35 Up (1991) - full transcript
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
- I'm going to work in Woolworths.
- When I grow up I want
to be an astronaut.
- When I get married I'd
like to have 2 children.
- My hearts desire is to see my Daddy.
- I don't want to answer that.
- This is no
ordinary outing at the zoo,
it's a very special occasion.
We've brought these
children together for the
very first time.
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 7 years old.
- In 1964
WORLD IN ACTION made 7 Up.
We have been back to film
these children every 7 years.
They are now 35.
- Give me a child until he is 7
and I will give you the man.
- Is it important to fight, yes.
I want to be a jockey when I grow up,
yeah I want to be a jockey when I grow up.
- At 14 Tony
was already an apprentice
at Tommy Gosling's
racing stables in Epsom.
He left school at 15.
- This is a photo finish
of when I rode at Newbury.
I'm the one with the white cap.
I was beaten a length and a half a third
and had a photo finish.
So I took it out of the box
and kept it as a souvenir.
My greatest fulfilment in
life, when I rode at Kempton
in the same race as Lester Piggott.
I was a naive wet behind
the ears apprentice.
All my years from 7, all
my ambitions fulfilled
in one moment and I
eventually finished last.
Tailed off obviously but it
didn't make any difference to me.
Just to be part of it,
be with the man himself.
Couldn't buy it, that was the
proudest day of my whole life.
- Tony's now 34.
At weekends he takes
his girls to a stables
where the family keeps a couple of ponies.
What's it mean to you when
you see the girls on a horse?
- There are times you
look back and you look at them
and you see yourself in them all the time.
Wait come here.
- Got down first didn't I.
- Yeah.
When I was a kid right,
no one ever ever showed
me how to ride a horse.
I had to go out and do it myself.
Just walk him, hold them
legs nice and properly.
When I see them riding I sort of like
"Oh I taught them that"
and I see them doing this and
I show them in another way.
Then once they learn it I sort of like pat
them on their bum
sort of put them on
automatic pilot you know
and they're on their own.
But that's what life's all about isn't it?
Giving your kids all the opportunities
that give them the benefits
that you never had.
Don't be afraid, never
be afraid, they know.
Horses were my whole life,
flesh, blood, in my veins,
it was you know all the smell everything.
Princess Anne to her
horses and Lester Piggott
to his that's how I felt.
- And you let it go?
- I let it go.
- Sometimes on Saturday
morning I go to the pictures.
Sometimes with my friend
and sometimes with him.
- You don't.
- I do.
- She don't, I don't ever see you.
You go to a different pictures.
- Have you got a girlfriend?
- No.
- Would you
like to have a girlfriend?
- No.
You understand the Four F's, Find them,
Feed them and Forget them.
The other F I'll let you
use your own discrimination.
I mean, this one, I
tried to do the Three Fs
but I couldn't forget her.
- I used to work in a pub
just on a Friday night.
Barmaids, barmaiding
and from there one night
I went to a discotheque.
He was in the pub earlier on
and that afterwards we
went to a discotheque
and Tony was down there and I just,
from there I just that was it.
Couldn't get rid of him.
- We have our ups and downs,
no more than anyone else.
- I think you got to work at a marriage.
I think all marriages go through stages,
you can't stand each
other, you go through,
I think, oh God, I hate
him I wish he'd get out.
I do and I'm sure he does about me.
- I been in positions you
know and it's hard to say
in front of Debbie but
it's true, it's tempting,
you take the bait.
You know I go on holiday once
a year with the boys type
of thing to Spain, Magaluf
and we have a golf holiday.
All against Debbie's will but it's true,
I get in situations out there that you,
life is for the living.
And I come back, "Oh I know
what you've been doing out
"there, you've been
meeting all them birds",
and whatever and they
look at you as if to say
"I know, and I don't want to know".
That's how it is.
- Who's to say in another 10 years me
and him might have split up?
- Quite possible.
- You know, you don't know.
- If you were to break up
what do you think it would be over?
- Yeah, I think it's be the other party.
It wouldn't be for the
kids cause the kids they're
everything, without
anything prior to that.
Isn't it, I mean it'd break my heart.
Knowing that another
man could come in here
and bring my kids up.
There's only one ambition
really, I want a baby son
and if I see my baby son
then I'll see my ambition fulfilled.
No one knows that, only you now.
- Tony and
Debbie had a son, Nicky,
who is now 13.
They have 2 daughters, Jody and Perry
and the family lives in North London.
- Now listen, on Saturday
Tottenham have got the Arsenal.
- One, I was expecting on
28 UP wasn't I when you were
filmed that but I lost that baby.
I didn't feel that I could have any more.
I really didn't want any more.
But then anyway I did and I had Perry.
They are naughty, very naughty.
They're the naughtiest kids I know.
Nicky's like me, he's more
placid but Jody's like
how he was when he was 7.
I do discipline them,
you know, I smack them,
I put them in their rooms,
I take things off of them.
I do it, I discipline
them and he undoes it
so I'm fighting twice with
them, it makes it harder for me
because he's too soft with them.
- Why do you think
you're too soft with them?
- Cause I love them so much.
- Do you bring them up the way
that you were brought up?
- The upbringing I
had I saw more dinner times
than dinners without any questions
and I did have my brothers
clothes on my back for
you know hand me downs.
It's never done me no harm.
- I wouldn't have
got away with my parents
what my kids get away with me.
- Yeah but in saying that you do
give them everything possible.
All these designer clothes type of thing,
the Naff gear and Reebok
trainers now my Nicky
plays football and she'll say
"Oh Nicky wants some trainers
"have you got £70"?
and I'll say "What £70
for a pair of trainers,
"hold on there's a stall around there,
"same quality trainers
for £24 or something".
She'll go "£24, oh no" she'll say
"He can't go to school
wearing that rubbish".
She'll give them
everything, got an old bike,
wants a chain putting on and a
few nuts tightening or whatever.
"Oh can't have that bike, get a new one"
then in the next Christmas comes up.
- Only cause you don't put
the chain and bolts on.
- Oh, I'm not having that one.
- What will you do if you don't
make it as a jockey?
- I don't know, if I know I couldn't be one
I'd get out of the game.
- What do you
think you would do then?
- Learn taxis.
- At 21 Tony
was on the knowledge learning
to be a London Cabbie.
- If there's any
person who thinks I can't be
a Cabbie then they're wrong.
I'm going to get that badge and I'm going
to put it right in their face.
Just to tell them how wrong they can be
and how underestimated I am.
- At 28 he had his own cab.
- Surprising who you pick up you see.
I once met Kojak I picked
him up and Warren Mitchell,
Alf Garnett you know.
Debbie's working in
the day so Debbie'll be
on her way home by 4
o'clock, the kids'll be
coming home for tea.
Debbie'll stop the cab outside,
come in and cook the dinner.
Then I'll sit down with the
kids till about 7 whatever,
then I'll start the cab up
because we work the same cab
and I'll go to work till
about 1 until it goes again.
She's got a great mind.
She does the knowledge
which is less than 2 years.
For a woman with 3 kids, the pressures,
running a family that's remarkable.
- You get a lot of resentment
still from other cab drivers.
Some of them they just give you abuse,
some of them just sit there
shaking their heads when they see you.
I get told to go home and
do the dishes or go home
and do your husband's dinner.
I went to a Knowledge School
and there I met other girls
doing the Knowledge and
we became quite friendly,
we meet on a certain rank at Knightsbridge
and we go and have a cup of
tea we have a look around
Harrods, get a sandwich,
use Harrod's loos.
Have a little look around, spray
the perfumes and lipsticks.
- Does he do his
fair share of the housework?
- No, he doesn't do a thing.
He doesn't even bring a cup from one room
to the other I do everything.
- Sounds awful don't it?
- Terrible.
- I'm not chauvinistic,
don't get me wrong you know,
it's not a question of that.
I've a very luxurious life indoors right?
And I'm not proud to say
it or ashamed to say it
I'm just the way I am.
I mean I work as hard as I can outside
and when I close that door the feet go up
and I feel I deserve a rest.
- Would everybody
please sit round now
and get on with their work.
I don't want to see any backs to me.
Shouldn't be anybody turning around.
Tony do you hear as well?
Get on with your work in front.
Tony, don't turn round again.
- So what advantages
do you think you've had
over some of the other
people that we filmed?
- Academically they've
probably had more advantages
over me owing to the fact
they've had prep schools
at a very early age you know.
They've benefited by it which
you know it tells obviously
in this film but as far
as you know the stability
and the background you
know with their parents
they've missed out on that.
It was February the 9th
exactly 10 minutes past 9.
Mothers having her last, well
at the time we never knew,
her last breath, and she just died
with me holding her hand
and it was the worst moment of my life.
With respect to Debbie,
she was and still is
the best girl in the world.
I'm sorry but Eastenders
they're all close to their mums
and you know like everyone else wherever
you come from but my mom and I,
I've made it clear from when we done 21.
I just loved her, that's why.
That's what I think isn't it.
- I've never met anyone
like his mum in my life.
I doubt I ever will.
She was a lovely lady,
she was a friend to me
she wasn't a mother in law and we used
to go everywhere together me and his mum.
- I know the old man
from the time of his life
afterwards he died there and then
but he walked around
until September this year.
- When you buried him what
did you put in his coffin?
- I put 3 cards and I put
crown and anchor dice,
oh and a betting slip and a pen.
Because that was my dads whole life.
I'm at the graveside, I'm talking to her,
I've got all images running
through my mind saying like
"Tony go downstairs get
me five weights you know,
"and one and a penny" and
I used to go in the shop.
She used to throw the
cotton in a hair curler
over the landing and I
used to tie the cigarettes
on this bit of cotton and
she used to pull them up
and you'd see her in the end,
"Thanks Tone see you
after school be good".
And that's the way it was, and
all little things like that.
Mother having a drink in
the pub, singing, don't care
a monkeys she used to say,
don't care about nothing.
The poshies, "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes".
They're nuts, just have to touch them.
Yeah well they can get
what they want can't they?
If you've got to work for it
and it's them, they can just
ask for money and they get it.
They can buy what they want.
I'm not a politician so let them worry
about whats coming for the next day.
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.
- How long are you
going to be a cab driver,
is this what you want to do
for the rest of your life?
- Well at the moment, I'm
very happy in driving a cab
but I always considered owning
our own pub so obviously
I think with two or three
years, once I get finally,
financially straightened
out I'm going to have a go
at being a publican.
We did eventually get a pub
about 18 months after wasn't it?
- Yeah.
- And we went in partnership
with my brother in law
and I saw the pub going in one direction,
he saw it going in another one and after
about eight months or a year wasn't it?
We decided to call it a day.
Next time it's hard work out there.
- You're not reaching me yet.
- At 28 Tony
was taking acting lessons.
- Be bigger, dominate me.
- Son, son it's a big world out there
and obviously I'm not.
I can't get into it Brian.
- All right, all right.
- Pardon the expression but
could you do my inside leg.
- He now works as an extra.
- I'll have a go at
anything, especially acting,
but talent, who am I to say?
I'm not going to say I
haven't but then again
who's to stay anyone has?
I promise you, it's just
the job, no more no less.
All that big ideas for
stardom probably happened
14 years ago, I mean, but
not now, don't mean nothing
believe it or not.
I don't want to change because if I change
it proves the other Tony
Walker was all fake.
I know, and I've always said
it, there's never ever a thing
in my life I've never set out to do
that I've never achieved.
I wanted to be a jockey thank God,
I rode in a race with
Lester Piggott and I did it.
I wanted to be in the
film game, I got in it.
Working with Stephen Spielberg for 2 weeks
on one of his films.
I made it happen on my terms
and no one can say "I helped him"
and I'm a lot stronger in that respect.
- But you didn't pull it off.
You didn't pull a jockey
off, you haven't made it
as an actor, you didn't pull off the pub.
- Well, it's better to
be a has been than a
never was wasn't it?
My ambitions have gone out the window now
cause I'm running a family,
I'm playing a role now.
That is my role in life
I feel, but in saying
that coming to the age of
34 I've done everything
what I wanted to do.
I've got no regrets other than
not making it as a jockey,
that is my only regret but we
all live on dreams sometimes
If they don't come off unlucky,
you go again some time.
- Tell me do you
have any boyfriends Suzi?
- Erm, yes.
- Tell me about them.
- Well he lives up in Scotland
and he's I think he's 13
and I'm rather lonely up
there because he usually goes
to school but we used to
play till about half past 6
when he comes home from
school, then we go in
and then he goes home to do his homework.
- Have you
got any boyfriends Suzi?
- What is your attitude
towards marriage for yourself?
- Well, I don't know, I
haven't given it a lot
of thought cause I'm very
very cynical about it.
But then you get a certain
amount of faith resorted in it
when 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,
whats happened to you
over these last 7 years?
- I suppose Rupert, I'll
give you some credit.
- I'm now chain smoking.
- I think you can't just
walk through marriage
and think once you get
married it's all going
to be roses and everything
for ever you know you have,
well everybody has had their
rows but we've never yet
had a row that we haven't
managed to sort out
and I reckon really we've got a pretty,
pretty good marriage.
When I get married I'd
like to have 2 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?
- Well I don't like babies.
- What was the
biggest shocks to you
when you suddenly were
confronted with a small baby
that you had to be responsible for?
- Panic set in I think.
That I wasn't going to be able to cope.
- Is it everything you wanted?
- For the moment yes,
I mean I don't think I'll have
any more for the reason
that I will get pleasure
out of these two but I can't
see me going on and on and on.
- Mummy.
- Yes.
- Laura wants you.
- Very little has changed.
My life is probably very
much the same as it was then.
I've had another baby, we've moved house,
and that's about all.
Thomas is at a prep
school now he's a day boy
which he enjoys.
Oliver's at school
and Laura's just started this week.
- Is discipline important?
- Yes, it must be, I
wouldn't want to bring up
3 unruly rude children.
I'd hate people to look at
my children and think ugh,
they don't want to have
them for the day cause
they're so badly behaved and rude
but then you know some days
you can spend you whole day
just shouting at them because
they're behaving so badly.
- Would you like having a nanny
to look after them or do
you want to look after them?
- No I want a nanny to look after them.
We didn't have a third child because
we desperately wanted to have a daughter.
I mean you know, there's
no point doing that,
but it was lovely when she was a girl
because I feel the boys will
go off with Rupert fishing
and stuff and I shall be left on my own
so it'll be nice to have
a girl around the place.
Oliver's a very volatile child it's him
and I that have the problems.
Right from the minute
he was born he screamed day and night
and he's never got any better.
He's got learning difficulties,
dyslexia may come into it,
we don't know yet.
I think he would benefit
from being at a school
where he's where he can cope better.
- As a teenager,
Suzi spent her holidays
on her fathers estate in Scotland.
What sort of things do you do?
- Ride, swim, play tennis, ping pong.
I might play croquet, things like that.
- What about the
social life, whats that?
- What in Perthshire?
- Yes.
- Mm, quite fun.
I came to London when I
left school after Paris
and at the moment I could
never live in the country.
I'm happy down here I mean
the country's nice for 4 days
to go for long healthy walks but I mean
I could never live up there now.
- This is a wonderful atmosphere
to bring up children.
Do you think in some way it might be
too secluded and safe for them?
- It could be.
That's something that
slightly frightens me
that it is it's a very cosseted
life that they have here
and they've got to hit
the world at some point.
I just hope that I can
help them cope with it.
It is the most carefree time of your life.
I'm not saying it is for all children.
Well any child going through
their parents splitting up
aged 14 you're at a very
vulnerable age and it does cut
you up but you know, you get over it.
There's no point them
staying together for me
because it was worse I
mean the rows, it's worse.
If two people can't live together
there's no point making yourself.
I hope by Rupert and I giving
them a close family unit
that they'll keep their
heads and won't feel
that they're slightly lost like I did.
Where I wasted time was
in my middle late teens
and I think at that stage I didn't care.
I just let those years
go really, I drifted
and it's too late now to look back.
When I leave school
I'm down for Heathfield
and Southover Manor and
then maybe I may want
to go to a University but
I don't know which one yet.
I'd like to do maybe shorthand typing
or something like that.
I left school when I was 16, went to Paris
went to secretarial college and got a job.
- What made you decide
to leave school and go to Paris?
- I just wasn't interested in school
and just wanted to get away.
- I was a partner in
a quite a big law firm
and I resigned from that
set up my own company.
I tend to specialise in
refurbishing old buildings
and converting them into offices.
- Well if Rupert's
still got his property company
in this present economic
climate, I'd like to get
more involved with that.
It was a very difficult time when Rupert
was deciding to leave.
He's got a lot of responsibilities
with all of us and it's not easy
just starting off on your own.
- Do you ever
worry that the roof might
fall in and you'll be
out of this and whatever?
- Yes, it crosses my mind.
Last year, it's quite,
it's crossed my mind
quite hard that we might,
you know we could lose this
if things don't pick up.
- When she was 28
Suzy's father had just died.
- It's very hard to describe to somebody
how you just take the loss.
It is terribly hard, even
now I still can't believe
my fathers not here.
It's still sinking in I think.
The death of one of your
close family is probably
something you don't ever get over
and it's a different kind of
problem than anything else.
