mean, it was what
I said when I was seven,
and it's still the most
sensible. What about them?
Nick was only 17
when I first met him.
If he'd been somebody who had had fixed
ideas of a woman's role in marriage
that meant dinner on the table
at six every evening...
Ah, didn't I tell you about that?
His wife Jackie also
taught at the university,
and they had a son Adam.
Six years ago, they divorced.
Well, it was incredibly hard.
What I concluded,
and I have talked to other people
about this who've gone through it,
I'm not sure if they feel
it as strongly as I did,
but it was like a death.
Anything could happen.
We could easily drift apart.
There are so many
pressures on people.
If your spouse died, you
could look back and think,
"Well, it was wonderful
while it lasted,"
But in a divorce,
you can't look back and say,
"These are all happy memories."
It wasn't my decision.
She went to England.
Her father was ill.
By the time she'd landed,
he had died,
and when she came back,
it was like a different
person came back.
Was I responsible?
I could have been braver
about some things,
but if I'd been braver,
it might have ended sooner.
You can talk to me
by myself outside,
but I'll just meet you
by the garage, ok?
All right, bye.
It's enormously hard
to deal with.
The worst part of it was seeing
how it would affect my son.
(Michael) How old was he?
Ten.
When he was first told,
he was terribly, terribly upset,
and then he just
pulled himself together
and didn't want to talk
about it anymore.
He's made the most of it -
I mean, the best of it.
Made the best that
he can of it, I guess.
Take it easy, Adam.
Main thing is not to crash.
Really? You don't want
me to crash right now?
(Michael) How does
he deal with it now?
He doesn't talk to me
about it very much at all.
He's a private person.
It's very, very hard for me
to be spending a large part of
my time with him not around.
Hi, Graham. What you doing?
I had to go to a graduation.
One of my students
was getting his Ph.D.,
and he insisted
I go there with him,
and I looked around, and the
person behind me was Chris...
Hey, Graham.
...who is my new wife.
Are you ok?
(Michael) Did you
fall in love quickly?
Immediately.
Except that you decided that if I
couldn't find you, I'd failed the test.
I decided it was
his work to find me.
We did shake hands
at the end of graduation,
stood up and said who we were,
but he immediately forgot.
He couldn't remember who I was.
"I know who she is,
so I don't have to worry
about this anymore."
So I forgot. I do -
that's very me.
She came down to the
student union to meet me,
And, you know, I barely
knew what she looked like.
I looked at her...
"I guess that's her,"
And I sort of looked and did
this, and she did the same.
She did a mirror image
of that gesture,
and I thought, "I can't
explain what that was,"
But I just felt
very strongly drawn to her
by that little gesture.
And there was no way
I would say no
to being married to this man.
I wanted to be with him.
Has he changed my life?
Dramatically.
Have I changed as a person?
I hope so.
You'll give them a push?
I don't mean
to be superficial,
but I think she's the most
beautiful woman I've ever seen.
(Michael) Is he sexy?
Oh, man... (laughs)
Absolutely.
Didn't you have fun
with that one?
Graham was very good about
the ducks. The ducks were...
I only have one child, Courtney,
and he only has one child.
There's a symmetry with that.
(Michael) Would you ever have wanted
a child of your own, the two of you?
Well, absolutely,
but it's not exactly practical,
so we're just...
No. Of course, Graham has added
an element that's just joy,
And I know Nick likes little guys.
He just likes little kids.
They'd like to come out
for a holiday in the country
when we like - when I like
to have a holiday in the town.
It is very difficult
being in a place
where you're a long way away
from all your background,
and you don't have
any sort of support network.
(chatter)
My parents are alive.
They both had very significant
health issues.
My father keeps pointing out
that old age isn't for sissies.
You need a secretary.
Nick has two younger brothers
back in England -
Andrew and Christopher.
Christopher, the deaf one,
got divorced,
and he reported to my mother that
if Nicky can do it, then so can I,
so that changed.
(Michael) Are you
missing England?
I always miss England.
I was really not
the sort of person
who should ever
have moved very far.
When he was 42,
we took Nick back to where
he had grown up in the Dales.
What did you learn here, do you
think, that you carried with you?
I sort of feel as if you could
look deep somewhere inside me,
I feel like there's some
of this in there somewhere.
I think of it as being magnificent
but rather grim, really.
It's very uncompromising,
and sometimes it's rather tragic,
but, you know, it makes
other places you go
seem rather trivial as well.
We call it one of our Dales rooms.
We have things that reflect
the Dales in the room,
we have cards that we framed,
and some of the china
from Nick's family
is displayed up here.
Well, we're driving
from Madison to Minneapolis,
'cause Chris lives in Minneapolis,
and I live in Madison,
so we go up and down
alternate weekends.
(Michael) Does it put a stress
on the relationship,
these separations
and reuniting?
I would say, you know, absence
makes the heart grow fonder, really.
Chris lives in Minneapolis,
a five-hour drive from Madison,
where she is an associate professor
in the department of education.
Hey, you want to see something?
(Michael) Work is a big part
of both your lives, isn't it?
It is.
Yeah, so we're both
kind of workaholics.
Is there anything that you
would like to change?
Oh, that would be really risky
business, wouldn't it?
Well, I thought you had
changed a few of them, no?
You know, you don't mess
with mother nature
in terms of little things,
like how somebody does
their toothpaste,
those silly nonsense things.