- Tell me about your mum.
- She was diagnosed before
Christmas as having lung cancer
but she's strong, she's tough
and hopefully she'll pull her way of it.
She's just had a horrendous
operation, she's still in
hospital now in a lot of pain.
You see someone in pain like
that it's especially someone that you love
and care for, it's it's very hard.
Somehow I think when
you're faced with it you
just find inner strength.
I think you think
beforehand something awful
you can't cope with it but
somehow when it's there
you just get on.
Someone somehow gives you
inner strength to cope with it.
- What do you think
about making this programme?
- I just think it's ridiculous,
I don't see any point in doing it.
The first year or two after 28 UP came out
you know I'd meet people,
or people in shops
would ask me whether I was the
girl that did the programme
and that's quite hard
because it's churning up
all happy memories, sad memories,
and it all comes flooding back, parts
that I'd rather forget and it's all
there for people to see.
Although most people are
quite nice about it you get
the odd one who's fairly
rude and I just think they're
lucky then they didn't have
to have it done to them.
I've had a very privileged
life compared to some people.
I've never really had to
struggle to make my way
but I don't think I've taken for granted
what I've had either.
This may sound very arrogant
but you can't if I let it
worry me I mean I'd worry
myself to death, I can't
change what I was born into.
- Well, going to Africa
and try and teach people
who are not civilised
to be more or less good.
No I don't want to be a missionary
because I just can't talk
about it to people.
I am interested in it myself
but I wouldn't be very good at it at all.
- So is this your
missionary dream come true?
- Well not exactly, I'm
a teacher now in London
and I've had the opportunity
to come here for a term
and it just so happens the
school I am in has great links
with this part of the world
and you know I've come here
to find out about the
background of many of the boys
that I teach back in London.
- At 35 Bruce
is working in Sylhet,
a town in the north east
corner of Bangladesh.
- Well I'm earning my
keep by teaching maths
and helping the teachers here,
helping them design courses of study.
I'm also teaching them English,
they've all got quite good
English but practising
and improving their English
and then I've also got the
chance to learn a bit of Bangla
which is very difficult and
I'm not doing very well at all.
- Bangladesh,
Bangladesh, Bangladesh.
- Bangladesh.
- Bangladesh.
- Bangladesh.
- Mango.
- Mango.
- Ahm.
- Ahm.
- Vasto, Vastos, vastat,
vastons, vastones, vastat.
- Yeah speak up.
- At 7 Bruce
was at a pre-preparatory
boarding school, at 14 St
Paul's school in London.
- They don't sort of
enforce being upper class
and things like that at St Paul's.
They suggest that you don't have long hair
and they do get it cut if.
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 two.
- Good, that's a nice way of
doing it, particularly using
Einstein down here.
His test is very powerful.
- I won't carry on with mathematics,
I don't think I'll be a teacher.
Chris Soarabe.
- Yes sir.
- At 28 he was teaching,
immigrant children in East London.
- And to here, 25.
Now it cost you 24, now
you're not going to.
- It's so different
from your own education
where you're teaching now, why?
- General education is
better for society I think.
Public schools are divisive,
that's with no statement
about my education.
My education was academically excellent
and I was very grateful for it.
I think there is a class society
and I think public schools
may help its continuance.
- At 35 in Sylhet
he is teaching the older students.
- I see education as
a key to it all I mean once
your population becomes
educated it can think for itself
a lot more and create wealth
and create opportunities.
Good, because you've
got to get an x squared.
Now when we come to the village we're
definitely going to go swimming.
- What do you like about Sylhet?
- Well I think mainly the
people and their hospitality.
A couple of weeks ago I
went on a visit to a family
with a teacher from this school.
They lived in a one room
flat but we were immediately
invited in and we sat
around having food with them
and that's what hospitality means.
If I was back in England and I turned up
say at a friends an hour before
lunch with three people
they'd never met they'd say
well lets go down the pub or something.
I didn't agree with the Conservatives
about what they were doing
with the black people,
you know, racial policy.
Everybody has the capacity
to be racist wherever
you are in the world.
I think it's a natural
human condition to be afraid
of something that's slightly
different to you I think
that that's the basis of it.
I mean I know academically it's defined
as prejudice plus power.
When you've got the power to do something
about it you can turn it
into something very damaging
to the person who's receiving it.
I think if you recognise that
as an emotional condition
maybe you can use your
intellect to check yourself.
- Has a country
like this got any future?
- I think it needs an awful lot of help.
The amount of general
poverty I think is growing.
You see so many children
working I mean it used to be
a rich area 200 years ago
and more people would call it
the Pearl of the Bay of Bengal.
People wondered at it
and it's not that now
and that's not unconnected
with the British rule here.
Basically we don't care
that many countries
are incredibly poor, we
simply don't care I mean we do
raise money for charity and
so on, which is excellent,
but it's simply not good
enough at the end of the day.
Well my girlfriend is in
Africa and 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.
- What happened
when you burnt your fingers?
- Erm, I'd rather not talk about it.
Well no, I don't really mean
that I mean I don't mean
that I don't want to talk about it just
that I'd need quite a long
time to think about it.
I think I'd very much
like to become involved
in a family life.
My own family for a start.
It'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 suppose
that would've been something
which I hoped would happen,
you know I suppose lots of reasons really,
I don't suppose I've met the right person.
Well about 10 minutes.
I mean you just read out an article.
I'm still a bit shy and
awkward, still have a bit
of growing up to do sometimes,
I think I'm a little
bit immature sometimes.
I can have quite sort
of teenage like crushes
on people and I can see
myself falling into it
and know exactly whats
happening but sort of unable
to do anything about it.
I've had affairs, sometimes they've ended
quite naturally with
goodwill on both sides.
Maybe I just haven't met the right person.
- Well you're getting
on a bit aren't you worried?
- Well not particularly,
I'm always optimistic.
Who knows who I might
meet tomorrow but I think
that's the trouble with reserve.
You're not rejected but you
never know what might have been.
But I'm getting better
you know, year by year.
I think we all grow up.
- What are the qualities
in a woman that you look for?
- Well, somebody I get on with
I suppose not particularly
attractive or whatever,
I don't want this to turn
into a sort of a dating agency video.
My hearts desire is to see my
Daddy who is 6,000 miles away.
He died about three years ago.
He was 72 I mean we did
drift apart because he
was in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe
as it now is, he did come back to England
and retire and I did used to
go up to Yorkshire and see him.
Not as often as I should've
done, I mean I'm sure
he had a fond feeling
for me and I'd have liked
to have returned that in some way.
- Do you miss him?
- Well I'd like to have
been able to miss him,
I'd like to have got closer
to be able to miss him.
I regret that chance of not
getting closer at that time.
You always need people
to care for you because
if you disappoint yourself by acting badly
in a particular way you
tend most to hurt the people
who love you and where would we be without
having people to love you.
- At 28 Bruce was
living in a council flat
in East London, he's now
in primitive lodgings
in the middle of Sylhet.
- Is money important to you?
- Well not really, I
have enough to live on.
I don't know whether
teachers deserve more money.
My gripe's has never been
about money, it's always been
about horrid conditions of work.
I find it horrible that people
care so much about money.
There are many more finer
things in life than that.
You know, people who bought the shares
in the privatisation issues
just to make quick money.
I just thought well, what
are you about in life?
Is that it?
You know, I didn't want any part in that.
- This film
is about opportunity,
do you think you've made the
most of your opportunities?
- My opportunity was to do what I wanted
and what I found fulfilling.
And I had a great variety
because of my background, yes.
I've made the most of my opportunity
because I've found something to do
that I find rewarding and
that was my opportunity.
I see education as being
very important you know,
which is why I'm distressed by something
which I see in Bangladesh,
the young kids working
so hard they need to bring
the money in for their family.
I'd say education is a
right, the more they learn,
the more choices they have in life.
Life should be a rich experience.
- If we did all love
Geoffrey and we all wanted
to marry him I think I
know the one that he'd
like the best and that's her.
- Plenty of boyfriends but not one.
- Yeah, not one in particular.
Friends with plenty of boys you know.
- We had a teacher at school,
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.
- Women are expanding into
so many different areas now
that it must be getting
easier, I mean I could still
be working now and have
a family if I wanted to.
The number of people in
my situation, single,
not single parents as such but divorced
single parents is unbelievable.
And the people of my mum's generation,
it's still rare, very rare.
- If my mum was to contemplate
leaving my dad was far,
I mean I don't even know
what she would've done.
Because she never dreamed of
working until the youngest one
went to school so I
couldn't I couldn't imagine
where she would've gone
or what she would've done.
- We haven't got that problem.
If a relationship is not working then
it's acceptable in society to bail out.
- Well I know he is hers and he loves her.
- I don't I love him.
- I don't think I'd get married too early,
I'd like to have a full
life first and meet people
before you commit yourself to a family.
- Sue was 24
when she married Billy,
they had two children,
William and Katherine.
- 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.
Go on then, you go first, turn it over
and put it back in the same place.
Just after we made the
last one I had Katherine
and then she was about a
year and the marriage started
to sort of dissolve around
us really and we decided
to go our separate ways.
I've never sat down
and thought what was it,
was it this was it that.
I just knew it wasn't
working and the discussion
really was the best way of
splitting up rather than
why are we splitting up?
It was really strange, I
think it seemed so obvious
to both of us that it was probably easier
to do than it should've been.
I have a regular one night
a week when I can go out.
It just happens to be that in
this particular circle most
of them are separated or divorced.
You have common problems
so sometimes it's easier
because you recognise each
others problems with babysitters.
You know it's not always possible
to drop everything and go out.
I think that women want
more out of life now,
that is basically why they won't put up
with a less than happy marriage.
- Are you ready
for a long term relationship?
- I don't think you're ever ready
for a long term relationship
either it happens to you
or it doesn't really.
I certainly wouldn't kick one
in the teeth if it crept
up on me, yeah, why not?
- Did you meet enough men
before you decided who to marry?
- I've been married a year
and a couple of months.
And you do think Christ what have I done?
- See I still got my kids.
- And I'm being honest about it.
And Russ thinks the same.
At times you think
Christ what have I done?
- Lynn married Russ at 19,
he works for the Post Office.
They have two daughters, Sarah and Emma.
- I'm very much geared to the
family unit, I mean us all.
We do things together all the time.
I mean there are times
when Russ and I obviously
we like to leave it all behind
and go out just the two of us.
Now as the girls are
getting older we've actually
started taking them with us.
I'll say, oh we haven't done very much
but when you look back we have.
It might only just be playing
games or going swimming
or going for a walk
we're doing it together.
- If you think that getting married
as far as we're concerned
is a case of going to work, coming home,
cook tea for hubby,
going to bed, getting up,
going to work you're totally mistaken.
- Jackie married
Mick when she was 19.
- I'm not sure I would recommend it.
I think if but again you're generalising,
I would say on average
19 is probably too young.
We decided ourselves, I mean
just between the two of us,
we knew it wasn't going
any further we both knew
I think at the end of the
day we would be happier
leading our own lives.
Whether that involved other
people, you know was to be seen.
But no, you've got to bear
in mind we had no children
to worry about so really the only people
that were getting hurt by us was us.
- If I could have 2 girls and 2 boys.
- And what about you Jackie?
- My mom, cause she got five girls she has
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 it's not possible
to be happy all the time
but as much of the time that was possible.
Go through there, that's
the nursery, hah hah.
- Got any plans?
- Do me a favour?
- At 21 Jackie
had moved into a new house.
By the time she was 28 she had
decided not to have children.
- Basically I would say
because I'm far too selfish
and 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.
That's not to say that's
a forever decision.
This one on, here we go, oh yeah, yes.
I had a brief but very sweet relationship,
the result of which was Charlie.
Cor blimey, Charlie, you're
supposed to clean your teeth,
not eating the brush.
It's the best thing that
could've happened to me
and I would never have believed I could've
enjoyed a child as much as I enjoy him.
I actually sat down and sort of thought
about should I have him or not.
I thought about what I was
going to do if I did have him.
How I was going to keep him.
But it comes back to the
same old story, the family.
My fathers only comment to
me was it is your decision,
you tell me what you want to do
and then we'll take it from there.
And they've totally rallied around me.
Anybody that wanted to know
just got told I was pregnant
I wasn't with the father, end of story.
People that know me know the full story
and that's all that matters to me.
And Charlie will know when he gets older.
- When I got married
the primary reason was
because I wanted to have a child,
the two to me went together.
- Why did you have a child out
of a marriage that wasn't working?
- Because I wanted
to have more than one child
and it was a thing about
being an only child myself.
I was always jealous of other
children that had brothers
and sisters when I was
growing up and I didn't want
to have more than one child
with two different fathers.
I think that brother and
sister should have the
same mother and the same
father, that is my ideal.
I would hate to think it
was tough on the kids.
William used to say why isn't
daddy living here any more
and I would say to him,
well you know how you
and Katherine argue and
get on each others nerves,
well that's how daddy
and I are we just find
that we're happier if were
not living in the same house.
- I'm going to work in Woolworths.
- At 21 Lynn was
working in a mobile library
in Tower Hamlets in East London.
- 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.
The last 10 years of
government have actually
in my opinion brought this country
much much further downhill.
We have lost an awful lot of
our National Health Service,
an awful lot of our education system.
I'm actually on the
governing body of two schools
and I want the best for those kids
that the system can provide.
And if the systems not good enough,
then we better the system.
What would you do if
you had lots of money,
about two pounds?
- I would buy myself a house a new house,
you know, one that's all nice and comfy.
- Do you get
depressed by money problems?
- No, why, why should you?
If you can manage on what you've got.
- It's easy to get
depressed over money.
- It's so easy to but why should you?
- When we've reached the
18th day of the month
and my mortgage is due on the 20th
and there's nowhere near
enough money in there
I get depressed about it obviously.
What money?
- It was hard first of
all when I gave up work
from having a fairly high
salary to nothing was hard but
you get used to whatever
your circumstances are,
you live in them, you get used to them
and you cope, everybody does.
- Sue now works
part-time for a Building Society.
- Everything's
changed for me cause I'm now
supporting myself a lot
more than I was a year ago.
- How did you feel
about living off Social Security?
- I hated it, really hated it.
Perhaps it's old fashioned values, I mean,
Mom and Dad have certainly
never been in that situation
but then my mom and dad have
never been single parents
either so you have to do what's
best for you and the children.
- Thanks very much.
- Bye.
- Bye.
- I took a year off when I had Charlie
and the state kept me for that year
but I went back to work and although
to be honest at the time I
pay everything out I'm not
that much better off but I feel better.
You take it from there,
can I get through this week
or can I get through this month?
Can I get Charlie the things he needs?
Somewhere along the line
you get the money you need
for whatever you need and as
it goes at the moment we're
working and were trying to keep
our families as best we can.
♪If I said that I love you. ♪
- Why is it that you three
haven't changed so much do you think?
- Perhaps we haven't grown up.
- We've all had a stable background
with stable relationships
all the way through.
- The same people are there
now that were there then.
- She initially went into hospital
for an exploratory operation,
they found out she had
cancer although at that stage
we didn't know how bad it was.
She was ill at the time,
they started chemotherapy
and radiation treatment
and she was just so bad.
Mom badly wanted to
come back to the family
and the family needed her here.
She then spent nine months of hell
I wouldn't have wished on anybody.
- She sat down on the settee
and she died, just like that.
And we were up in Norfolk
with my in-laws at the time.
And so all we got was
a phone call from Dad
to say that mom had died.
- And how did you deal with it?
- I'm still dealing with it now.
But then although she's
not with us in body
she's still with us in spirit.
She was a great friend
to me as well as a mom,
probably the best friend I'll ever have.
And as you see it still makes me
very emotional now, it's only 2 years.
To some it's probably
seems oh it's a long time
but it's not very long.
- The poor, if you don't help them
they probably die soon wouldn't they.
- 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.
We only had a limited choice
any way, truth be told.
We didn't have the choice of education
because they couldn't have
afforded it anyway so we
just went to the school we wanted to go to
and we made the best of
it when we were there.
That is something perhaps
when it comes to our children
that we would say why not go further?
- All I am interested in
and probably the same as
the other two is what is good for me,
what is good for my son and that's it.
I don't sit there envying maybe
what Suzi could do for her
children that I can't do for mine.
Yes, I'd love the money to
be able to put him all round
the world, I'd love to be able to do that
but I haven't got it.
And at the end of the day
I'm going to do what I can.
At this precise moment
in time is probably one
of the best times of my life.
Come here, come and put your top on.
I think probably because I've got Charlie,
he's totally transformed
my life a lot of the times
I obviously pull my hair out
but certainly for the better.
So yes, I'm a lot happier within myself.
People around me have noticed that.
So it's a good time for me.
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 them,
just one would do actually.
I think Charlie would like that as well.
I think Charlie would love it.
- A year ago Lynn
started having black outs,
she took medical advice.
- They stuck all these tubes up inside me
and discovered that I'd
got these veins here
that shouldn't be there.
- In your brain?
- Mm-hmm.
- And what can they do about it?
- Not a lot at the moment.
They're investigating other...
treatments but the surgeon
said that he doesn't want
to operate at the moment
because the risk it's
too near the optic nerve
and there's an 80% chance
of hitting the optic nerve.
- So is it frightening to know
that you have this condition?
- It was for about
a week but it got itself
into its own place within
my system where sort of
amongst my rungs of priorities
and I overcame the fear of it,
now it doesn't worry me at all.
- We've all got
little secret dreams.
I mean I loved drama at
school, I loved to sing,
along with millions of others,
so I would like to have
carried that further.
It was discussed at one
stage, you know going
to drama school and
pursuing it but I really
at the time didn't have the bottle.
Didn't want to give up work
and income as a young person.
I was quite enjoying myself.
Didn't want to risk all
that to follow the dream.
- So are these good times Sue?
- Not particularly no.
I've got two lovely children now
but it's just another
crossroads for me now.
I don't know which way I'm going to go,
whats going to happen.
I'm on my own basically,
I'm starting again.
- Are you changing?
- I'm just growing up.
I don't think you ever stop
growing up the circumstances
are changing so I'm just adapting.
- When I grow up I'd like to find out all
about the moon and all that.
- At 7 Nick
a farmers son was at a
one room village school
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 going to a Yorkshire
boarding school and at 21 was
reading physics at Oxford.
So what career are you going to pursue?
- It depends whether
I'll be good enough to do
what I really want to do.
I would like if I can to do research.
The gap in these
experiments is a temperature
comparable with that of the sun whereas
in a power reactor it
would be maybe 10 times
the temperature of the sun.
- At 28 he had moved to America
and was doing nuclear research
at the University of Wisconsin.
So how's it going Rich,
tell me about the current drive.
Ok so your all looking
at this thing expectantly
so maybe I'd better
say something about it.
The first one is basically
saying that the rate of change
of crystal momentum, it's
DDT at this quantity H bar K.
That is equal to Laurent's Force.
- He is now an associate
professor at the University.
Is Madison a friendly place?
- Yes very friendly.
It's a fairly small little
community and you get deer
and things running through
here so it's kinda nice.
You know you notice if
you walk into a shop here
or a store as they would call it,
people are much more polite to
you than they are in England.
And it's not in a it's not just a matter
of being obsequious, they just try
and be reasonably
friendly and smile at you.
- 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 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?
Yeah I thought so.
The best answer would be to say
that I don't answer questions like that
but you know it's what
I said when I was seven
and it's still the most sensible
but I mean, what about them.
- Nick was only 17 when I first met him
and I knew he was a nice person.
I find him very attractive
and he used his intelligence
in his relationship with
me which is very important.
- She felt that she wasn't
portrayed at all like she is
and that she felt foolish
as a result of it all.
She was really taken by
surprise by how she came over
and she really wasn't sure
why she came over that way
but she was very unhappy
with everybody involved
and so didn't want to be
in that position again.
- Is she difficult?
- At times yes.
Whenever we have an argument
she does have a tendency
to explode I suppose to get,
no to get really miserable.
- We've only been married 4
years, anything could happen,
we could easily drift apart,
there are so many pressures
on people you just.
- People saw the last film
and thought this marriage
isn't going to work,
this marriage isn't going to last,
did you get that response?
- Well, it's actually such a mystery to me
what they thought they were talking about
that I really just don't
relate to it at all.
I have no, I just don't
why they said that,
I mean the sorts of things
you were seeing was us trying
to be very honest about it.
That may have been the place
in 28 where we probably
were working hardest
about really describing what
things were like instead of
I was just saying I
sometimes just am very dull
and neutral and show too much of myself.
Well in that I think we were
just trying to be really
upfront and say this is what
it's like and we're working
very hard at it and
hopefully it'll work out.
If that sounds to somebody
like it's in jeopardy
well that's their problem.
- The big issue
for us at the moment
is how were going to manage to
have kids and run 2 careers.
- In those early formative years
would you be happy
for your children to
be brought up by Jackie
and Jackie not to be able to
give them the full attention?
- Well it's not I mean that's putting it
in a rather strange way,
- That's him, he's bringing
them up too you know.
- I mean this is an area,
- It's not just me.
- I pay lip service to the
idea of equal shares on this
and it remains to be seen whether I would
actually live up to my intentions.
- There are several things
I think to be said here,
I don't want to be the
person to be left behind
while Nick flies in and
shares an adult life
with his children at college and working.
I want to be there too.
- Nick and Jackie
now have a 1 year old son Adam.
- On the subject of
Adam, I enjoy doing this
for the most part but I don't
want the sins of the father
to be visited on the son in
this case so we've sort of
decided that we want
to keep him out of this
to some extent, well to some extent
essentially all together.
When I grow up I'd like to find out all
about the moon and all that.
- Where did you
get all this brain power?
- All this brain power, I don't know.
This is one that we were quite proud of,
glow discharges between
a couple of metal plates
where there's an ionised gas in between.
I suppose I'm very
ambitious in terms of trying
to get my research to go forward.
I'm also trying to train students so that
they can actually acquire
some useful skills
and can go out and just be
really useful contributors
themselves and push back the frontiers of
what we're capable of doing.
They'd like to come out for a holiday
in the country when we'd like,
when I'd like to have
a holiday in the town.
I've been to Leeds a couple of times
and haven't been to Manchester.
I went to London with the other programme,
when you did the first programme,
but that's the only time I've been.
In my position I don't feel
that I'm letting England
down because I don't think
that England particularly
wanted me there doing what I was doing.
So how can I feel that
I'm betraying a country
when it doesn't want me to do
what it's trained me to do?
- Do you get lonely here?
- You just tend to get stuck
into your everyday routine
and you don't think about
it but when you call home
then you realise how far
away you are and now it seems
acute because both our families are
getting older even if you think in terms
of seeing them once every two years.
- That's not so many times.
- You're thinking only about 10 times
and that's awful when
you think in those terms
you realise you really are in exile.
- Do you miss England?
- An awful lot yeah.
My parents managed to get
over here a couple of times
in the last two years and
Andrew my middle brother
was here about two years ago so that's
pretty good going in way
that they got over here.
Christopher is the brother
who is deaf as you know
and his language skills are getting better
but be certainly didn't get a flying start
from the education system
that he went through
so you know he really is
still getting to the point
where you know, he can't hear essentially
at all so you can't
really have a conversation
with him on the phone.
He'll get on the phone and tell you
a bunch of stuff and you can understand
most of it so that's really nice.
- Is it painful for you?
- Well the thing that was
emotional to think back on
was the situation when he
was probably a year old
and it was really becoming
clear to everybody
that despite the fact that his doctor
has originally insisted no he wasn't deaf
that it became pretty clear that he was.
And you know at the time
I just desperately was
hoping it wouldn't be
true, that somehow some
sort of miracle would
happen and he would turn out
not to be, so but then I told
myself well if he weren't then
he wouldn't be the same
person and it would be wishing
that the person didn't exist so
that wasn't the appropriate
way to think about it.
- Do you think
you can build a life here?
- Well you know, one is trying to
but 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.
It really does, I mean you
have to fend for yourself,
you keep thinking for yourself,
you're really being called on
to show pioneer spirit every
now and again it seems.
It don't have this urge that you
sometimes hear people
saying that I want my child
to have all the things that I didn't.
I don't look back and
think I was deprived.
There were things that
I had in a certain sense
as a child which were not material things
that I had but situations
I was in and experiences
that most children
wouldn't have growing up
on a farm and actually working on a farm
and being in a situation of being told,
clean out that calf
shed really has made me
very determined to get things done
and not give up half
way through something.
It develops a streak of
stubbornness that can be useful now.
The trouble with me is that
I tend to take the streak of
stubbornness too far I have
to try and mellow out a bit.
- Have you
travelled a long way since
that seven year old in
his big muddy boots?
- I suppose an awful long way yes.
I mean I'm sure there's
lot of the same personality
that was in there is still here.
Still easily embarrassed and confused.
I mean I think that you
can see the saying give
the boy until he is seven,
I'm quite prepared to accept
there's a lot in that.
If you could look at me at
seven and see through the
sort of superficial things
and the silly things
I was saying you could see
what made the child tick,
there was probably an awful lot in
there that's here now yes.
- 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 them, about it.
- What's the point of the programme?
- The point of the programme
is to reach a comparison.
I don't think it is.
We're not necessarily typical examples.
- And I think that's what people seeing
the programme might think, falsely.
- Yes, they tend to typecast us.
- So everything we say they'll think oh
that's a typical result of
the public school system.
- It's certainly true
that more people know
they have more options
or imagine they have.
I think in practical terms the difference
in numerical number of
options isn't that great.
- But the mere knowledge
creates an option in itself
so I think we do have more options
and it is undesirable but it's
very difficult to correct.
- I don't think it is
undesirable at all I think
whats undesirable is
people who have had options
don't take best advantage of them.
When I leave this school
I'm going to Collet 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 in Trinity Hall.
- John went
to Westminster School
and read Law at Christchurch Oxford.
- I do believe parents
have a right to educate
their children as they think fit.
And I think someone who works
on the assembly line in
some of these car factories
earning huge wage could
well afford to send
their children to private
schools if they wanted to.
- At 21 we asked him
what career he would pursue.
- Might be at the Bar.
- Doing what?
Perhaps Chancery practise?
I now have a career, I'm a barrister,
other than that life chugs
along in varying degrees.
- John entered
the Chancery division
of the High Court and
specialises in company law.
- How wonderful, have you told Alexandra.
- When I leave school I'm going to
The Dragons School I might and mummy's
and I might go to after I
might go to Charterhouse,
Marlborough and I can't
remember the other places
because mummy's got so many
but there's some of them.
- What about university Charles?
- I might go to Oxford.
- Charles went to Marlborough
but he didn't go to Oxford.
Instead he went to Durham University.
- I'm pleased I didn't
because it's very much
a sort of set from Marlborough.
Prep school, Marlborough,
Oxbridge conveyor belt.
Shoved out at the end.
- And what
did Charles want to do?
- Hard to say, probably
scribbling away in some basement
for some London newspaper or something.
- Charles did
scribble away for an
East London newspaper and
then moved onto the BBC
where he is now a producer.
He married last year.
He prefers not to be on television.
- I'm 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
in a large London firm.
What qualities do you think
it needs to be successful?
- Well you have to have a
legal ability in my business
obviously and you have to
have a sort of bedside manner
as far as your clients are concerned.
It's no good being brilliant if you can't
communicate with your clients.
- At 35 he had become a partner
in the same company.
- Well I work in the corporate
department of a large firm
of solicitors in the city
that is dealing with things
like mergers and
acquisitions, joint ventures,
general corporate advice,
putting deals together for clients.
- What do you think
about girl friends at your age?
- I've got one but I
don't think much of her.
- I don't think I financially
come from the same background,
Andrew didn't go for a haughty deb,
he went for a good Yorkshire lass
but I mean obviously
he knew what he wanted.
- At 28 Andrew had married Jane.
- I suppose the most important
thing that's happened is
that we've had two children
one five years ago,
Alexandra and then a couple
of years later Timothy.
We've also moved out from
central London over to Wimbledon.
We decided we should
look somewhere there was
a bit of green space so we moved out here.
- What was the biggest surprise
about having children?
- That our ideas of
bringing them up may be not
necessarily coincide with each others.
- When I see the
children playing together now
I realise how much fun they have together
and it's probably what I
missed being an only child.
- When boys go around
with girls they don't
pay attention to what they're doing.
Yes my grandmother had an accident because
a boyfriend was kissing his
girlfriend in the street.
The most important thing is
that I've gotten married.
- He married
Claire, the daughter
of a former Ambassador to Bulgaria.
- Recently I think this
charity Friends of Bulgaria
is something that's very
important in my life.
I became involved in all this
to channel aid to Bulgaria.
It is a great pleasure
to welcome you all here
tonight on behalf of Friends of Bulgaria.
My mother in fact is from Bulgaria,
and that explains why for me Bulgaria
is an especially important place.
We decided for our inaugural
event it would be a good idea
to have a concert and as
I'm a barrister I'd hoped
I'd be able to get access
to one of the halls
of the Inns of Court because
they are very magnificent buildings.
- It is coincidental that
we met but its obvious
that the Balkan connection
was a strong mutual interest.
- I think it's not a bad
idea to pay for schools
because if we didn't schools
would be so nasty and crowded.
- So do I think so.
And the people in the schools wouldn't.
- And the poor people
would coming rushing in.
- And the man in charge of the
school would get very angry
because he wouldn't be able to
- And he'd get bankrupt.
- pay all the masters if
he didn't have any money.
- At 7 the boys
are singing Waltzing Matilda
in Latin at their exclusive
private school in London.
- An 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're given
them a good education
that's something that
no one can take away.
The important issue is
drawing the distinction
between allowing people to
spend the money they earn,
in other words low taxes,
and also putting enough money
into the infrastructure,
things like education,
health service, transport system.
And that's a very
difficult balance to draw
and I'm not sure that were doing
the right thing at the moment.
I think more should be being put into that
and I think people would be
prepared to pay higher taxes
to pay for that sort of thing.
- Yeah just a bit late there.
- All this talk about
opportunities, something I did
slightly object to in the programme,
we were all shown at the
age of seven outlining
the academic sort of
career that most of us did
in fact pursue but it didn't
show the sleepless nights,
the sort of pouring over our books.
All the sweat and toil
that got us to University.
It was presented as if it were part
of some indestructible birth right
that we went to all these places
and I thought that was unfair.
It didn't show having to do
beastly jobs in the holidays.
If I had a son I would like to send him
to Westminster where I went.
Where I suspect the public schools
or the major public schools
win over the state schools is
in the quality of the
staff that they attract.
I mean certainly at my school the teachers
were absolutely first
rate but on the other hand
we had very little in
the way of facilities
and computers and language laboratories
that are taken for granted
in many state schools.
And I think when people
talk about more resources
they often mean more money
being spent on these things
which in a sense are
inessentials, and less money
is being spent on what really matters
which is the quality of the teachers.
- The rich children always make fun
of poor children I think.
- 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.
On the other hand it would be hypocritical
to pretend that a lot of
the things that I take
for granted and my lifestyle
is dependent on having
a fair amount of money but I can't say
that the acquisition of more money is one
of my main aims in life.
We now have a house in
the country which takes up
a lot of our time and
energies and 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 10
years ago you'd have told me
that I'd spend most of my time
digging herbaceous borders
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've
taken up playing the piano.
I've always had a piano
in London but with work
I never had time to practise
and now we've got room
to house a piano in the
country and I find I am now
practising quite a lot and
beginning to get it back a bit.
- Certainly I can never
tell the difference
between you playing and the CD playing
when I'm out of the
room, you're very good.
- Well she's very diplomatic.
- Does money concern you a lot?
- I think as long as one
has enough to be comfortable
that's really what one should aim for.
We took the children skiing
for the first time last year,
at least Alexander, and
he really enjoyed it.
- Is the family
unit the most important thing
in your lives, more than
your own ambition or?
- I'm not sure that I
have any ambition as such now
I mean just to progress
with my work and so on.
- I think ambition probably changes once
you've got children, your
outlook on life is no longer
the same as it was before.
And you can still have
ambitions and the fact
you want to be successful in your work
but the end result is
that if you're successful
in your work then you can enjoy
your success with your children.
And hopefully with your wife as well.
- I think the more you have
out of the country the more
privileges you're born with
the greater your duty is.
I still feel as I did when
I was 21 that it's important
for people who have had advantages to try
and put as much back and to
help others less fortunate
than themselves if they can.
In England as we all know
there is a perpetual debate
about the National Health
Service being starved
of resources but 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.
What were doing round
delivering drugs firstly
that we've managed to purchase with monies
so far raised by our appeal
and also at the same time,
trying to find out what it
is that they really need
so that we can be sure we're
getting the right things
through to the right destinations.
We've been told that in
some places its impossible
to do even operations,
albeit that they have
the operating theatres and
they have excellent doctors,
for want of simple anaesthetics.
In other places, for instance,
the children's home at,
they're even lacking
such simple things as soap and detergent.
These are things that
we can supply in England
very painlessly and yet here they really
make a lot of difference.
- The Bulgaria that I
have known coming back
with John has been a
much more varied country
and it has been very enriching to travel
around the country with John and to have
the extra dimension of
John having investigated
to a great degree his family tree down
through many generations
and many centuries.
- My great great grandfather who was the
first prime minister of
Bulgaria when the country
was liberated from the Turks in 1879.
Well I think everyone
needs to have a feeling
that they belong somewhere.
There's a plot of land
or somewhere they hail
from and their roots are.
Within the last month a new
agricultural law has been
passed returning land to
its former proprietors.
We think that some part at
any rate of this property
will become back to us and I for one
am very excited at that prospect.
It belonged to my
grandfather, his brother.
And they farmed it in the whole estate
and partnership with my great grandfather.
Looking at it with a professional eye,
I've dealt with worse than
this in North Hampton.
I don't think there's anything
that couldn't be sorted
out given six months or so.
And a couple house guests to stay.
- Do you think you
and Claire could live here?
- Ask me that in 7 years time.
I don't think much of their accents.
- Neither do I.
- What's been
the effect of being
in these films on you?
- I don't think really there
has been any effect really.
From time to time I meet
someone who I've never met
before who says I think
I've seen you somewhere
before haven't I and I say perhaps.