He would not just say yes,
he immediately attended to it.
I had never been
with anybody who did,
so you have to be really careful
with what you ask him to do.
Oh, go easy on the butter,
please, all right?
OK.
I mean, I could see it being
a slippery slope, you know.
I didn't want to go that way
in terms of my ordering his life...
I didn't want him to be
a different person.
If I can change in the world,
I'd change it into a diamond.
I think this film
is extremely important.
It's important to me, but it seems
to be important to other people as well.
That doesn't make it
an easy thing.
It's an incredibly
hard thing to be in,
and I can't even begin to describe how
emotionally draining and wrenching it is
just to make the film
and to do the interviews,
and that's even
when I am pretending
that nobody else
is watching it.
(barks)
I think it's a heavy reminder
that he's missing his roots.
I mean, there are an awful lot
of emotions attached
to having a scrapbook
that's as vivid as this.
I'm going to work
in Woolworth's.
(TV playing)
Lynn is the third
of our east end girls.
She went to primary school
with Jackie and Sue,
but chose to go on
to a grammar school.
At 21, she set out on a career
as a children's librarian in a
mobile library in east London.
Have I stamped yours?
Yes.
I've not stamped yours.
Sleeping beauty.
Teaching children
the beauty of books
and watching their faces
as books unfold to them
is just fantastic.
To work with children of that age,
you've got to love them,
and I love children.
Because of cuts
in the education budget,
the mobile library was shut down.
At 42, Lynn was working
at Bethnal green library.
You can draw, better than I can.
Good morning.
At 49, she's still there.
Good morning.
(boy) What about you?
Good morning.
(woman) Are you going to say hello?
Good morning.
(Michael) How much of your work
is with people like this?
Probably 5%. It's a very,
very small part of it,
But probably, currently,
the most challenging part of it.
Elephant.
He's an elephant.
Where's the elephant?
We still get six other schools
regularly send classes in here.
It's busy most days.
Well, I know he loves her,
and he loves her.
I don't.
I love him.
I've been married a year
in a couple of months.
You do think, "Christ,
what have I done?"
When she was 19,
she married Russ.
We married young,
but because we wanted to go out
and have fun together.
30 years,
and we're still together.
He's my soul mate,
he's my partner.
We respect each other,
hence he's not here, and you
will not see him on this film,
because he has always, always felt
that the intrusion into our
private life that this causes
is too much.
I wanted white wedding,
all trimmings,
and Russ would've been
satisfied with very little.
(Michael) Are you in love?
Very, very much.
He knows how much I love him,
and in my heart of hearts,
I know how much he loves me.
I put him on the spot sometimes.
If I could, I would have
two girls and two boys.
(Jackie)
Yeah, so would I.
Lynn and Russ have two
daughters - Sarah and Emma.
Emma's installation coordinator
for a window company.
Sarah is an accessories buyer.
It's a family-run business.
At 42, the girls
were both doing
very well at school.
Neither of the girls
went to university?
No, no.
Was that disappointing to you?
No. Their choice.
We discussed it.
It's what they wanted to do.
They felt that the academic side
wasn't for them.
You have to accept
that it's their lives,
and you can only guide
and be there for them.
Aw, you boy.
Where's your drink?
So you got a grandson?
He's a lovely lad,
he really is.
I'm watching him
in the same way.
I mean, from 21 years ago,
when I held Sarah up
When she was just born, and
now I am watching Emma now,
and what goes round,
comes round,
because Emma now says that
she says things to Connor
that she can hear me
saying to her.
Rabbits.
Yeah. You have to look out
for their holes.
That still catches me out
sometimes
when suddenly I say something
that was purely and utterly me mum.
So was the arrival of Connor
a shock to you?
No. Well, yeah, but, no.
I mean, as soon as Emma
was expecting Connor,
Got the phone call -
"Mum, need to meet you."
So she actually told me face to
face that she was expecting. Fine.
She was 19.
She's old enough.
Probably watching you.
You'll go to bed.
When she was 35, Lynn
was having health problems.
Stuck all these tubes
up inside me and discovered
that I've got these veins up
here that shouldn't be there.
In your brain?
Mm-hmm.
And what can they do about it?
Not a lot at the moment.
No change.
It's not going away,
but it's no more problems.
Nothing, and I, mean,
you have the aches and pains
of getting older.
I've got bilateral carpal-tunnel
syndrome in both my wrists.
Guess who had it.
My mother.
And that comes and goes,
hence magnetic bracelets,
which help, but you
have to overcome it.
What's white?
Red.
Yeah, we know that's red.
For the last 30 years,
bang my head
against a brick wall
to maintain children's services,
but this time round,
no one's listening.
We've just done purple.
They say that the work that I do
that anybody can do it.
Blue.
There would be
no specialist running it.
One.
I may not have a job.
Hern loves Tintin.
Hern absolutely adores
Tintin.
It's cost cutting.
So that's what it's about?
Yeah.
They would deny that.
Can you speak to me today?
No?
I see.
Is it emotionally very demanding
working like this
with people like this?
Yeah, but it's so fulfilling
that, uh - beyond belief.
Azir, can you say it for me?
I know you can.
But are you get -
no! (laughs)
No, you're not gonna
do it today.
Azir spoke to me on the phone
a couple of years ago.
First time he'd ever spoken
to me, and really got me.