I try not to talk about it.
- You've got three minuses in a day.
I must say I mainly laugh
when I see myself at seven.
Obviously I said some shocking
but extremely funny things in retrospect.
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
because every seven years
a little pill of poison is injected.
- Well no.
- Well it's the truth, I dislike intensely
being on television, I
refused to do this programme
last time round and I'm
only doing it this time
because I see this as an opportunity
to draw the attention of
viewers in this country
to the awful problems
in Bulgaria in the hope
that they may wish to do something
to help the situation there.
- I don't like big boys hitting us
and the prefects sending
us out for nothing.
I know I prefer to be alone really.
I find it hard to express
emotion most of the time
although I'm getting on
top of that more now.
Just the simple things
to say to sort of Susan,
you know I love you something like that,
I mean I can tell you about it
but I really haven't been able to say it
freely to Sue you know.
- What was 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.
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
that when we have an argument
he says that's it, leave me.
And I say fine, all right I will one day.
But that's it you know after all
these years of marriage,
we've been married for
what 13 years now or something
and he still say you're leaving me.
Well one day I might
just pack my bags and go.
- At seven, Paul was at a
children's home in London.
Were you happy at the
children's home in England?
- We didn't mind that
really cause we didn't know
what was going on cause
we were a bit young.
My mother and father got,
well they separated originally
I think they eventually got divorced,
I went to the Boarding school for one year
and we emigrated to Australia.
My father got remarried.
- How do you get
on with your step mother?
- Pretty well but like I said
before I'm just not close,
I'm not really close to my father either.
- Do you have
any regrets about the fact
that you weren't closer to
him when you were younger?
- Yes I suppose, I
mean it's all wasted time
in a way I suppose.
He was always there, I could always talk
to him but it was different.
- A lot of people that
go out to Australia,
these English people,
they go out without family
you know and all of a
sudden Paul's come here
and he's got all this family
he sort of half knew existed.
- So Paul brought
Sue and his two children
Katy and Robert to visit the
family for the first time.
Do you think about England
much when you're in Australia?
- Only when the crickets on.
- I mean I'm in awe of everything I see
because I've always
wanted to come to London,
I always thought it would
be great thing to do.
And all of a sudden I'm here
and I'm having a great time
and Paul and the kids are just,
I'm just dragging them along
behind like come on we're off.
But no, it'd be really interesting
because I'd had lots of family.
And I know I love this sort
of stuff, bit of a showpony.
- When the crunch came
and we were coming over here
I didn't want to do it.
It's just something in me
that holds me back I just it's shyness
or something I'm not sure.
I'm not really good at
meeting new people I guess.
- Is there
any way you would want
to be a father any
differently from the way
your father was to you?
- I'd like there to be more contact
close actual physical contact close.
My dad and I are exactly the same like
that we you know if we hug it's unusual.
- When we had Katy when
she was born Paul said
to me oh I'm glad I've got a daughter.
He said when I'm an old man at least
she'll be able to come up
and give me a kiss and a cuddle.
- Would you
like to get married Paul?
- No.
- Tell me why not.
- I don't want like them
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,
and say she said you have
to eat what you give.
So, I don't like greens say she gives me
greens and that's it.
- Divorce was something new to me.
I figured what Paul's been through,
I mean Paul doesn't say it's very bad
but I wouldn't like that for my children.
- What keeps
this marriage together?
- Learning to keep your mouth
closed at times, I don't know.
- Tolerance I think, I mean we
don't stew we have arguments,
big arguments like anyone else
and we have spoken about this before.
We don't tend to stew over it
for any length of time, we
can be unbelievable together,
you know biting each others heads off
but we don't never go to the next day.
- This is the one thing
that the shows done to us is
that it makes you analyse
things a bit more you know
like maybe if the show hadn't have
been here we may have split up.
You think well we can see what
we were like a long time ago
and it brings it back
to you, you think well,
we had this then, often a
lot of people grow apart
and can't see what they had originally.
- I don't think the show could
actually hold you together.
- No, no but what it's showing you is
what you had in the past.
- In their twenties,
Paul and Sue sold up,
bought an old van and
travelled through Australia.
- I think it brought us closer together,
we got to know each other,
we relied on each other so much.
It gave us our own peace
of mind that we could
settle down and now have a family,
that we had done something,
we hadn't just been nobodies
and lived in suburbia all our lives.
We'd done something that we were proud of,
that we'd accomplished on our own.
Being together so much it was
hard but then we settled down,
and must have settled down really well
because I got pregnant so something
must've been going right.
- The family settled down
in a working class suburb of Melbourne.
Are you ambitious for your children Paul?
- I said something about wanting Robert
to be a brain surgeon but that was a joke.
I mean if like if he's
a brain surgeon good
and well but it'd be nice to let them go
one step up from us I think.
At the moment I'm pretty happy with Katy,
I'm not having a go at
Robert but I've got fears
for Robert cause he's
struggling a little bit.
He's only been at school for two years
and grade one and he's
had three teachers already
say they don't know how to motivate him.
What does University mean?
- When the last show
was on I said to Robert
do you think you'll go to university?
He goes well what's university?
It just floored me.
It just proves that high education
isn't a major point to us,
just getting him out of
first grade was a major importance to us
and so university seems a long way off
and so we just take each year as it comes.
- I was going to 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 going to be a phys ed teacher
but one of the teachers told me you had
to get up into university.
- At 21 Paul as
working as a junior partner
for a firm of bricklayers in Melbourne.
By 28 he'd gone out on his
own as a sub-contractor
but it didn't work out.
Since then he'd had a variety
of jobs in the building trade.
- Well I'm more of a trades person
than a business person you know,
I've never had any business training
and if I've got natural ability
I probably haven't used it.
Where do the problems go?
I mean did I lose it because
of it or did I never have it?
I think the confidence was never there,
it might run I the family sort of thing.
- I think maybe it's the lack
of security maybe he felt
when he was a child, perhaps,
that's my theory, my theory alone.
I mean that's the old thing isn't it,
when one of your parents are taken away
from you you lack security.
- The monitors up in the
washroom sends the nurse
out well there's no talking
well I wasn't talking.
- Katy now has this saying,
oh you know me I'm hopeless
and it's just Paul you know,
oh you know me I can't do this.
And it's sort of like this
defeatist attitude type
of thing but oh I don't
know I just ignore it
and go along my merry way I suppose.
He has got better, I
think as you get older
maturer you know, confidence
does come to a point.
- I really went through
a stage it's so stupid
because I was only a
bricklayer like I failed.
Something happened with
that job and I started
to maybe I did start
to look at what we had
and think what do you want out of life?
What's so bad about what we got?
- Do the two
of you have a dream?
- I've always wanted
to move to the country.
I wouldn't mind a small property,
doesn't have to be big or flashy.
It's more relaxed style
of living, an attractive
sort of lifestyle.
- We've just been
together for so long we're
just sort of plod along together.
I enjoy his company and he
enjoys mine most of the time.
I know that he's going to
come home to me every night,
I'm going to have someone there.
He's very secure that way.
- She does put up with a lot.
I can't be that easy to live with.
I'm nice but I'm not easy to live with.
- Well we pretend we've got swords.
We make the noises of the swords fighting
and when somebody stabs us we go aargh.
If think if you're healthy
and have good friends
you can get on perfectly well.
Everybody would like to be rich.
I came to London and contacted
an agency for squatters
and they were able to give
me an address of somebody
who was able to help
people who were looking
for accommodation in the London area.
- But you've
kicked against the stability.
- I don't think I ever had any
stability to be quite honest.
I can't think of any time
in my life when I ever did.
I don't think I've been
kicking against anything
I think I've been kicking in
mid air the whole of my life.
I've been moving about a bit
between difference places
really, a bit unsettled
but I'm very shortly
moving to live in digs.
- At 28 Neil was
roaming around Britain.
We found him on the
west coast of Scotland.
- If the state didn't give us
any money it would probably
just mean crime and I'm
glad I don't have to steal
to keep myself alive.
If the money runs out
well then for a few days
there's nowhere to go to
that's all you can do,
I simply have to find the
warmest shed I can find.
- At 35 he's
living in a council flat
in the Shetland Islands.
- The nice thing about
here is that you can cut
yourself off when you want
because there are people
living around but they're
pretty quiet people.
It's an environment which
sustains me it's one
in which I can survive.
I still feel my real place is in the world
of the world where people are doing
what the majority of people do.
And the reason I don't feel safe is
because I think I'm getting more
and more used to this lifestyle
which eventually I shall have to give up.
- How do you
manage for money these days?
- Social Security still, I wish it wasn't
but I'm afraid it is.
I've no desire to be putting
the taxes up and drawing money
off people who've earned it
themselves but that's the way it is.
Well I'm going to take
people to the country
and sometimes take them to the sea-side
and I'll have a big loud
speaker in the motor coach
and tell them whereabouts
we are and what we're going
to do and what the name of the
road is and all about that.
- Neil was brought
up in a Liverpool suburb,
went to a local comprehensive school
and Aberdeen University.
He dropped out after a term
and at 21 was working on
a building site in London.
At 28 he was homeless.
How do people regard you here?
- Well I'm still
known as an eccentric
as I have been since
about the age of 16 or so.
- Do the days seem long for you?
- They can do.
- Do you have
any friends anywhere?
- I've some good friends still in England.
- Neil settled down
in the Shetland Islands
a couple of years ago.
- Hello Neil how are you?
- Is the
community important to you?
- Yes, it has to be, this is where I live.
It's been very good to me.
People have been especially
kind in many areas
and I'd like to be putting
something back into it
and we'd be putting something back
into the whole of Shetland,
not just into this area.
I'll take 2 pints of milk please.
- There we are Neil.
And how's the pantomime then?
- Not so bad.
- Oh that's good, no traumas?
- Not on my part but people could do
with learning their lines a bit better.
- But you're alright.
- Well I shouldn't speak too soon.
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.
This probably linked up with the fact now
that I want to travel I mean my thoughts
haven't really changed that much
but I definitely wouldn't
like to be a coach driver now.
I suppose I would, yes, well
I would like to be somebody
in a position of importance,
I've always thought this
but I don't think I'm
the right sort of person
to carry the responsibility
for whatever it is.
I've always though well I'd
love to be possibly love
to be in politics or something like this
but I'd probably find that just as tedious
as all the other jobs I've done so.
What were the things I
always thought I could do.
I could give lectures on erudite subjects
that I'd read all about or
I could work in the theatre,
perhaps lighting or directing a show.
- And is all that lost to you?
- Does seem to be yes.
- The village pantomime
1990 Beauty and the Beast.
- Matthew Matthew
Your house sir is needing some repairs.
I think the attendance
at last years pantomime
on the Saturday night
was the biggest crowd
of West of Shetland folk
I'd ever seen in one place.
And you know and we think they enjoyed it.
We had good receptions in other
parts of Shetland as well.
We did tour one play.
I think were moving
into an age when there's
going to be more stress
on the community.
When bigger policies are fairly set,
are fairly predictable, and the emphasis
is gonna fall on local organisation.
- You directed it last year
and you're not this year why is that?
- Well the specific reason is that we had
a preliminary meeting and
I was, my name was not
put forward as the one they wanted so.
- Why would that be?
- Probably because I like
to do things in my own way
I'm perhaps quite an
authoritative director
I have my own idea of the performance
before we even start
and I don't like people
to deviate from that and during the course
of production of course people
come along with suggestions.
No I accept suggestions,
I don't just go along
without listening to people
but I know how I want the thing
and once I deviate once from that idea,
the whole thing actually falls apart.
It's not a work of art any more.
I'm not claiming that I
produce marvellous works of art
but I do know what I'm aiming for.
Alas poor master, still
sleeping, shall I awaken him.
I think everybody wants to be somebody
and when you can't actually be anything
in your ordinary life if
you feel there's a sphere
in which you can excel then it's great.
I mean I know how much pleasure
people who take photographs
get when their work is praised
and that's perhaps it's
much the same thing.
- We'll just taking take
a quick look at your plan
and see how it stands.
- What I have done is
taken lists of all the
community halls in Shetland
with their capacity.
- Neil is trying to organise
a professional touring theatre company.
- If a hall only seats
60 people it may not
be worth putting on a show there.
- I mean what was your
response at the fact
that only 4 folk turned up at the.
- Disappointment, it was disappointment.
I was disappointed but I
think it proves the point
that I've been trying to
make that you can't just
except people to turn up for
a group from outside Shetland
when they don't know
what the things about.
I've had an instinctive
feeling that I was a writer
since I was 16, I never really
wanted to be anything else.
I would actually pay to
have something published.
I think that's important I
think if I could find somebody
that would recognise,
there must be something
in what I've done.
I don't think it's all useless.
I probably am overvaluing it
but I know how much effort
went into some of it and
on that strength alone
I just can't believe it's useless.
With each successive play
I don't know who I'm trying
to speak to and what I'm
trying to say to them
and whether they're
listening I just keep going
because that's what I
feel I should be doing.
In the winter, if you live in the country,
well it's just all wet and
there wouldn't be anything
for miles around and you'd
get soaked if you tried
to go out and there's no
shelter anywhere except
in your own house.
But in the town you can go out
on wet wintry days cause you
can always find somewhere
to shelter because there's lots of places.
I don't think I've been
typical of the environment
in which I lived.
What my background has given me
is a sense of just being part
of a very impersonal society.
You finish the week you come home you plug
into the TV set for the weekend
and then you manage to get
back to work on Monday.
And it seems to me this
is just a slow path
to total brain washing and if I you have
a brain washed society
then you're heading towards
doom there's no question about that.
- Well it weren't too
bad last night anyway.
- It was better than it's
been for a while I think.
- There was enormous
reaction to you in the
previous film what do people
see in you do you think?
- It's seemed that I was representing some
kind of successful escapism or somebody
who'd managed to be totally himself,
hadn't given in to pressure of society
to conform and people
flooded me with letters
and people seemed to think
I could solve their personal problems.
And I was quite frightened
because I knew I couldn't
but what really bothered
me was people seemed
to see something in me that I
hadn't been aware of myself.
All I was aware of was that
I didn't have anywhere to go,
I had nothing to do I'd no money,
I felt let down by quite a lot of people.
I didn't think my life was a success
but suddenly everybody seemed to think so
but the most nagging
thing was that whatever,
even if a million people had written to me
it wouldn't have made any
difference to my own situation.
When I get married I don't
want to have any children
because they're 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 would've inherited from me.
- Have you given up on women?
- Well, what how shall
we say, all but you know.
I mean there's always, everybody always,
every unmarried man and
every unmarried woman hopes
for somebody who will actually come along
to change their life.
But the practical reality
is the chances of my finding somebody
who would put up with me
in my integrity is are few.
- What would
you look for in a woman?
- Well I might look for various things
but what's probably more important is
what somebody would look for in me.
I can't offer reliability.
I mean most women looking for a husband
or a steady man wants somebody
who is reliable in some way or other.
I cannot offer that.
Because I don't know
what I'm going to be like
from one day to the other and
it would be foolish for me
pretending you know that I
could offer something like that.
I can offer sincerity,
I can offer compassion,
willingness to do my part
to put my wife's interests
as high as my own, no doubt these are,
I'm sure these are important.
But I cannot say look in
10 years time I'll still
be bringing in a wage in,
especially if I don't start
in that situation, you know.
- 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 get very frustrated,
very angry for no apparent reason.
For a reason which won't be apparent
to other people around me.
It's happened from time to time.
- Are you
getting better or worse
do you think your state?
- I don't think there's any
significant change in me,
I said I haven't been so depressed
since I've been in Shetland,
I suppose my basic personality
is not a lot different.
- Are you having
any medical treatment
for your mood changes?
- No I haven't for many
years because I wouldn't like
to be dependent upon man
made substances for a cure.
- Do you ever
think you're going mad?
- I don't think it I know it.
I, well we're not allowed
to use the word mad
but you know, I think
most people are mad here
but I think it's a mad world.
I think I remember walking
in London 12 years ago
and just walking through the city
and they were digging up the drains
and there were cranes
knocking down buildings
and there were cars trying to get down
impossible narrow alleys and
having to reverse out again
and policemen doing all kinds of things
and I thought this world
is just mad you know,
this world is just mad.
Yes I'd say I believed in God.
- Are you religious?
- Well I go to church with
my parents on Sundays.
I don't know even know whether
I do believe in God or not.
I thought an awful lot about it actually
and I still don't know
but I still led to believe
that it was absolutely certain if one was
to survive in the world
one had to believe in God.
- And how's
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.
Sometimes very benevolent,
sometimes seemingly needlessly unkind.
Well after I'd tried every
remedy one could possibly
think of for my personality disorders,
I thought well I'm going to trust God
because other people
have done so seemingly
with positive results.
I can't say the moment I
trusted God my life was fine
and I can't say all the time
that I think I've found
the answer but I can say
with some certainty that
once I started believing
that there is actually a God
who has something of a design
for the world, who is working
in a certain way in the world.
After that some things
became clearer to me,
I really can't say much more than that.
- Coloured people we
don't like them very much.
- No it sounds like
ghostly coloured people,
you think of a sort of purple person
with red eyes and yellow feet
and you can't really think of
what they really look like.
I find it hard to believe
that I was ever like that
but there's the evidence.
Probably when I was seven I
just lived in a wonderful world
where everything was all sensation
and them I could be happy like this,
I could be miserable the next one.
I don't have a yearning for
any past time in my life.
Perhaps in my subconscious
I could recall a time
when everything was a lot happier
my teens were terribly unhappy years.
- If we come back in 7 years
how would you like us to find you?
- In a job from which I
was getting satisfaction,
married, probably with
children, with a good salary.
Enough to as I said before to be able
to live fairly comfortably
and with friends
who I could contact when I wanted them.
- So do you
think you have failed?
- Can't really judge.
- Do you feel
you've failed yourself?
- Well my life isn't over.
- Can you think what you'd like
to be doing in the year 2000?
- 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?
- What are
you likely to be doing?
- That's a horrible question.
I tend to think most likely the answer is
I will be wandering
homeless around the streets
of London but with a bit
of luck that won't happen.
I always feel that somehow
a good fairy has waved
a wand over me and saved
me from that because
that seemed very much what
the end would be for a while.
That's why I cling on here,
I know how tempting it is
to escape into fantasies, to believe
that I already am a successful writer.
To believe that I've got lots of friends,
to believe that if only I had
done such and such my life,
would've been different but I
mean the most difficult thing
is to accept the reality, to
be what we are in a situation.
That's terribly difficult.
- No not intentionally.
- I must you, I'm a
moustache fellow, a beard.
- 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.
And Bruce
John.
Suzi.
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.
- When I grow up I want
to be an astronaut.
- When I get married I'd
like to have 2 children.
- My hearts desire is to see my Daddy.
- I don't want to answer that.
- This is no
ordinary outing at the zoo,
it's a very special occasion.
We've brought these
children together for the
very first time.
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 7 years old.
- In 1964
WORLD IN ACTION made 7 Up.
We have been back to film
these children every 7 years.
They are now 35.
- Give me a child until he is 7
and I will give you the man.
- Is it important to fight, yes.
I want to be a jockey when I grow up,
yeah I want to be a jockey when I grow up.
- At 14 Tony
was already an apprentice
at Tommy Gosling's
racing stables in Epsom.
He left school at 15.
- This is a photo finish
of when I rode at Newbury.
I'm the one with the white cap.
I was beaten a length and a half a third
and had a photo finish.
So I took it out of the box
and kept it as a souvenir.
My greatest fulfilment in
life, when I rode at Kempton
in the same race as Lester Piggott.
I was a naive wet behind
the ears apprentice.
All my years from 7, all
my ambitions fulfilled
in one moment and I
eventually finished last.
Tailed off obviously but it
didn't make any difference to me.
Just to be part of it,
be with the man himself.
Couldn't buy it, that was the
proudest day of my whole life.
- Tony's now 34.
At weekends he takes
his girls to a stables
where the family keeps a couple of ponies.
What's it mean to you when
you see the girls on a horse?
- There are times you
look back and you look at them
and you see yourself in them all the time.
Wait come here.
- Got down first didn't I.
- Yeah.
When I was a kid right,
no one ever ever showed
me how to ride a horse.
I had to go out and do it myself.
Just walk him, hold them
legs nice and properly.
When I see them riding I sort of like
"Oh I taught them that"
and I see them doing this and
I show them in another way.
Then once they learn it I sort of like pat
them on their bum
sort of put them on
automatic pilot you know
and they're on their own.
But that's what life's all about isn't it?
Giving your kids all the opportunities
that give them the benefits
that you never had.
Don't be afraid, never
be afraid, they know.
Horses were my whole life,
flesh, blood, in my veins,
it was you know all the smell everything.
Princess Anne to her
horses and Lester Piggott
to his that's how I felt.
- And you let it go?
- I let it go.
- Sometimes on Saturday
morning I go to the pictures.
Sometimes with my friend
and sometimes with him.
- You don't.
- I do.
- She don't, I don't ever see you.
You go to a different pictures.
- Have you got a girlfriend?
- No.
- Would you
like to have a girlfriend?
- No.
You understand the Four F's, Find them,
Feed them and Forget them.
The other F I'll let you
use your own discrimination.
I mean, this one, I
tried to do the Three Fs
but I couldn't forget her.
- I used to work in a pub
just on a Friday night.
Barmaids, barmaiding
and from there one night
I went to a discotheque.
He was in the pub earlier on
and that afterwards we
went to a discotheque
and Tony was down there and I just,
from there I just that was it.
Couldn't get rid of him.
- We have our ups and downs,
no more than anyone else.
- I think you got to work at a marriage.
I think all marriages go through stages,
you can't stand each
other, you go through,
I think, oh God, I hate
him I wish he'd get out.
I do and I'm sure he does about me.
- I been in positions you
know and it's hard to say
in front of Debbie but
it's true, it's tempting,
you take the bait.
You know I go on holiday once
a year with the boys type
of thing to Spain, Magaluf
and we have a golf holiday.
All against Debbie's will but it's true,
I get in situations out there that you,
life is for the living.
And I come back, "Oh I know
what you've been doing out
"there, you've been
meeting all them birds",
and whatever and they
look at you as if to say
"I know, and I don't want to know".
That's how it is.
- Who's to say in another 10 years me
and him might have split up?
- Quite possible.
- You know, you don't know.
- If you were to break up
what do you think it would be over?
- Yeah, I think it's be the other party.
It wouldn't be for the
kids cause the kids they're
everything, without
anything prior to that.
Isn't it, I mean it'd break my heart.
Knowing that another
man could come in here
and bring my kids up.
There's only one ambition
really, I want a baby son
and if I see my baby son
then I'll see my ambition fulfilled.
No one knows that, only you now.
- Tony and
Debbie had a son, Nicky,
who is now 13.
They have 2 daughters, Jody and Perry
and the family lives in North London.
- Now listen, on Saturday
Tottenham have got the Arsenal.
- One, I was expecting on
28 UP wasn't I when you were
filmed that but I lost that baby.
I didn't feel that I could have any more.
I really didn't want any more.
But then anyway I did and I had Perry.
They are naughty, very naughty.
They're the naughtiest kids I know.
Nicky's like me, he's more
placid but Jody's like
how he was when he was 7.
I do discipline them,
you know, I smack them,
I put them in their rooms,
I take things off of them.
I do it, I discipline
them and he undoes it
so I'm fighting twice with
them, it makes it harder for me
because he's too soft with them.
- Why do you think
you're too soft with them?
- Cause I love them so much.
- Do you bring them up the way
that you were brought up?
- The upbringing I
had I saw more dinner times
than dinners without any questions
and I did have my brothers
clothes on my back for
you know hand me downs.
It's never done me no harm.
- I wouldn't have
got away with my parents
what my kids get away with me.
- Yeah but in saying that you do
give them everything possible.
All these designer clothes type of thing,
the Naff gear and Reebok
trainers now my Nicky
plays football and she'll say
"Oh Nicky wants some trainers
"have you got £70"?
and I'll say "What £70
for a pair of trainers,
"hold on there's a stall around there,
"same quality trainers
for £24 or something".
She'll go "£24, oh no" she'll say
"He can't go to school
wearing that rubbish".
She'll give them
everything, got an old bike,
wants a chain putting on and a
few nuts tightening or whatever.
"Oh can't have that bike, get a new one"
then in the next Christmas comes up.
- Only cause you don't put
the chain and bolts on.
- Oh, I'm not having that one.
- What will you do if you don't
make it as a jockey?
- I don't know, if I know I couldn't be one
I'd get out of the game.
- What do you
think you would do then?
- Learn taxis.
- At 21 Tony
was on the knowledge learning
to be a London Cabbie.
- If there's any
person who thinks I can't be
a Cabbie then they're wrong.
I'm going to get that badge and I'm going
to put it right in their face.
Just to tell them how wrong they can be
and how underestimated I am.
- At 28 he had his own cab.
- Surprising who you pick up you see.
I once met Kojak I picked
him up and Warren Mitchell,
Alf Garnett you know.
Debbie's working in
the day so Debbie'll be
on her way home by 4
o'clock, the kids'll be
coming home for tea.
Debbie'll stop the cab outside,
come in and cook the dinner.
Then I'll sit down with the
kids till about 7 whatever,
then I'll start the cab up
because we work the same cab
and I'll go to work till
about 1 until it goes again.
She's got a great mind.
She does the knowledge
which is less than 2 years.
For a woman with 3 kids, the pressures,
running a family that's remarkable.
- You get a lot of resentment
still from other cab drivers.
Some of them they just give you abuse,
some of them just sit there
shaking their heads when they see you.
I get told to go home and
do the dishes or go home
and do your husband's dinner.
I went to a Knowledge School
and there I met other girls
doing the Knowledge and
we became quite friendly,
we meet on a certain rank at Knightsbridge
and we go and have a cup of
tea we have a look around
Harrods, get a sandwich,
use Harrod's loos.
Have a little look around, spray
the perfumes and lipsticks.
- Does he do his
fair share of the housework?
- No, he doesn't do a thing.
He doesn't even bring a cup from one room
to the other I do everything.
- Sounds awful don't it?
- Terrible.
- I'm not chauvinistic,
don't get me wrong you know,
it's not a question of that.
I've a very luxurious life indoors right?
And I'm not proud to say
it or ashamed to say it
I'm just the way I am.
I mean I work as hard as I can outside
and when I close that door the feet go up
and I feel I deserve a rest.
- Would everybody
please sit round now
and get on with their work.
I don't want to see any backs to me.
Shouldn't be anybody turning around.
Tony do you hear as well?
Get on with your work in front.
Tony, don't turn round again.
- So what advantages
do you think you've had
over some of the other
people that we filmed?
- Academically they've
probably had more advantages
over me owing to the fact
they've had prep schools
at a very early age you know.
They've benefited by it which
you know it tells obviously
in this film but as far
as you know the stability
and the background you
know with their parents
they've missed out on that.
It was February the 9th
exactly 10 minutes past 9.
Mothers having her last, well
at the time we never knew,
her last breath, and she just died
with me holding her hand
and it was the worst moment of my life.
With respect to Debbie,
she was and still is
the best girl in the world.
I'm sorry but Eastenders
they're all close to their mums
and you know like everyone else wherever
you come from but my mom and I,
I've made it clear from when we done 21.
I just loved her, that's why.
That's what I think isn't it.
- I've never met anyone
like his mum in my life.
I doubt I ever will.
She was a lovely lady,
she was a friend to me
she wasn't a mother in law and we used
to go everywhere together me and his mum.
- I know the old man
from the time of his life
afterwards he died there and then
but he walked around
until September this year.
- When you buried him what
did you put in his coffin?
- I put 3 cards and I put
crown and anchor dice,
oh and a betting slip and a pen.
Because that was my dads whole life.
I'm at the graveside, I'm talking to her,
I've got all images running
through my mind saying like
"Tony go downstairs get
me five weights you know,
"and one and a penny" and
I used to go in the shop.
She used to throw the
cotton in a hair curler
over the landing and I
used to tie the cigarettes
on this bit of cotton and
she used to pull them up
and you'd see her in the end,
"Thanks Tone see you
after school be good".
And that's the way it was, and
all little things like that.
Mother having a drink in
the pub, singing, don't care
a monkeys she used to say,
don't care about nothing.
The poshies, "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes".
They're nuts, just have to touch them.
Yeah well they can get
what they want can't they?
If you've got to work for it
and it's them, they can just
ask for money and they get it.
They can buy what they want.
I'm not a politician so let them worry
about whats coming for the next day.
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.
- How long are you
going to be a cab driver,
is this what you want to do
for the rest of your life?
- Well at the moment, I'm
very happy in driving a cab
but I always considered owning
our own pub so obviously
I think with two or three
years, once I get finally,
financially straightened
out I'm going to have a go
at being a publican.
We did eventually get a pub
about 18 months after wasn't it?
- Yeah.
- And we went in partnership
with my brother in law
and I saw the pub going in one direction,
he saw it going in another one and after
about eight months or a year wasn't it?
We decided to call it a day.
Next time it's hard work out there.
- You're not reaching me yet.
- At 28 Tony
was taking acting lessons.
- Be bigger, dominate me.
- Son, son it's a big world out there
and obviously I'm not.
I can't get into it Brian.
- All right, all right.
- Pardon the expression but
could you do my inside leg.
- He now works as an extra.
- I'll have a go at
anything, especially acting,
but talent, who am I to say?
I'm not going to say I
haven't but then again
who's to stay anyone has?
I promise you, it's just
the job, no more no less.
All that big ideas for
stardom probably happened
14 years ago, I mean, but
not now, don't mean nothing
believe it or not.
I don't want to change because if I change
it proves the other Tony
Walker was all fake.
I know, and I've always said
it, there's never ever a thing
in my life I've never set out to do
that I've never achieved.
I wanted to be a jockey thank God,
I rode in a race with
Lester Piggott and I did it.
I wanted to be in the
film game, I got in it.
Working with Stephen Spielberg for 2 weeks
on one of his films.
I made it happen on my terms
and no one can say "I helped him"
and I'm a lot stronger in that respect.
- But you didn't pull it off.
You didn't pull a jockey
off, you haven't made it
as an actor, you didn't pull off the pub.
- Well, it's better to
be a has been than a
never was wasn't it?
My ambitions have gone out the window now
cause I'm running a family,
I'm playing a role now.
That is my role in life
I feel, but in saying
that coming to the age of
34 I've done everything
what I wanted to do.
I've got no regrets other than
not making it as a jockey,
that is my only regret but we
all live on dreams sometimes
If they don't come off unlucky,
you go again some time.
- Tell me do you
have any boyfriends Suzi?
- Erm, yes.
- Tell me about them.
- Well he lives up in Scotland
and he's I think he's 13
and I'm rather lonely up
there because he usually goes
to school but we used to
play till about half past 6
when he comes home from
school, then we go in
and then he goes home to do his homework.
- Have you
got any boyfriends Suzi?
- What is your attitude
towards marriage for yourself?
- Well, I don't know, I
haven't given it a lot
of thought cause I'm very
very cynical about it.
But then you get a certain
amount of faith resorted in it
when 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,
whats happened to you
over these last 7 years?
- I suppose Rupert, I'll
give you some credit.
- I'm now chain smoking.
- I think you can't just
walk through marriage
and think once you get
married it's all going
to be roses and everything
for ever you know you have,
well everybody has had their
rows but we've never yet
had a row that we haven't
managed to sort out
and I reckon really we've got a pretty,
pretty good marriage.
When I get married I'd
like to have 2 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?
- Well I don't like babies.
- What was the
biggest shocks to you
when you suddenly were
confronted with a small baby
that you had to be responsible for?
- Panic set in I think.
That I wasn't going to be able to cope.
- Is it everything you wanted?
- For the moment yes,
I mean I don't think I'll have
any more for the reason
that I will get pleasure
out of these two but I can't
see me going on and on and on.
- Mummy.
- Yes.
- Laura wants you.
- Very little has changed.
My life is probably very
much the same as it was then.
I've had another baby, we've moved house,
and that's about all.
Thomas is at a prep
school now he's a day boy
which he enjoys.
Oliver's at school
and Laura's just started this week.
- Is discipline important?
- Yes, it must be, I
wouldn't want to bring up
3 unruly rude children.
I'd hate people to look at
my children and think ugh,
they don't want to have
them for the day cause
they're so badly behaved and rude
but then you know some days
you can spend you whole day
just shouting at them because
they're behaving so badly.
- Would you like having a nanny
to look after them or do
you want to look after them?
- No I want a nanny to look after them.
We didn't have a third child because
we desperately wanted to have a daughter.
I mean you know, there's
no point doing that,
but it was lovely when she was a girl
because I feel the boys will
go off with Rupert fishing
and stuff and I shall be left on my own
so it'll be nice to have
a girl around the place.
Oliver's a very volatile child it's him
and I that have the problems.
Right from the minute
he was born he screamed day and night
and he's never got any better.
He's got learning difficulties,
dyslexia may come into it,
we don't know yet.
I think he would benefit
from being at a school
where he's where he can cope better.
- As a teenager,
Suzi spent her holidays
on her fathers estate in Scotland.
What sort of things do you do?
- Ride, swim, play tennis, ping pong.
I might play croquet, things like that.
- What about the
social life, whats that?
- What in Perthshire?
- Yes.
- Mm, quite fun.
I came to London when I
left school after Paris
and at the moment I could
never live in the country.
I'm happy down here I mean
the country's nice for 4 days
to go for long healthy walks but I mean
I could never live up there now.
- This is a wonderful atmosphere
to bring up children.
Do you think in some way it might be
too secluded and safe for them?
- It could be.
That's something that
slightly frightens me
that it is it's a very cosseted
life that they have here
and they've got to hit
the world at some point.
I just hope that I can
help them cope with it.
It is the most carefree time of your life.
I'm not saying it is for all children.
Well any child going through
their parents splitting up
aged 14 you're at a very
vulnerable age and it does cut
you up but you know, you get over it.
There's no point them
staying together for me
because it was worse I
mean the rows, it's worse.
If two people can't live together
there's no point making yourself.
I hope by Rupert and I giving
them a close family unit
that they'll keep their
heads and won't feel
that they're slightly lost like I did.