It's extremely difficult
for him to speak,
and when he does, you know
he's making so much effort,
and it gets me.
Hello.
Hello.
Excellent.
Thank you, Azir.
Thank you.
You've come a long way
since the back of the van.
No. I was on the back
of a bus yesterday.
We took a mobile vehicle
out to a school
who was having a book week
just round the corner,
and I had forgotten
how much it sways.
Where's your stamp?
Been a hell of a commitment
for you, hasn't it?
Yeah, but...
...But it will end.
But has it been
worth it all?
Yeah, very much.
Come on, speed it up.
All these things that I
have said over the years
are flying through my mind at the moment,
but, yes, it has been worth it.
And you better cut it, 'cause
otherwise, I'm gonna cry.
(man) What do you think
about rich people?
Well, not much.
Tell me about them.
Well, they think they can do everything
without you doing it as well.
Simon was brought up
in a children's home,
the only child
of a single parent.
Rich people, they have
all different things.
Have everything they want.
Whereas poor people,
they don't have nothing,
and they know
they haven't got nothing,
and so they know
they're missing something.
(Michael)
What are you missing?
I'm missing a bike
and a fishing rod and...
20 years ago, when I was born,
an illegitimate child,
that's something
that's only whispered about.
People, you know, feel strongly
about it in those days,
but nowadays, it's...
It's not a serious matter.
The serious point is whether you
stay with somebody or you leave them.
Since 21, I've got married,
had a couple of kids, and...
By 28, he had married Yvonne,
and they had 5 children.
I don't think there's anybody else I
could have ever married except Yvonne.
She's been my life, really,
because we're together,
we have our children
and everything.
By 35, they were divorced.
At 42, he had married Vienetta.
We used to go out when we were younger.
We met in the launderette.
Once a week. Once a week
at the launderette.
Baked beans.
Go and get the water and...
At one stage, we went
to marriage guidance,
'cause the pressures
of being together
were getting to us because we are
two completely different people.
I'm very laid back,
and she always says
if I go any further back,
I'll fall over.
When two people are together
and they have both
have separate lives,
it is hard, and there
are silly things,
like leaving the toilet
seat up or something
or when I put something here,
I expect to see it there.
Simon can be really untidy.
He'll take everything off
and fling it around the house.
Sorry, dear.
Don't get it all mixed up.
(Michael) Is he romantic?
If we've had an argument,
and he doesn't know,
'cause I will shout, and he'll
think, "What have I done?"
And I'll be here, like now, and I'll
be here, and I'd see him with flowers
and a bottle of wine
or something,
and he'll say, "I'm sorry. I don't
know what I done, but I'm sorry."
Vienetta already
had a daughter, Miriam,
and she and Simon
have a son - Daniel.
Is there anything of you in him?
His dashing good looks, yeah.
That's me and his love
of sport as well.
He goes to school in Slough,
because that's where
they do grammar schools.
He's doing very well there.
They say,
"Where's your father?"
"When your mum's out at work,
is there your father?"
And I just tell them
I ain't got one.
They've got everything.
They've even got
what I never had.
Which is what?
A father, innit, so, I mean,
they've had everything.
At one stage, they will stop
seeing me at all,
but now, bit older, bit wiser,
and I'm a bit older and wiser,
and now three of them see me.
Jessica has been
very busy herself.
She's got her work,
she's got college.
So who do you support?
Your lot comes second.
Jonathan's been
in transitional period
with changing jobs
and building up his new life.
The two that don't, I can't
really see their point of view.
So what's it like
being a grandfather?
Oh, it's bloody easy,
actually.
You can see them all day long
and then let them go back.
And you've got one?
Two, actually.
One that I see
and one that I would only see
if I kept going round to see him.
Otherwise, I wouldn't see him, so I
am waiting for the return visit now.
Before I'm old enough
to get a job,
I'd just walk around
and see what I can find.
Was going to be a film star,
but now I'm going to be
an electrical engineer,
which is more to reality, really.
By 21, Simon was working
in the freezer room
of Walls Sausages in London.
I know I can't stay at Walls
forever.
This is just not me.
I couldn't stay there
for that long.
My mind would go dead.
I'm quite happy to stay there.
Doesn't look like
it's going to close down,
so, I mean, better the devil
you know, innit?
Walls did close the factory down.
Since then he has worked near
Heathrow airport handling freight.
The only reason
I really went there
was to work near to where my son was
going to school, so I could drop him off.
Do you feel you could have done
more with a career with your work?
If I had pushed myself at school,
probably I could have done
a lot better.
Does that give you
pause for thought?
No. That means I was a lazy sod
when I was younger.
Somebody once said that
you don't live to work,
you work to live,
and that's how it should be.
(woman) Obviously when children
come into foster care,
family and friends
are involved...
A couple of years ago,
Simon and Vienetta
decided to train
as foster parents.
Went to boarding school
when I was young,
and I always felt
that was regimental.
It didn't allow
for personal care,
for loving
from the adult carers,
so I wanted to do something
like that for myself,
you know, in my own home.
And we always say
to foster carers,
please do not cut
the children's hair
without the permission
of the parents.
So what's the toughest thing
about being a foster parent?
You're taking a chance,
really, when you do it,
'cause you don't - you really
don't know what you're getting.
One child had two knives
in her hands,
because she didn't want
to stay in this country.
Two knives in her hands.
She threatened you?
No. She was just
a threat to herself.
Some of them come back.
They ring you up and say, "Hello,
auntie. Hello, uncle. How are you?"
They come and have Sunday dinner,
come and visit us, which is good.
At least you know you've
made a little difference
to that child
or that person's life.
Obviously we have Heathrow
in our borough,
and that gives us extra things
that foster carers might need to do.
So where are these children coming
from that come to your house?
Oh, all over the world.
So anywhere. Anywhere.
When they come off the plane, they
expected to be meeting somebody,
but that person doesn't turn up.
Simon.
How you doing?
Simon had been at the
children's home with Paul,
so we brought Paul back
from Australia to reunite them.
Was it good, though?
Yeah.
You can see Windsor Castle
from their house.
Look at that.
We don't actually see each
other, touch each other,
but we're living
each other's lives.
Every seven years, it all
comes back, and this -
We get up to this far, and we've done
this, and you've done that, and...
When they were 21,
we took them back to where they had spent
some of their formative years together.
Remember him?
Yeah.
He was a real bastard.
I do try to be disciplined,
but I actually hate discipline.
I believe the school
has taught me that.
There's always been
a bit of turmoil inside.
I believe that divorce
affects children a lot.
See, I can get on well
with my mother sometimes.
We talk very well
with each other,
but it's sometimes
not quite as mother and son.
When he was 35,
Simon's mother died of cancer.
There was so many things I
never actually said to my mum,
just things you think
about afterwards.
It's too late, because
they're not there anymore.
What sort of things?
Just I love you every day,
you know.
Later on in life, I did realize
that she got depressed as well,
so that was probably
a bigger reason
than not being able
to look after me.
My mother wrote to me
when I was 21,
and I hadn't really
had any contact with her.
When I was 21,
she come out and visited,
but I did grow up without her,
so it was like looking
at a total stranger.
I didn't recognize her at all,
so there was no real
in-depth feeling there.
Paul, get in there
next to him as well.
Come on, let me
get you organized.
(Michael) Are these two guys
very alike?
I think they're alike, because they
don't seem to jump into things.
They'll stand back and
have a little look at it.
You make them enjoy themselves,
like when we went for a walk
around London yesterday,
I said, "You are coming, and you
are having a good time doing this,"
And he did have a good
time doing it, so...
They're both very
family-orientated,
and they both married noisy women.
That's true.
(laughter)
That works for me.
I had one dream
when all the world
was on top of me,
and everything was on,
and I just about got out,
and everything flew up in the air.
I still look up in the sky,
because I don't know any better.
Everything I have, I always think,
"Is that ok? Is that right
that I should have that?"
People are undecided about you.
They could be your friend
one day and not the next.
I wanted to be a boxer, actor,
but I never actually
really wanted them.
I just wanted to be liked.
Paul actually gets - that's all
he ever wants out of people
is just people to like him
for who he is and what he is
without having to put on
any false pretences.
I think that's why he doesn't
open himself up to people.
Hello, darling.
Hello.
(Michael) Do you have
any regrets, the two of you?
(Vienetta) Yes, I do.
That we didn't
get together earlier.
I think marriage
is good for me.
What does she give you?
Hot dinners and a warm bed.
(stammers and chuckles)
Uh, she gives me
a balance in my life,
because... On my own,
I would probably be
your typical slob.
Men behaving badly.
We do get things done,
and we do things together.
'Cause you multiplied before,
so now you divide...
Is it tough for the two of you
being in these films?
I will say that I do love
watching everybody else.
I always hated them,
to be honest.
By the end of it,
I normally hate you.
Direct all of my anger
in one place. (laughs)
I read the Financial Times.
I read the Observer
and the Times.
What do you like about it?
Well, I like -
I usually look at the headlines
and then read about it.
(all singing)
At seven years old,
John, Andrew and Charles
were in a private
preparatory school in London.
What's the point of the program?
It's that the point of the program
is to reach a comparison.
I don't think it is,
because we're not necessarily
typical examples.
And I think that's what people
seeing the program might think.
Yes.
Falsely.
That's one of the troubles
with this sort of program.
I don't really think
that people like us -
Unless we are being seven
and being rather funny -
Have very much to say
that's very interesting,
'cause...
We don't know very much.
We didn't know very much
when we were seven,
but we were still quite funny.
(Michael) What do you think
about girlfriends at your age?
I've got one, but I don't
think much of her.
They're no longer just bores
who won't play this or something.
They're the other half of the
community, and they're there.
You can begin to talk to them.
I don't think I financially
come from the same background,
and Andrew didn't go
for a haughty deb,
he went for a good
Yorkshire lass,
But, I mean, obviously
he knew what he wanted.
(Michael) Does money
concern you a lot?
No. I think as long as one
has enough to be comfortable,
that's really
what one should aim for.
What's the most
difficult thing
about keeping
the marriage together?
I don't think it is particularly
difficult, actually.
We seem to manage all right,
would you say?
I think so.
We talk, don't we?
So how is married life?
Well, I still love him,
if that's what you're asking.
And likewise. (laughs)
I am going to charterhouse,
and after that,
Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
Andrew went to Charterhouse and
Cambridge, where he read law.
I'd like to be a solicitor
and also fairly successful.
At 28, Andrew was a solicitor.
What qualities do you think
it needs to be successful?