Where I wasted time was
in my middle late teens
and I think at that stage I didn't care.
I just let those years
go really, I drifted
and it's too late now to look back.
When I leave school
I'm down for Heathfield
and Southover Manor and
then maybe I may want
to go to a University but
I don't know which one yet.
I'd like to do maybe shorthand typing
or something like that.
I left school when I was 16, went to Paris
went to secretarial college and got a job.
- What made you decide
to leave school and go to Paris?
- I just wasn't interested in school
and just wanted to get away.
- I was a partner in
a quite a big law firm
and I resigned from that
set up my own company.
I tend to specialise in
refurbishing old buildings
and converting them into offices.
- Well if Rupert's
still got his property company
in this present economic
climate, I'd like to get
more involved with that.
It was a very difficult time when Rupert
was deciding to leave.
He's got a lot of responsibilities
with all of us and it's not easy
just starting off on your own.
- Do you ever
worry that the roof might
fall in and you'll be
out of this and whatever?
- Yes, it crosses my mind.
Last year, it's quite,
it's crossed my mind
quite hard that we might,
you know we could lose this
if things don't pick up.
- When she was 28
Suzy's father had just died.
- It's very hard to describe to somebody
how you just take the loss.
It is terribly hard, even
now I still can't believe
my fathers not here.
It's still sinking in I think.
The death of one of your
close family is probably
something you don't ever get over
and it's a different kind of
problem than anything else.
- Tell me about your mum.
- She was diagnosed before
Christmas as having lung cancer
but she's strong, she's tough
and hopefully she'll pull her way of it.
She's just had a horrendous
operation, she's still in
hospital now in a lot of pain.
You see someone in pain like
that it's especially someone that you love
and care for, it's it's very hard.
Somehow I think when
you're faced with it you
just find inner strength.
I think you think
beforehand something awful
you can't cope with it but
somehow when it's there
you just get on.
Someone somehow gives you
inner strength to cope with it.
- What do you think
about making this programme?
- I just think it's ridiculous,
I don't see any point in doing it.
The first year or two after 28 UP came out
you know I'd meet people,
or people in shops
would ask me whether I was the
girl that did the programme
and that's quite hard
because it's churning up
all happy memories, sad memories,
and it all comes flooding back, parts
that I'd rather forget and it's all
there for people to see.
Although most people are
quite nice about it you get
the odd one who's fairly
rude and I just think they're
lucky then they didn't have
to have it done to them.
I've had a very privileged
life compared to some people.
I've never really had to
struggle to make my way
but I don't think I've taken for granted
what I've had either.
This may sound very arrogant
but you can't if I let it
worry me I mean I'd worry
myself to death, I can't
change what I was born into.
- Well, going to Africa
and try and teach people
who are not civilised
to be more or less good.
No I don't want to be a missionary
because I just can't talk
about it to people.
I am interested in it myself
but I wouldn't be very good at it at all.
- So is this your
missionary dream come true?
- Well not exactly, I'm
a teacher now in London
and I've had the opportunity
to come here for a term
and it just so happens the
school I am in has great links
with this part of the world
and you know I've come here
to find out about the
background of many of the boys
that I teach back in London.
- At 35 Bruce
is working in Sylhet,
a town in the north east
corner of Bangladesh.
- Well I'm earning my
keep by teaching maths
and helping the teachers here,
helping them design courses of study.
I'm also teaching them English,
they've all got quite good
English but practising
and improving their English
and then I've also got the
chance to learn a bit of Bangla
which is very difficult and
I'm not doing very well at all.
- Bangladesh,
Bangladesh, Bangladesh.
- Bangladesh.
- Bangladesh.
- Bangladesh.
- Mango.
- Mango.
- Ahm.
- Ahm.
- Vasto, Vastos, vastat,
vastons, vastones, vastat.
- Yeah speak up.
- At 7 Bruce
was at a pre-preparatory
boarding school, at 14 St
Paul's school in London.
- They don't sort of
enforce being upper class
and things like that at St Paul's.
They suggest that you don't have long hair
and they do get it cut if.
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 two.
- Good, that's a nice way of
doing it, particularly using
Einstein down here.
His test is very powerful.
- I won't carry on with mathematics,
I don't think I'll be a teacher.
Chris Soarabe.
- Yes sir.
- At 28 he was teaching,
immigrant children in East London.
- And to here, 25.
Now it cost you 24, now
you're not going to.
- It's so different
from your own education
where you're teaching now, why?
- General education is
better for society I think.
Public schools are divisive,
that's with no statement
about my education.
My education was academically excellent
and I was very grateful for it.
I think there is a class society
and I think public schools
may help its continuance.
- At 35 in Sylhet
he is teaching the older students.
- I see education as
a key to it all I mean once
your population becomes
educated it can think for itself
a lot more and create wealth
and create opportunities.
Good, because you've
got to get an x squared.
Now when we come to the village we're
definitely going to go swimming.
- What do you like about Sylhet?
- Well I think mainly the
people and their hospitality.
A couple of weeks ago I
went on a visit to a family
with a teacher from this school.
They lived in a one room
flat but we were immediately
invited in and we sat
around having food with them
and that's what hospitality means.
If I was back in England and I turned up
say at a friends an hour before
lunch with three people
they'd never met they'd say
well lets go down the pub or something.
I didn't agree with the Conservatives
about what they were doing
with the black people,
you know, racial policy.
Everybody has the capacity
to be racist wherever
you are in the world.
I think it's a natural
human condition to be afraid
of something that's slightly
different to you I think
that that's the basis of it.
I mean I know academically it's defined
as prejudice plus power.
When you've got the power to do something
about it you can turn it
into something very damaging
to the person who's receiving it.
I think if you recognise that
as an emotional condition
maybe you can use your
intellect to check yourself.
- Has a country
like this got any future?
- I think it needs an awful lot of help.
The amount of general
poverty I think is growing.
You see so many children
working I mean it used to be
a rich area 200 years ago
and more people would call it
the Pearl of the Bay of Bengal.
People wondered at it
and it's not that now
and that's not unconnected
with the British rule here.
Basically we don't care
that many countries
are incredibly poor, we
simply don't care I mean we do
raise money for charity and
so on, which is excellent,
but it's simply not good
enough at the end of the day.
Well my girlfriend is in
Africa and 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.
- What happened
when you burnt your fingers?
- Erm, I'd rather not talk about it.
Well no, I don't really mean
that I mean I don't mean
that I don't want to talk about it just
that I'd need quite a long
time to think about it.
I think I'd very much
like to become involved
in a family life.
My own family for a start.
It'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 suppose
that would've been something
which I hoped would happen,
you know I suppose lots of reasons really,
I don't suppose I've met the right person.
Well about 10 minutes.
I mean you just read out an article.
I'm still a bit shy and
awkward, still have a bit
of growing up to do sometimes,
I think I'm a little
bit immature sometimes.
I can have quite sort
of teenage like crushes
on people and I can see
myself falling into it
and know exactly whats
happening but sort of unable
to do anything about it.
I've had affairs, sometimes they've ended
quite naturally with
goodwill on both sides.
Maybe I just haven't met the right person.
- Well you're getting
on a bit aren't you worried?
- Well not particularly,
I'm always optimistic.
Who knows who I might
meet tomorrow but I think
that's the trouble with reserve.
You're not rejected but you
never know what might have been.
But I'm getting better
you know, year by year.
I think we all grow up.
- What are the qualities
in a woman that you look for?
- Well, somebody I get on with
I suppose not particularly
attractive or whatever,
I don't want this to turn
into a sort of a dating agency video.
My hearts desire is to see my
Daddy who is 6,000 miles away.
He died about three years ago.
He was 72 I mean we did
drift apart because he
was in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe
as it now is, he did come back to England
and retire and I did used to
go up to Yorkshire and see him.
Not as often as I should've
done, I mean I'm sure
he had a fond feeling
for me and I'd have liked
to have returned that in some way.
- Do you miss him?
- Well I'd like to have
been able to miss him,
I'd like to have got closer
to be able to miss him.
I regret that chance of not
getting closer at that time.
You always need people
to care for you because
if you disappoint yourself by acting badly
in a particular way you
tend most to hurt the people
who love you and where would we be without
having people to love you.
- At 28 Bruce was
living in a council flat
in East London, he's now
in primitive lodgings
in the middle of Sylhet.
- Is money important to you?
- Well not really, I
have enough to live on.
I don't know whether
teachers deserve more money.
My gripe's has never been
about money, it's always been
about horrid conditions of work.
I find it horrible that people
care so much about money.
There are many more finer
things in life than that.
You know, people who bought the shares
in the privatisation issues
just to make quick money.
I just thought well, what
are you about in life?
Is that it?
You know, I didn't want any part in that.
- This film
is about opportunity,
do you think you've made the
most of your opportunities?
- My opportunity was to do what I wanted
and what I found fulfilling.
And I had a great variety
because of my background, yes.
I've made the most of my opportunity
because I've found something to do
that I find rewarding and
that was my opportunity.
I see education as being
very important you know,
which is why I'm distressed by something
which I see in Bangladesh,
the young kids working
so hard they need to bring
the money in for their family.
I'd say education is a
right, the more they learn,
the more choices they have in life.
Life should be a rich experience.
- If we did all love
Geoffrey and we all wanted
to marry him I think I
know the one that he'd
like the best and that's her.
- Plenty of boyfriends but not one.
- Yeah, not one in particular.
Friends with plenty of boys you know.
- We had a teacher at school,
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.
- Women are expanding into
so many different areas now
that it must be getting
easier, I mean I could still
be working now and have
a family if I wanted to.
The number of people in
my situation, single,
not single parents as such but divorced
single parents is unbelievable.
And the people of my mum's generation,
it's still rare, very rare.
- If my mum was to contemplate
leaving my dad was far,
I mean I don't even know
what she would've done.
Because she never dreamed of
working until the youngest one
went to school so I
couldn't I couldn't imagine
where she would've gone
or what she would've done.
- We haven't got that problem.
If a relationship is not working then
it's acceptable in society to bail out.
- Well I know he is hers and he loves her.
- I don't I love him.
- I don't think I'd get married too early,
I'd like to have a full
life first and meet people
before you commit yourself to a family.
- Sue was 24
when she married Billy,
they had two children,
William and Katherine.
- 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.
Go on then, you go first, turn it over
and put it back in the same place.
Just after we made the
last one I had Katherine
and then she was about a
year and the marriage started
to sort of dissolve around
us really and we decided
to go our separate ways.
I've never sat down
and thought what was it,
was it this was it that.
I just knew it wasn't
working and the discussion
really was the best way of
splitting up rather than
why are we splitting up?
It was really strange, I
think it seemed so obvious
to both of us that it was probably easier
to do than it should've been.
I have a regular one night
a week when I can go out.
It just happens to be that in
this particular circle most
of them are separated or divorced.
You have common problems
so sometimes it's easier
because you recognise each
others problems with babysitters.
You know it's not always possible
to drop everything and go out.
I think that women want
more out of life now,
that is basically why they won't put up
with a less than happy marriage.
- Are you ready
for a long term relationship?
- I don't think you're ever ready
for a long term relationship
either it happens to you
or it doesn't really.
I certainly wouldn't kick one
in the teeth if it crept
up on me, yeah, why not?
- Did you meet enough men
before you decided who to marry?
- I've been married a year
and a couple of months.
And you do think Christ what have I done?
- See I still got my kids.
- And I'm being honest about it.
And Russ thinks the same.
At times you think
Christ what have I done?
- Lynn married Russ at 19,
he works for the Post Office.
They have two daughters, Sarah and Emma.
- I'm very much geared to the
family unit, I mean us all.
We do things together all the time.
I mean there are times
when Russ and I obviously
we like to leave it all behind
and go out just the two of us.
Now as the girls are
getting older we've actually
started taking them with us.
I'll say, oh we haven't done very much
but when you look back we have.
It might only just be playing
games or going swimming
or going for a walk
we're doing it together.
- If you think that getting married
as far as we're concerned
is a case of going to work, coming home,
cook tea for hubby,
going to bed, getting up,
going to work you're totally mistaken.
- Jackie married
Mick when she was 19.
- I'm not sure I would recommend it.
I think if but again you're generalising,
I would say on average
19 is probably too young.
We decided ourselves, I mean
just between the two of us,
we knew it wasn't going
any further we both knew
I think at the end of the
day we would be happier
leading our own lives.
Whether that involved other
people, you know was to be seen.
But no, you've got to bear
in mind we had no children
to worry about so really the only people
that were getting hurt by us was us.
- If I could have 2 girls and 2 boys.
- And what about you Jackie?
- My mom, cause she got five girls she has
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 it's not possible
to be happy all the time
but as much of the time that was possible.
Go through there, that's
the nursery, hah hah.
- Got any plans?
- Do me a favour?
- At 21 Jackie
had moved into a new house.
By the time she was 28 she had
decided not to have children.
- Basically I would say
because I'm far too selfish
and 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.
That's not to say that's
a forever decision.
This one on, here we go, oh yeah, yes.
I had a brief but very sweet relationship,
the result of which was Charlie.
Cor blimey, Charlie, you're
supposed to clean your teeth,
not eating the brush.
It's the best thing that
could've happened to me
and I would never have believed I could've
enjoyed a child as much as I enjoy him.
I actually sat down and sort of thought
about should I have him or not.
I thought about what I was
going to do if I did have him.
How I was going to keep him.
But it comes back to the
same old story, the family.
My fathers only comment to
me was it is your decision,
you tell me what you want to do
and then we'll take it from there.
And they've totally rallied around me.
Anybody that wanted to know
just got told I was pregnant
I wasn't with the father, end of story.
People that know me know the full story
and that's all that matters to me.
And Charlie will know when he gets older.
- When I got married
the primary reason was
because I wanted to have a child,
the two to me went together.
- Why did you have a child out
of a marriage that wasn't working?
- Because I wanted
to have more than one child
and it was a thing about
being an only child myself.
I was always jealous of other
children that had brothers
and sisters when I was
growing up and I didn't want
to have more than one child
with two different fathers.
I think that brother and
sister should have the
same mother and the same
father, that is my ideal.
I would hate to think it
was tough on the kids.
William used to say why isn't
daddy living here any more
and I would say to him,
well you know how you
and Katherine argue and
get on each others nerves,
well that's how daddy
and I are we just find
that we're happier if were
not living in the same house.
- I'm going to work in Woolworths.
- At 21 Lynn was
working in a mobile library
in Tower Hamlets in East London.
- 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.
The last 10 years of
government have actually
in my opinion brought this country
much much further downhill.
We have lost an awful lot of
our National Health Service,
an awful lot of our education system.
I'm actually on the
governing body of two schools
and I want the best for those kids
that the system can provide.
And if the systems not good enough,
then we better the system.
What would you do if
you had lots of money,
about two pounds?
- I would buy myself a house a new house,
you know, one that's all nice and comfy.
- Do you get
depressed by money problems?
- No, why, why should you?
If you can manage on what you've got.
- It's easy to get
depressed over money.
- It's so easy to but why should you?
- When we've reached the
18th day of the month
and my mortgage is due on the 20th
and there's nowhere near
enough money in there
I get depressed about it obviously.
What money?
- It was hard first of
all when I gave up work
from having a fairly high
salary to nothing was hard but
you get used to whatever
your circumstances are,
you live in them, you get used to them
and you cope, everybody does.
- Sue now works
part-time for a Building Society.
- Everything's
changed for me cause I'm now
supporting myself a lot
more than I was a year ago.
- How did you feel
about living off Social Security?
- I hated it, really hated it.
Perhaps it's old fashioned values, I mean,
Mom and Dad have certainly
never been in that situation
but then my mom and dad have
never been single parents
either so you have to do what's
best for you and the children.
- Thanks very much.
- Bye.
- Bye.
- I took a year off when I had Charlie
and the state kept me for that year
but I went back to work and although
to be honest at the time I
pay everything out I'm not
that much better off but I feel better.
You take it from there,
can I get through this week
or can I get through this month?
Can I get Charlie the things he needs?
Somewhere along the line
you get the money you need
for whatever you need and as
it goes at the moment we're
working and were trying to keep
our families as best we can.
♪If I said that I love you. ♪
- Why is it that you three
haven't changed so much do you think?
- Perhaps we haven't grown up.
- We've all had a stable background
with stable relationships
all the way through.
- The same people are there
now that were there then.
- She initially went into hospital
for an exploratory operation,
they found out she had
cancer although at that stage
we didn't know how bad it was.
She was ill at the time,
they started chemotherapy
and radiation treatment
and she was just so bad.
Mom badly wanted to
come back to the family
and the family needed her here.
She then spent nine months of hell
I wouldn't have wished on anybody.
- She sat down on the settee
and she died, just like that.
And we were up in Norfolk
with my in-laws at the time.
And so all we got was
a phone call from Dad
to say that mom had died.
- And how did you deal with it?
- I'm still dealing with it now.
But then although she's
not with us in body
she's still with us in spirit.
She was a great friend
to me as well as a mom,
probably the best friend I'll ever have.
And as you see it still makes me
very emotional now, it's only 2 years.
To some it's probably
seems oh it's a long time
but it's not very long.
- The poor, if you don't help them
they probably die soon wouldn't they.
- 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.