Well, you have to have a legal
ability in my business, obviously.
By 35, he had become a partner.
In a couple of weeks, we are going to
be having our legal conference in Dublin.
At 49, Andrew has left
the law firm.
I've moved to a large
industrial gasses company
which makes oxygen and nitrogen,
hydrogen, things like that.
Were you taking a chance?
Yes. I've been at the same
firm for over 20 years,
but it's not very challenging,
and changing like this,
particularly quite late in your
career, sort of stretches you.
I think it's not a bad idea
to pay for school,
because if we didn't,
schools would be
so nasty and crowded.
Yes.
So do I think so, and the people
in the schools wouldn't -
And the people - poor people
would come rushing in.
The man in charge of the school
would get very angry,
because he would...
And he'd get bankrupt.
...He wouldn't be able
to pay all the masters
if he didn't get any money.
Education is very important.
I mean, you can never be sure
of leaving your children
any worldly goods,
but at least you can be sure that once
you've given them a good education,
that's something
that no one can take away.
Andrew and Jane
have two sons -
Alexander and Timothy.
Alexander's at university.
He's in his first year at Newcastle,
and Timothy's at boarding school.
I think he'd like to go
to university,
but I think that's
as far as he's got, really.
Maybe even over the summer holidays,
we might start to talk to him about,
are there any universities
he would like to go and look at?
Andrew and Jane live in London,
but they have a second home
in the country.
Well, we bought it about -
just when we got married.
It was a 200-year-old barn
that we bought in an auction,
completely derelict,
nothing in it all
except for manure,
and then, slowly over the years,
we've just been converting it,
but it's really taken us up until
fairly recently to do that.
Ollie, come on.
There's a railway line that runs
along the bottom of our land.
There's a foxes' den down there.
We've been seeing a few cubs recently.
(Michael) What sort of hobbies
does Alexander enjoy?
Well, on the odd occasion,
he's quite keen on doing
what we call dangerous sports.
And we're going to treat him
to a balloon ride
sort of in advance
of his birthday,
which is coming up soon.
(man) Here we go.
See you all.
See you later.
I have actually been
in a balloon once myself.
It was for
my father's birthday,
and it was all going
very well until the end,
when we managed
to hit some trees and...
Don't tell me that now.
We landed on the basket.
We landed on its side.
(Alexander)
It's very high. Very high.
When we landed,
there was a request that...
All the ladies go downwind
so that we could
land on top of them.
Once I had a talk to Greville.
He was in my house,
and I asked
if he could put him
out of my house,
because he was
always getting minuses.
(Michael) Do you think life is
tougher out there for your children
than it was for you?
Yes, certainly I think it's much
more competitive for children.
When I leave this school, I go
to Broadstairs, St. Peter's court.
If you look back at us sitting
on the settee at the age of seven,
and I was saying what I going to do,
as if my life was mapped out for me.
Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
You know, you could never
get a child doing that now,
saying, "I'm going
to go to Cambridge."
Things have become
less certain as a result.
And you three on that settee
had huge opportunity.
We did.
Absolutely, yeah.
Well, I think boarding
makes you feel self-sufficient
and also teaches you to be away from
your parents and to live with people.
And who was the big
influence in your life
in giving you a sense
of proportion and value?
Well, obviously
it's your parents.
You know, they bring you up for
the first 18 years of your life.
Well, I have my bath
at 6:00 and then...
Do you ever look back
and think
is there anything you would like to
have been different from what it was?
I think, from my point
of view, perhaps,
as the children were growing up,
I would liked to have spent a bit
more time at home with them
rather than in the office, but that's
something that it's too late to do now.
So everything we say,
they'll think,
"Oh, that's a typical result
of the public-school system."
When we were 7 and 14 and 21,
we were fairly prepared
to say what we thought,
but we have become
more guarded over the years.
What are you guarded about?
I'm guarded
about being guarded.
Here we go. Ooh.
(Michael) So did you ever
fall on the ladies?
No. The lady fell on me.
But it was my wife,
so that was good.
(both laugh)
When I leave school, I am going
to the dragon school -
I might - and mum is,
and I might go -
After, I might go to
Charterhouse, Marlborough.
I don't particularly want to be rich,
but I'd like to have enough money.
Charles went to Marlborough
and then onto Durham University.
Since 21, he's taken no
further part in these films.
When I leave this school,
I'm going to Colet Court,
and then I will be going
to Westminster boarding school
if I pass the exam,
and then we think I'm going to
Cambridge and Trinity Hall.
John went to Westminster,
then onto read law
at Christ Church, Oxford.
I'm thinking of following
a legal career
with a view
to ending in parliament.
Might be at the bar.
(Michael) Doing what?
Perhaps chancery practice.
I now have a career.
I'm a barrister.
Other than that,
life chugs along
in varying degrees.
Well, in a sense, not very much has changed
in my career over the last 14 years.
I'm still a barrister.
I still wear a curly white wig.
The only visible difference,
I suppose,
is I wear a silk gown,
because I am now a QC.
(Michael) Are you ambitious?
Yes.
What for?
Fame and power.
What sort of power?
Political power.
I would quite like
to go into politics,
but, I mean, that's
easier said than done.
I have actually thought about
whether I shouldn't try
and get myself onto
the candidates' list,
but who knows?
I haven't written myself off
as a potential politician,
even though I am already 49.