We only had a limited choice
any way, truth be told.
We didn't have the choice of education
because they couldn't have
afforded it anyway so we
just went to the school we wanted to go to
and we made the best of
it when we were there.
That is something perhaps
when it comes to our children
that we would say why not go further?
- All I am interested in
and probably the same as
the other two is what is good for me,
what is good for my son and that's it.
I don't sit there envying maybe
what Suzi could do for her
children that I can't do for mine.
Yes, I'd love the money to
be able to put him all round
the world, I'd love to be able to do that
but I haven't got it.
And at the end of the day
I'm going to do what I can.
At this precise moment
in time is probably one
of the best times of my life.
Come here, come and put your top on.
I think probably because I've got Charlie,
he's totally transformed
my life a lot of the times
I obviously pull my hair out
but certainly for the better.
So yes, I'm a lot happier within myself.
People around me have noticed that.
So it's a good time for me.
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 them,
just one would do actually.
I think Charlie would like that as well.
I think Charlie would love it.
- A year ago Lynn
started having black outs,
she took medical advice.
- They stuck all these tubes up inside me
and discovered that I'd
got these veins here
that shouldn't be there.
- In your brain?
- Mm-hmm.
- And what can they do about it?
- Not a lot at the moment.
They're investigating other...
treatments but the surgeon
said that he doesn't want
to operate at the moment
because the risk it's
too near the optic nerve
and there's an 80% chance
of hitting the optic nerve.
- So is it frightening to know
that you have this condition?
- It was for about
a week but it got itself
into its own place within
my system where sort of
amongst my rungs of priorities
and I overcame the fear of it,
now it doesn't worry me at all.
- We've all got
little secret dreams.
I mean I loved drama at
school, I loved to sing,
along with millions of others,
so I would like to have
carried that further.
It was discussed at one
stage, you know going
to drama school and
pursuing it but I really
at the time didn't have the bottle.
Didn't want to give up work
and income as a young person.
I was quite enjoying myself.
Didn't want to risk all
that to follow the dream.
- So are these good times Sue?
- Not particularly no.
I've got two lovely children now
but it's just another
crossroads for me now.
I don't know which way I'm going to go,
whats going to happen.
I'm on my own basically,
I'm starting again.
- Are you changing?
- I'm just growing up.
I don't think you ever stop
growing up the circumstances
are changing so I'm just adapting.
- When I grow up I'd like to find out all
about the moon and all that.
- At 7 Nick
a farmers son was at a
one room village school
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 going to a Yorkshire
boarding school and at 21 was
reading physics at Oxford.
So what career are you going to pursue?
- It depends whether
I'll be good enough to do
what I really want to do.
I would like if I can to do research.
The gap in these
experiments is a temperature
comparable with that of the sun whereas
in a power reactor it
would be maybe 10 times
the temperature of the sun.
- At 28 he had moved to America
and was doing nuclear research
at the University of Wisconsin.
So how's it going Rich,
tell me about the current drive.
Ok so your all looking
at this thing expectantly
so maybe I'd better
say something about it.
The first one is basically
saying that the rate of change
of crystal momentum, it's
DDT at this quantity H bar K.
That is equal to Laurent's Force.
- He is now an associate
professor at the University.
Is Madison a friendly place?
- Yes very friendly.
It's a fairly small little
community and you get deer
and things running through
here so it's kinda nice.
You know you notice if
you walk into a shop here
or a store as they would call it,
people are much more polite to
you than they are in England.
And it's not in a it's not just a matter
of being obsequious, they just try
and be reasonably
friendly and smile at you.
- 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 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?
Yeah I thought so.
The best answer would be to say
that I don't answer questions like that
but you know it's what
I said when I was seven
and it's still the most sensible
but I mean, what about them.
- Nick was only 17 when I first met him
and I knew he was a nice person.
I find him very attractive
and he used his intelligence
in his relationship with
me which is very important.
- She felt that she wasn't
portrayed at all like she is
and that she felt foolish
as a result of it all.
She was really taken by
surprise by how she came over
and she really wasn't sure
why she came over that way
but she was very unhappy
with everybody involved
and so didn't want to be
in that position again.
- Is she difficult?
- At times yes.
Whenever we have an argument
she does have a tendency
to explode I suppose to get,
no to get really miserable.
- We've only been married 4
years, anything could happen,
we could easily drift apart,
there are so many pressures
on people you just.
- People saw the last film
and thought this marriage
isn't going to work,
this marriage isn't going to last,
did you get that response?
- Well, it's actually such a mystery to me
what they thought they were talking about
that I really just don't
relate to it at all.
I have no, I just don't
why they said that,
I mean the sorts of things
you were seeing was us trying
to be very honest about it.
That may have been the place
in 28 where we probably
were working hardest
about really describing what
things were like instead of
I was just saying I
sometimes just am very dull
and neutral and show too much of myself.
Well in that I think we were
just trying to be really
upfront and say this is what
it's like and we're working
very hard at it and
hopefully it'll work out.
If that sounds to somebody
like it's in jeopardy
well that's their problem.
- The big issue
for us at the moment
is how were going to manage to
have kids and run 2 careers.
- In those early formative years
would you be happy
for your children to
be brought up by Jackie
and Jackie not to be able to
give them the full attention?
- Well it's not I mean that's putting it
in a rather strange way,
- That's him, he's bringing
them up too you know.
- I mean this is an area,
- It's not just me.
- I pay lip service to the
idea of equal shares on this
and it remains to be seen whether I would
actually live up to my intentions.
- There are several things
I think to be said here,
I don't want to be the
person to be left behind
while Nick flies in and
shares an adult life
with his children at college and working.
I want to be there too.
- Nick and Jackie
now have a 1 year old son Adam.
- On the subject of
Adam, I enjoy doing this
for the most part but I don't
want the sins of the father
to be visited on the son in
this case so we've sort of
decided that we want
to keep him out of this
to some extent, well to some extent
essentially all together.
When I grow up I'd like to find out all
about the moon and all that.
- Where did you
get all this brain power?
- All this brain power, I don't know.
This is one that we were quite proud of,
glow discharges between
a couple of metal plates
where there's an ionised gas in between.
I suppose I'm very
ambitious in terms of trying
to get my research to go forward.
I'm also trying to train students so that
they can actually acquire
some useful skills
and can go out and just be
really useful contributors
themselves and push back the frontiers of
what we're capable of doing.
They'd like to come out for a holiday
in the country when we'd like,
when I'd like to have
a holiday in the town.
I've been to Leeds a couple of times
and haven't been to Manchester.
I went to London with the other programme,
when you did the first programme,
but that's the only time I've been.
In my position I don't feel
that I'm letting England
down because I don't think
that England particularly
wanted me there doing what I was doing.
So how can I feel that
I'm betraying a country
when it doesn't want me to do
what it's trained me to do?
- Do you get lonely here?
- You just tend to get stuck
into your everyday routine
and you don't think about
it but when you call home
then you realise how far
away you are and now it seems
acute because both our families are
getting older even if you think in terms
of seeing them once every two years.
- That's not so many times.
- You're thinking only about 10 times
and that's awful when
you think in those terms
you realise you really are in exile.
- Do you miss England?
- An awful lot yeah.
My parents managed to get
over here a couple of times
in the last two years and
Andrew my middle brother
was here about two years ago so that's
pretty good going in way
that they got over here.
Christopher is the brother
who is deaf as you know
and his language skills are getting better
but be certainly didn't get a flying start
from the education system
that he went through
so you know he really is
still getting to the point
where you know, he can't hear essentially
at all so you can't
really have a conversation
with him on the phone.
He'll get on the phone and tell you
a bunch of stuff and you can understand
most of it so that's really nice.
- Is it painful for you?
- Well the thing that was
emotional to think back on
was the situation when he
was probably a year old
and it was really becoming
clear to everybody
that despite the fact that his doctor
has originally insisted no he wasn't deaf
that it became pretty clear that he was.
And you know at the time
I just desperately was
hoping it wouldn't be
true, that somehow some
sort of miracle would
happen and he would turn out
not to be, so but then I told
myself well if he weren't then
he wouldn't be the same
person and it would be wishing
that the person didn't exist so
that wasn't the appropriate
way to think about it.
- Do you think
you can build a life here?
- Well you know, one is trying to
but 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.
It really does, I mean you
have to fend for yourself,
you keep thinking for yourself,
you're really being called on
to show pioneer spirit every
now and again it seems.
It don't have this urge that you
sometimes hear people
saying that I want my child
to have all the things that I didn't.
I don't look back and
think I was deprived.
There were things that
I had in a certain sense
as a child which were not material things
that I had but situations
I was in and experiences
that most children
wouldn't have growing up
on a farm and actually working on a farm
and being in a situation of being told,
clean out that calf
shed really has made me
very determined to get things done
and not give up half
way through something.
It develops a streak of
stubbornness that can be useful now.
The trouble with me is that
I tend to take the streak of
stubbornness too far I have
to try and mellow out a bit.
- Have you
travelled a long way since
that seven year old in
his big muddy boots?
- I suppose an awful long way yes.
I mean I'm sure there's
lot of the same personality
that was in there is still here.
Still easily embarrassed and confused.
I mean I think that you
can see the saying give
the boy until he is seven,
I'm quite prepared to accept
there's a lot in that.
If you could look at me at
seven and see through the
sort of superficial things
and the silly things
I was saying you could see
what made the child tick,
there was probably an awful lot in
there that's here now yes.
- 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 them, about it.
- What's the point of the programme?
- The point of the programme
is to reach a comparison.
I don't think it is.
We're not necessarily typical examples.
- And I think that's what people seeing
the programme might think, falsely.
- Yes, they tend to typecast us.
- So everything we say they'll think oh
that's a typical result of
the public school system.
- It's certainly true
that more people know
they have more options
or imagine they have.
I think in practical terms the difference
in numerical number of
options isn't that great.
- But the mere knowledge
creates an option in itself
so I think we do have more options
and it is undesirable but it's
very difficult to correct.
- I don't think it is
undesirable at all I think
whats undesirable is
people who have had options
don't take best advantage of them.
When I leave this school
I'm going to Collet 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 in Trinity Hall.
- John went
to Westminster School
and read Law at Christchurch Oxford.
- I do believe parents
have a right to educate
their children as they think fit.
And I think someone who works
on the assembly line in
some of these car factories
earning huge wage could
well afford to send
their children to private
schools if they wanted to.
- At 21 we asked him
what career he would pursue.
- Might be at the Bar.
- Doing what?
Perhaps Chancery practise?
I now have a career, I'm a barrister,
other than that life chugs
along in varying degrees.
- John entered
the Chancery division
of the High Court and
specialises in company law.
- How wonderful, have you told Alexandra.
- When I leave school I'm going to
The Dragons School I might and mummy's
and I might go to after I
might go to Charterhouse,
Marlborough and I can't
remember the other places
because mummy's got so many
but there's some of them.
- What about university Charles?
- I might go to Oxford.
- Charles went to Marlborough
but he didn't go to Oxford.
Instead he went to Durham University.
- I'm pleased I didn't
because it's very much
a sort of set from Marlborough.
Prep school, Marlborough,
Oxbridge conveyor belt.
Shoved out at the end.
- And what
did Charles want to do?
- Hard to say, probably
scribbling away in some basement
for some London newspaper or something.
- Charles did
scribble away for an
East London newspaper and
then moved onto the BBC
where he is now a producer.
He married last year.
He prefers not to be on television.
- I'm 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
in a large London firm.
What qualities do you think
it needs to be successful?
- Well you have to have a
legal ability in my business
obviously and you have to
have a sort of bedside manner
as far as your clients are concerned.
It's no good being brilliant if you can't
communicate with your clients.
- At 35 he had become a partner
in the same company.
- Well I work in the corporate
department of a large firm
of solicitors in the city
that is dealing with things
like mergers and
acquisitions, joint ventures,
general corporate advice,
putting deals together for clients.
- What do you think
about girl friends at your age?
- I've got one but I
don't think much of her.
- I don't think I financially
come from the same background,
Andrew didn't go for a haughty deb,
he went for a good Yorkshire lass
but I mean obviously
he knew what he wanted.
- At 28 Andrew had married Jane.
- I suppose the most important
thing that's happened is
that we've had two children
one five years ago,
Alexandra and then a couple
of years later Timothy.
We've also moved out from
central London over to Wimbledon.
We decided we should
look somewhere there was
a bit of green space so we moved out here.
- What was the biggest surprise
about having children?
- That our ideas of
bringing them up may be not
necessarily coincide with each others.
- When I see the
children playing together now
I realise how much fun they have together
and it's probably what I
missed being an only child.
- When boys go around
with girls they don't
pay attention to what they're doing.
Yes my grandmother had an accident because
a boyfriend was kissing his
girlfriend in the street.
The most important thing is
that I've gotten married.
- He married
Claire, the daughter
of a former Ambassador to Bulgaria.
- Recently I think this
charity Friends of Bulgaria
is something that's very
important in my life.
I became involved in all this
to channel aid to Bulgaria.
It is a great pleasure
to welcome you all here
tonight on behalf of Friends of Bulgaria.
My mother in fact is from Bulgaria,
and that explains why for me Bulgaria
is an especially important place.
We decided for our inaugural
event it would be a good idea
to have a concert and as
I'm a barrister I'd hoped
I'd be able to get access
to one of the halls
of the Inns of Court because
they are very magnificent buildings.
- It is coincidental that
we met but its obvious
that the Balkan connection
was a strong mutual interest.
- I think it's not a bad
idea to pay for schools
because if we didn't schools
would be so nasty and crowded.
- So do I think so.
And the people in the schools wouldn't.
- And the poor people
would coming rushing in.
- And the man in charge of the
school would get very angry
because he wouldn't be able to
- And he'd get bankrupt.
- pay all the masters if
he didn't have any money.
- At 7 the boys
are singing Waltzing Matilda
in Latin at their exclusive
private school in London.
- An 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're given
them a good education
that's something that
no one can take away.
The important issue is
drawing the distinction
between allowing people to
spend the money they earn,
in other words low taxes,
and also putting enough money
into the infrastructure,
things like education,
health service, transport system.
And that's a very
difficult balance to draw
and I'm not sure that were doing
the right thing at the moment.
I think more should be being put into that
and I think people would be
prepared to pay higher taxes
to pay for that sort of thing.
- Yeah just a bit late there.
- All this talk about
opportunities, something I did
slightly object to in the programme,
we were all shown at the
age of seven outlining
the academic sort of
career that most of us did
in fact pursue but it didn't
show the sleepless nights,
the sort of pouring over our books.
All the sweat and toil
that got us to University.
It was presented as if it were part
of some indestructible birth right
that we went to all these places
and I thought that was unfair.
It didn't show having to do
beastly jobs in the holidays.
If I had a son I would like to send him
to Westminster where I went.
Where I suspect the public schools
or the major public schools
win over the state schools is
in the quality of the
staff that they attract.
I mean certainly at my school the teachers
were absolutely first
rate but on the other hand
we had very little in
the way of facilities
and computers and language laboratories
that are taken for granted
in many state schools.
And I think when people
talk about more resources
they often mean more money
being spent on these things
which in a sense are
inessentials, and less money
is being spent on what really matters
which is the quality of the teachers.
- The rich children always make fun
of poor children I think.
- 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.
On the other hand it would be hypocritical
to pretend that a lot of
the things that I take
for granted and my lifestyle
is dependent on having
a fair amount of money but I can't say
that the acquisition of more money is one
of my main aims in life.
We now have a house in
the country which takes up
a lot of our time and
energies and 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 10
years ago you'd have told me
that I'd spend most of my time
digging herbaceous borders
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've
taken up playing the piano.
I've always had a piano
in London but with work
I never had time to practise
and now we've got room
to house a piano in the
country and I find I am now
practising quite a lot and
beginning to get it back a bit.
- Certainly I can never
tell the difference
between you playing and the CD playing
when I'm out of the
room, you're very good.
- Well she's very diplomatic.
- Does money concern you a lot?
- I think as long as one
has enough to be comfortable
that's really what one should aim for.
We took the children skiing
for the first time last year,
at least Alexander, and
he really enjoyed it.
- Is the family
unit the most important thing
in your lives, more than
your own ambition or?
- I'm not sure that I
have any ambition as such now
I mean just to progress
with my work and so on.
- I think ambition probably changes once
you've got children, your
outlook on life is no longer
the same as it was before.
And you can still have
ambitions and the fact
you want to be successful in your work
but the end result is
that if you're successful
in your work then you can enjoy
your success with your children.
And hopefully with your wife as well.
- I think the more you have
out of the country the more
privileges you're born with
the greater your duty is.
I still feel as I did when
I was 21 that it's important
for people who have had advantages to try
and put as much back and to
help others less fortunate
than themselves if they can.
In England as we all know
there is a perpetual debate
about the National Health
Service being starved
of resources but 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.
What were doing round
delivering drugs firstly
that we've managed to purchase with monies
so far raised by our appeal
and also at the same time,
trying to find out what it
is that they really need
so that we can be sure we're
getting the right things
through to the right destinations.
We've been told that in
some places its impossible
to do even operations,
albeit that they have
the operating theatres and
they have excellent doctors,
for want of simple anaesthetics.