I worry about the quality
of our democracy.
I worry in particular
about this government,
not because they're socialists
and they're to round us all up
and take us off to Trafalgar
Square in tumbrels
to face the guillotine.
Far from it.
In fact, Tony Blair is a very
good conservative, as I see it,
but rather because
of the insidious damage
they're doing
to our constitution.
Rich children always make fun
of poor children, I think.
It's very irresponsible,
because we all want more money,
as much money as we can get.
The acquisition of sacks
and sacks of money
is not something that
I set much importance by.
I'm not money-minded,
I would say, in that sense.
I mean, obviously it's nice
to have a fair amount of money,
and money does enable you
to go on nice holidays,
buy nice things,
so on and so forth,
but as a goal in itself, no.
I mean, who wants to be the
richest corpse in the graveyard?
By the time he was 35,
John had a house in London
and another in the country.
I seem to spend an awful lot
of my time gardening furiously,
trying to tame the wilderness
that we inherited there.
I'd have laughed if, ten years
ago, you'd have told me
that I would spend
most of my time
digging herbaceous borders
and things,
but that's what I seem to do,
and I enjoy it.
One good thing about having quite
a large house in the country now
is that I have taken up
playing the piano.
It's a very nonchalant
little theme,
butter wouldn't melt
in its mouth,
so take it very quietly
and let it present itself. Off.
A couple of years ago, I did
start again and even practicing,
but I am afraid I've lost
an awful lot of dexterity.
Whether it's old age
and arthritis,
or whether it's falling off
horses too many times,
I don't know, but, I mean, I don't feel
I've got quite the dexterity in my fingers.
Certainly I can never tell the
difference between you playing
and the CD playing
when I'm out of the room.
Yeah, very good, very good.
Well, she's very diplomatic.
No, no.
When boys go round with girls, they don't
pay attention to what they're doing.
My grandmother had an accident
because a boyfriend
was kissing his girlfriend
in the street.
By 35, John had married Claire,
the daughter of a former
ambassador to Bulgaria.
It is coincidental
that we met,
but it's obvious
that the Balkan connection
was a strong mutual interest.
(speaking Bulgarian)
We have a charity,
friends of Bulgaria,
which started in 1991,
which actually made
quite a lot of money
which we invested in medicine
and took out to Bulgaria.
We support some children's homes
in Starazagora,
an institution
for disabled children,
and we make donations
to other charities.
People who go on about the government
butchering the national health service
I think should come
over to Bulgaria
to see what being kept short
of necessary supplies and funds
really does mean.
We've been told
that in some places,
it's impossible
to do even operations,
albeit they have
the operating theatres
and they have excellent doctors,
for want of simple anaesthetics.
Up till then,
there'd been no provision
for education
of disabled children,
so we started
what was called a paralleca,
which is parallel education
for the disabled,
and we've now got
two classes here.
My name Deanna.
Cristo Christoff.
Claire and I
have been giving prizes
to the most talented
children in this town.
The school that we're in
was actually built by my family
at the end of the 19th century.
And they also used
to present prizes
to the best children
from the school each year
right until the advent
of communism in 1944.
I come from a very old family
with big traditions of
service to this country,
and, really, when I come here,
I feel very proud of them,
because I feel, in so many ways,
they've helped build Bulgaria.
This church is quite interesting.
It was built by
my great-great-great
grandfather in 1835.
They say he made off
with 8 tons of gold,
and even today,
the mountains here are
full of treasure hunters
who keep digging up all
the caves and everything
in the hope of
finding the treasure.
I wish I could find it.
I mean, once I'd refunded
my equitable life pension fund,
I reckon if I shoot the horses,
shoot the wife
and only drink Bulgarian wine,
I may be able to retire
age 94 or something.
Straw Macanessy got
three minuses in a day.
He's a pest.
It has to be said
that I bitterly regret
that the headmaster of the school
where I was when I was seven
pushed me forward for this series,
'cause every seven years,
a little pill of poison is
injected into - (Claire) Oh, no.
Well, it's the truth.
There are times when I have
felt appearing on this
may get causes near to my
heart a bit of publicity
and certainly when you came to
Bulgaria for the 35Up program,
that did lead to us getting
quite significant assistance,
which possibly we
wouldn't have got.
Well, I think it's
a very good system.
I suspect that why this program
is compelling and
interesting for viewers,
and I quite see why it is,
is because, really,
it's like big brother or I'm
a celebrity, get me out of here!
It is actually real-life TV
and with the added bonus that
you can see people grow old,
lose their hair, get fat.
Fascinating, I'm sure,
but does it have any value?
That's a different question.
Well, we pretend we've got swords,
and we make the noise
of the swords fighting,
and once somebody stabs us,
we go, "Ahhhh."
Neil grew up in a Liverpool suburb.
He had dreams of going to Oxford,
but didn't get in.
Instead, he went
to Aberdeen University,
but dropped out
after the first term.
At 21, he was working
on a building site
and living in a squat.
I would like to be somebody
in a position of importance,
I have always thought,
but I don't think
I'm the right sort of person
to carry the responsibility
for whatever it is.
I always thought
"Well I'd love to be...
Possibly love to be in politics
or something like this."
By 28, he was homeless,
wandering around
the west coast of Scotland.
If the money runs out, well, then, for
a few days, there's nowhere to go to,
and that's all you can do.
I simply have to find
the warmest shed I can find.
(Michael) How do people
regard you here?
Well, I'm still known
as an eccentric.
I'm not claiming
that I feel as though
I am in some sort
of nirvana,
but I am claiming that if I was
living in a bedsit in suburbia,
I'd be so miserable, I'd
feel like cutting my throat.
At 35, we found him
living in a council estate
on the most northerly
part of Britain -
The Shetland Islands.
It's an environment
which sustains me,
it's one in which
I can survive.
The reason I don't feel safe
is because I think I am getting
more and more used to this lifestyle,
which, eventually,
I shall have to give up.
And what would you like to be
doing, say, in seven years?
I can think of all kinds of
things I'd like to be doing.
The real question is,
"What am I likely to be doing?"
Um...
What are you likely to be doing?
That's a horrible question.
I tend to think
the most likely answer
is that I'll be
wandering homeless
round the streets of London,
but with a bit of luck,
that won't happen.
Can I just point out some of
the considerable disadvantages?
First of all,
they are geographically...
By 42, Neil had moved to London
and was a liberal democrat
on Hackney Council.
While I was in Shetland,
I felt very strongly
that I should become
involved in politics,
simply because I felt I
was not achieving anything
in the ways I really -
I really wanted to.
(Michael) So, didn't expect
to see you driving, Neil.
Well, neither - if you'd asked
me that question a few years ago,
I would have been surprised,
but it was my brother's wife's car,
and fortunately, she was about
to change vehicles at the time,
and they let me have it
without charge,
which was really
a very magnanimous gesture.
At 49, Neil has left London,
moved to Cumbria in
the north west of England
and become a member of
the local district council.
(man) ...Fairly simple.
It was a committee decision,
majority decision.
His own group on the establishment
committee agreed with the decision.
Councillor Hughes.
Well, for councillor Niland's
information -
Councillor Cook has reconsidered his
opinion he ventured at that meeting.
I'm a liberal democrat,
I'm standing for the county
council for this seat,
which is 400 square miles in size,
so it's a huge,
a huge constituency,
and this is only one
of the 84 seats.
Who has the seat
at the moment?
It's a conservative councillor
at the moment.
Big majority?
Significant. There's a lot
of work for me to do,
if not this time,
maybe next time.
What are the chances this time?
I'm doing my best.
Funnily enough,
when I first came up here,
I was considering
giving it up altogether,
but after only about two days,
I just got involved again,
so maybe it's impossible
to give up politics.
I have a great deal of respect
for the liberal democrats,
but I think that I won't
vote for them this time,
because I'll vote for Mr. McClain.
And in particular, he's keen
on to preserve our way of life
in the country with hunting,
in particular.
Well, it's going to
very disadvantage us
because we have changed
our farming policy
since foot and mouth
or any type of dairy cows.
Certainly more people vote. Perhaps they
see the impact on their lives more starkly
than people do in the city.
I found in London,
many parts of London,
there was a huge apathy
because it seemed -
Like they used to say,
"It doesn't matter who you vote for,
the government always gets in."
When I saw you seven years ago,
you seemed content, happy
in London, so why the change?
I neither felt that I was
satisfying the community around me,
nor did I feel
I was satisfying myself,
and that was obviously
not an ideal situation.
At 42, when Neil first arrived in
London from the Shetland Islands,
he lodged with Bruce.
He was a model host,
although he did always
insist on measuring
the amount of bathwater
that was in the bath,
and I am not quite sure
why that was.
He'd find the fridge a bit noisy,
so he would turn it off,
or if I had to hoover,
he'd walk round the block or...
No, I accept that I wasn't
the model lodger in every way,
and, however, that only emphasizes
how patient you actually were.
I've had little contact with Bruce.
We've exchanged one or two letters,
but maybe ours was a friendship
which flourished -
And it was a genuine friendship -
In the circumstances in which
we found ourselves in London.
I think that's what happens in life,
that people you're close to, and
then circumstances drift you apart,
and you find other people,
and you wonder now and again
what's happening to them
and hope they're all right,
but that's what happens in life.
In the winter, if you
lived in the country,
well, it was just all wet, and there
wouldn't be anything for miles around.
I feel, especially sometimes
when I'm on my own,
that I'm losing touch with
the way other people live.
(Michael) Do you worry
about your sanity?
Other people
sometimes worry about it.
Like who?
As I said,
I sometimes can be found
Behaving in an erratic fashion.
Sometimes I get very
frustrated, very angry
for no apparent reason,
for a reason which won't be apparent
to other people around me.
Do you ever think
you're going mad?
I don't think it.
I know it.
I, uh... Well, 'cause...
We're not allowed to use
the word "mad," but, um...
I think most people
are mad here, really.
How's your health?
It's probably very good
at the moment,
and living
in this rural setting
is obviously healthier than
living in the middle of a city.
There is less stress.
I ended up with
a former council flat,
which is nothing luxurious,
but I was lucky to get it,
and as soon as I could see
the view out of my window,
across the stream and trees
and the hills in the background,
I knew I was
in the right place.
I know that many people
say they feel closer to god
in the countryside.
I wouldn't want to be
simplistic about it,
but because one is much closer
to natural life,
one's therefore much closer
to the springs of life.
Yes, I'd say I believed in god.
Are you religious?
Well, I go to church
with me parents on Sundays.
I don't know even now whether
I do believe in god or not.
I've thought an awful lot
about it, actually,
and I still don't know.
How has he been treating you?
Well, I said to somebody
last week
that I preferred the old
testament to the new testament,
because in the old testament,
God is very unpredictable,
and that's, I think,
how I see him in my life.
My Jesus
My saviour
Lord,
there is none like you
Tower of refuge
and strength...
I bring Jim and Ann
and Bruce and Julia
and, uh...
Doreen.
...Doreen as well
and also...
I was first a lay reader
in London.
After completing
a little more training,
I was re-licensed
by the bishop of Carlisle.
Nature's lovely, nature's made
by god, but it's lovely...
Gives me the peace of mind
to accept when things
don't go the way they want to.
Politics can be
a very bruising game.
I will maintain my faith,
I will continue to trust in god.
I'm absolutely sure
that my faith
has helped me through
these difficult times.
Would you ever see having
a career in the church?
While I have a dedication
to the church,
I haven't experienced what I'd
call a calling into the priesthood
or anything of that kind,
so the answer is no
at the moment.
When I grow up,
I want to be an astronaut,
but if I can't be an astronaut,
I think I'll be a coach driver.
If the state didn't give us
any money,
it would probably just mean crime,
and I am glad I didn't have to
steal to keep myself alive.
Neil spends one day a week
doing voluntary work
for Oxfam.
Bernard, can you tell me why
people keep putting non...
I enjoy doing this.
It's relaxing.
I love books, and I enjoy
the company here as well.
I'd much rather have a full-time
job where I was being paid,
but because of
the council work I do,
I really want a job in the rest of
my time that isn't too stressful.
Well, these are all 6.99 new,
so I am putting them in at 1.99.
I get just over 200 a month
allowance for being a councillor.
On top of that, I get 9
a week jobseekers' allowance,
and because I am entitled
to the jobseekers' allowance,
I get my housing benefits
as well, which pays my rent.
I did some teaching of French to
young children last year for a while,
and that was very useful income
while I did it.
When I go home,
I come in, and mummy
gives me a cup of tea.
I don't think
I was really taught
any sort of policy of living
at all by my parents.
This is probably
the biggest mistake.
I was just left to fend
for myself in a world
which they seem
completely oblivious of.
What I'd like
most of all would be...
Would be to be able to do
something for my parents
when they're older,
to be there when...
when the time's necessary.
Well, my father died
five years ago.
I do feel, however,
that I'm a little nearer
to my mother since then,
but both geographically
and possibly emotionally,
it's never been
an easy relationship,
and I am not claiming
that everything is healed now,
but I feel I can speak
to my mother.
Do you miss your dad?
I - I had a great relationship
with my father
when I was much younger.
My relationship with him
did deteriorate as I got older.
I sometimes felt that he
made the wrong decision
in advice he'd given me
or things he'd done,
but then, obviously,
he had his own life to lead,
and just a few months
before he died,
we went together
to a cricket match.
Well, we had what I knew would probably
be the last long talk we would have
because he was dying
at the time then,
and I felt that
we were both relaxed
because we were doing
something we enjoyed doing,
which was relaxing in the
sunshine and watching sport,
so I felt that some way of -
some bridging of the gap
did take place that day.
When I get married, I don't
want to have any children,
because they are always
doing naughty things
and making the whole house untidy.
I always told myself
that I would never have children.
Why?
Because... Because,
well, because children
inherit something
from their parents,
and even if my wife
were the most high-spirited and
ordinary and normal of people,
the child would still
stand a very fair chance
of being not totally
full of happiness
because of what he or she
will have inherited from me.
No, I've never married, and I don't
have a girlfriend at the moment,
and I've - it's one of the
regrets of my life, actually,
that I've not met somebody
of the other sex
I thought I could have a more
permanent relationship with,
but - but I am probably not
the easiest of people
to get on with.
I did have one girlfriend
for close on two years,
so maybe I'm not as
completely hopeless a character
as might appear to be the case.
Do you miss a physical side,
a sexual side in your life?
Well, I am a physical person,
so I imagine I could be happy
in a lasting relationship
with somebody,
but you have to make do
with the reality,
and there are many things that
might have happened in my life
that haven't happened,
and there is little point
in being regretful
and angry about that.
You seem to have such much stronger
sense of purpose to your life
than you've had before.
I see that life comes once,
and it's quite short,
and you have to appreciate
what's good in it,
and if I could just
tell a short story.
I was just sunbathing and I - a
butterfly landed quite close to me -
Beautiful wings, deep red colours
and white sort of circles on them -
And these creatures
don't last very long,
but it landed very close to me.
It didn't seem frightened.
And it just seemed to delight
in opening and closing its wings
and just actually being beautiful
for that period of time,
enjoying the sunshine,
and perhaps there isn't actually
any more to life than that,
than just being what you are,
realizing that there -
that life goes on all around,
and there are millions
of other living creatures
who all have to find
their paths as well.
Whee!
(narrator) At the end of their
very special day in London,
after their trip
to the zoo and the party,
we took our children
to an adventure playground
where they could do
just what they liked.
Those from the children's home
set about building a house.
There's Nicholas.
And Tony.
Andrew.
John.
And Bruce.
Suzie.
Jackie and her friends.
Give me a child
until he is seven,
and I will give you the man.
This has been a glimpse
of Britain's future.