In other places, for instance,
the children's home at,
they're even lacking
such simple things as soap and detergent.
These are things that
we can supply in England
very painlessly and yet here they really
make a lot of difference.
- The Bulgaria that I
have known coming back
with John has been a
much more varied country
and it has been very enriching to travel
around the country with John and to have
the extra dimension of
John having investigated
to a great degree his family tree down
through many generations
and many centuries.
- My great great grandfather who was the
first prime minister of
Bulgaria when the country
was liberated from the Turks in 1879.
Well I think everyone
needs to have a feeling
that they belong somewhere.
There's a plot of land
or somewhere they hail
from and their roots are.
Within the last month a new
agricultural law has been
passed returning land to
its former proprietors.
We think that some part at
any rate of this property
will become back to us and I for one
am very excited at that prospect.
It belonged to my
grandfather, his brother.
And they farmed it in the whole estate
and partnership with my great grandfather.
Looking at it with a professional eye,
I've dealt with worse than
this in North Hampton.
I don't think there's anything
that couldn't be sorted
out given six months or so.
And a couple house guests to stay.
- Do you think you
and Claire could live here?
- Ask me that in 7 years time.
I don't think much of their accents.
- Neither do I.
- What's been
the effect of being
in these films on you?
- I don't think really there
has been any effect really.
From time to time I meet
someone who I've never met
before who says I think
I've seen you somewhere
before haven't I and I say perhaps.
I try not to talk about it.
- You've got three minuses in a day.
I must say I mainly laugh
when I see myself at seven.
Obviously I said some shocking
but extremely funny things in retrospect.
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
because every seven years
a little pill of poison is injected.
- Well no.
- Well it's the truth, I dislike intensely
being on television, I
refused to do this programme
last time round and I'm
only doing it this time
because I see this as an opportunity
to draw the attention of
viewers in this country
to the awful problems
in Bulgaria in the hope
that they may wish to do something
to help the situation there.
- I don't like big boys hitting us
and the prefects sending
us out for nothing.
I know I prefer to be alone really.
I find it hard to express
emotion most of the time
although I'm getting on
top of that more now.
Just the simple things
to say to sort of Susan,
you know I love you something like that,
I mean I can tell you about it
but I really haven't been able to say it
freely to Sue you know.
- What was 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.
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
that when we have an argument
he says that's it, leave me.
And I say fine, all right I will one day.
But that's it you know after all
these years of marriage,
we've been married for
what 13 years now or something
and he still say you're leaving me.
Well one day I might
just pack my bags and go.
- At seven, Paul was at a
children's home in London.
Were you happy at the
children's home in England?
- We didn't mind that
really cause we didn't know
what was going on cause
we were a bit young.
My mother and father got,
well they separated originally
I think they eventually got divorced,
I went to the Boarding school for one year
and we emigrated to Australia.
My father got remarried.
- How do you get
on with your step mother?
- Pretty well but like I said
before I'm just not close,
I'm not really close to my father either.
- Do you have
any regrets about the fact
that you weren't closer to
him when you were younger?
- Yes I suppose, I
mean it's all wasted time
in a way I suppose.
He was always there, I could always talk
to him but it was different.
- A lot of people that
go out to Australia,
these English people,
they go out without family
you know and all of a
sudden Paul's come here
and he's got all this family
he sort of half knew existed.
- So Paul brought
Sue and his two children
Katy and Robert to visit the
family for the first time.
Do you think about England
much when you're in Australia?
- Only when the crickets on.
- I mean I'm in awe of everything I see
because I've always
wanted to come to London,
I always thought it would
be great thing to do.
And all of a sudden I'm here
and I'm having a great time
and Paul and the kids are just,
I'm just dragging them along
behind like come on we're off.
But no, it'd be really interesting
because I'd had lots of family.
And I know I love this sort
of stuff, bit of a showpony.
- When the crunch came
and we were coming over here
I didn't want to do it.
It's just something in me
that holds me back I just it's shyness
or something I'm not sure.
I'm not really good at
meeting new people I guess.
- Is there
any way you would want
to be a father any
differently from the way
your father was to you?
- I'd like there to be more contact
close actual physical contact close.
My dad and I are exactly the same like
that we you know if we hug it's unusual.
- When we had Katy when
she was born Paul said
to me oh I'm glad I've got a daughter.
He said when I'm an old man at least
she'll be able to come up
and give me a kiss and a cuddle.
- Would you
like to get married Paul?
- No.
- Tell me why not.
- I don't want like them
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,
and say she said you have
to eat what you give.
So, I don't like greens say she gives me
greens and that's it.
- Divorce was something new to me.
I figured what Paul's been through,
I mean Paul doesn't say it's very bad
but I wouldn't like that for my children.
- What keeps
this marriage together?
- Learning to keep your mouth
closed at times, I don't know.
- Tolerance I think, I mean we
don't stew we have arguments,
big arguments like anyone else
and we have spoken about this before.
We don't tend to stew over it
for any length of time, we
can be unbelievable together,
you know biting each others heads off
but we don't never go to the next day.
- This is the one thing
that the shows done to us is
that it makes you analyse
things a bit more you know
like maybe if the show hadn't have
been here we may have split up.
You think well we can see what
we were like a long time ago
and it brings it back
to you, you think well,
we had this then, often a
lot of people grow apart
and can't see what they had originally.
- I don't think the show could
actually hold you together.
- No, no but what it's showing you is
what you had in the past.
- In their twenties,
Paul and Sue sold up,
bought an old van and
travelled through Australia.
- I think it brought us closer together,
we got to know each other,
we relied on each other so much.
It gave us our own peace
of mind that we could
settle down and now have a family,
that we had done something,
we hadn't just been nobodies
and lived in suburbia all our lives.
We'd done something that we were proud of,
that we'd accomplished on our own.
Being together so much it was
hard but then we settled down,
and must have settled down really well
because I got pregnant so something
must've been going right.
- The family settled down
in a working class suburb of Melbourne.
Are you ambitious for your children Paul?
- I said something about wanting Robert
to be a brain surgeon but that was a joke.
I mean if like if he's
a brain surgeon good
and well but it'd be nice to let them go
one step up from us I think.
At the moment I'm pretty happy with Katy,
I'm not having a go at
Robert but I've got fears
for Robert cause he's
struggling a little bit.
He's only been at school for two years
and grade one and he's
had three teachers already
say they don't know how to motivate him.
What does University mean?
- When the last show
was on I said to Robert
do you think you'll go to university?
He goes well what's university?
It just floored me.
It just proves that high education
isn't a major point to us,
just getting him out of
first grade was a major importance to us
and so university seems a long way off
and so we just take each year as it comes.
- I was going to 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 going to be a phys ed teacher
but one of the teachers told me you had
to get up into university.
- At 21 Paul as
working as a junior partner
for a firm of bricklayers in Melbourne.
By 28 he'd gone out on his
own as a sub-contractor
but it didn't work out.
Since then he'd had a variety
of jobs in the building trade.
- Well I'm more of a trades person
than a business person you know,
I've never had any business training
and if I've got natural ability
I probably haven't used it.
Where do the problems go?
I mean did I lose it because
of it or did I never have it?
I think the confidence was never there,
it might run I the family sort of thing.
- I think maybe it's the lack
of security maybe he felt
when he was a child, perhaps,
that's my theory, my theory alone.
I mean that's the old thing isn't it,
when one of your parents are taken away
from you you lack security.
- The monitors up in the
washroom sends the nurse
out well there's no talking
well I wasn't talking.
- Katy now has this saying,
oh you know me I'm hopeless
and it's just Paul you know,
oh you know me I can't do this.
And it's sort of like this
defeatist attitude type
of thing but oh I don't
know I just ignore it
and go along my merry way I suppose.
He has got better, I
think as you get older
maturer you know, confidence
does come to a point.
- I really went through
a stage it's so stupid
because I was only a
bricklayer like I failed.
Something happened with
that job and I started
to maybe I did start
to look at what we had
and think what do you want out of life?
What's so bad about what we got?
- Do the two
of you have a dream?
- I've always wanted
to move to the country.
I wouldn't mind a small property,
doesn't have to be big or flashy.
It's more relaxed style
of living, an attractive
sort of lifestyle.
- We've just been
together for so long we're
just sort of plod along together.
I enjoy his company and he
enjoys mine most of the time.
I know that he's going to
come home to me every night,
I'm going to have someone there.
He's very secure that way.
- She does put up with a lot.
I can't be that easy to live with.
I'm nice but I'm not easy to live with.
- Well we pretend we've got swords.
We make the noises of the swords fighting
and when somebody stabs us we go aargh.
If think if you're healthy
and have good friends
you can get on perfectly well.
Everybody would like to be rich.
I came to London and contacted
an agency for squatters
and they were able to give
me an address of somebody
who was able to help
people who were looking
for accommodation in the London area.
- But you've
kicked against the stability.
- I don't think I ever had any
stability to be quite honest.
I can't think of any time
in my life when I ever did.
I don't think I've been
kicking against anything
I think I've been kicking in
mid air the whole of my life.
I've been moving about a bit
between difference places
really, a bit unsettled
but I'm very shortly
moving to live in digs.
- At 28 Neil was
roaming around Britain.
We found him on the
west coast of Scotland.
- If the state didn't give us
any money it would probably
just mean crime and I'm
glad I don't have to steal
to keep myself alive.
If the money runs out
well then for a few days
there's nowhere to go to
that's all you can do,
I simply have to find the
warmest shed I can find.
- At 35 he's
living in a council flat
in the Shetland Islands.
- The nice thing about
here is that you can cut
yourself off when you want
because there are people
living around but they're
pretty quiet people.
It's an environment which
sustains me it's one
in which I can survive.
I still feel my real place is in the world
of the world where people are doing
what the majority of people do.
And the reason I don't feel safe is
because I think I'm getting more
and more used to this lifestyle
which eventually I shall have to give up.
- How do you
manage for money these days?
- Social Security still, I wish it wasn't
but I'm afraid it is.
I've no desire to be putting
the taxes up and drawing money
off people who've earned it
themselves but that's the way it is.
Well I'm going to take
people to the country
and sometimes take them to the sea-side
and I'll have a big loud
speaker in the motor coach
and tell them whereabouts
we are and what we're going
to do and what the name of the
road is and all about that.
- Neil was brought
up in a Liverpool suburb,
went to a local comprehensive school
and Aberdeen University.
He dropped out after a term
and at 21 was working on
a building site in London.
At 28 he was homeless.
How do people regard you here?
- Well I'm still
known as an eccentric
as I have been since
about the age of 16 or so.
- Do the days seem long for you?
- They can do.
- Do you have
any friends anywhere?
- I've some good friends still in England.
- Neil settled down
in the Shetland Islands
a couple of years ago.
- Hello Neil how are you?
- Is the
community important to you?
- Yes, it has to be, this is where I live.
It's been very good to me.
People have been especially
kind in many areas
and I'd like to be putting
something back into it
and we'd be putting something back
into the whole of Shetland,
not just into this area.
I'll take 2 pints of milk please.
- There we are Neil.
And how's the pantomime then?
- Not so bad.
- Oh that's good, no traumas?
- Not on my part but people could do
with learning their lines a bit better.
- But you're alright.
- Well I shouldn't speak too soon.
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.
This probably linked up with the fact now
that I want to travel I mean my thoughts
haven't really changed that much
but I definitely wouldn't
like to be a coach driver now.
I suppose I would, yes, well
I would like to be somebody
in a position of importance,
I've always thought this
but I don't think I'm
the right sort of person
to carry the responsibility
for whatever it is.
I've always though well I'd
love to be possibly love
to be in politics or something like this
but I'd probably find that just as tedious
as all the other jobs I've done so.
What were the things I
always thought I could do.
I could give lectures on erudite subjects
that I'd read all about or
I could work in the theatre,
perhaps lighting or directing a show.
- And is all that lost to you?
- Does seem to be yes.
- The village pantomime
1990 Beauty and the Beast.
- Matthew Matthew
Your house sir is needing some repairs.
I think the attendance
at last years pantomime
on the Saturday night
was the biggest crowd
of West of Shetland folk
I'd ever seen in one place.
And you know and we think they enjoyed it.
We had good receptions in other
parts of Shetland as well.
We did tour one play.
I think were moving
into an age when there's
going to be more stress
on the community.
When bigger policies are fairly set,
are fairly predictable, and the emphasis
is gonna fall on local organisation.
- You directed it last year
and you're not this year why is that?
- Well the specific reason is that we had
a preliminary meeting and
I was, my name was not
put forward as the one they wanted so.
- Why would that be?
- Probably because I like
to do things in my own way
I'm perhaps quite an
authoritative director
I have my own idea of the performance
before we even start
and I don't like people
to deviate from that and during the course
of production of course people
come along with suggestions.
No I accept suggestions,
I don't just go along
without listening to people
but I know how I want the thing
and once I deviate once from that idea,
the whole thing actually falls apart.
It's not a work of art any more.
I'm not claiming that I
produce marvellous works of art
but I do know what I'm aiming for.
Alas poor master, still
sleeping, shall I awaken him.
I think everybody wants to be somebody
and when you can't actually be anything
in your ordinary life if
you feel there's a sphere
in which you can excel then it's great.
I mean I know how much pleasure
people who take photographs
get when their work is praised
and that's perhaps it's
much the same thing.
- We'll just taking take
a quick look at your plan
and see how it stands.
- What I have done is
taken lists of all the
community halls in Shetland
with their capacity.
- Neil is trying to organise
a professional touring theatre company.
- If a hall only seats
60 people it may not
be worth putting on a show there.
- I mean what was your
response at the fact
that only 4 folk turned up at the.
- Disappointment, it was disappointment.
I was disappointed but I
think it proves the point
that I've been trying to
make that you can't just
except people to turn up for
a group from outside Shetland
when they don't know
what the things about.
I've had an instinctive
feeling that I was a writer
since I was 16, I never really
wanted to be anything else.
I would actually pay to
have something published.
I think that's important I
think if I could find somebody
that would recognise,
there must be something
in what I've done.
I don't think it's all useless.
I probably am overvaluing it
but I know how much effort
went into some of it and
on that strength alone
I just can't believe it's useless.
With each successive play
I don't know who I'm trying
to speak to and what I'm
trying to say to them
and whether they're
listening I just keep going
because that's what I
feel I should be doing.
In the winter, if you live in the country,
well it's just all wet and
there wouldn't be anything
for miles around and you'd
get soaked if you tried
to go out and there's no
shelter anywhere except
in your own house.
But in the town you can go out
on wet wintry days cause you
can always find somewhere
to shelter because there's lots of places.
I don't think I've been
typical of the environment
in which I lived.
What my background has given me
is a sense of just being part
of a very impersonal society.
You finish the week you come home you plug
into the TV set for the weekend
and then you manage to get
back to work on Monday.
And it seems to me this
is just a slow path
to total brain washing and if I you have
a brain washed society
then you're heading towards
doom there's no question about that.
- Well it weren't too
bad last night anyway.
- It was better than it's
been for a while I think.
- There was enormous
reaction to you in the
previous film what do people
see in you do you think?
- It's seemed that I was representing some
kind of successful escapism or somebody
who'd managed to be totally himself,
hadn't given in to pressure of society
to conform and people
flooded me with letters
and people seemed to think
I could solve their personal problems.
And I was quite frightened
because I knew I couldn't
but what really bothered
me was people seemed
to see something in me that I
hadn't been aware of myself.
All I was aware of was that
I didn't have anywhere to go,
I had nothing to do I'd no money,
I felt let down by quite a lot of people.
I didn't think my life was a success
but suddenly everybody seemed to think so
but the most nagging
thing was that whatever,
even if a million people had written to me
it wouldn't have made any
difference to my own situation.
When I get married I don't
want to have any children
because they're 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 would've inherited from me.
- Have you given up on women?
- Well, what how shall
we say, all but you know.
I mean there's always, everybody always,
every unmarried man and
every unmarried woman hopes
for somebody who will actually come along
to change their life.
But the practical reality
is the chances of my finding somebody
who would put up with me
in my integrity is are few.
- What would
you look for in a woman?
- Well I might look for various things
but what's probably more important is
what somebody would look for in me.
I can't offer reliability.
I mean most women looking for a husband
or a steady man wants somebody
who is reliable in some way or other.
I cannot offer that.
Because I don't know
what I'm going to be like
from one day to the other and
it would be foolish for me
pretending you know that I
could offer something like that.
I can offer sincerity,
I can offer compassion,
willingness to do my part
to put my wife's interests
as high as my own, no doubt these are,
I'm sure these are important.
But I cannot say look in
10 years time I'll still
be bringing in a wage in,
especially if I don't start
in that situation, you know.
- 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 get very frustrated,
very angry for no apparent reason.
For a reason which won't be apparent
to other people around me.
It's happened from time to time.
- Are you
getting better or worse
do you think your state?
- I don't think there's any
significant change in me,
I said I haven't been so depressed
since I've been in Shetland,
I suppose my basic personality
is not a lot different.
- Are you having
any medical treatment
for your mood changes?
- No I haven't for many
years because I wouldn't like
to be dependent upon man
made substances for a cure.
- Do you ever
think you're going mad?
- I don't think it I know it.
I, well we're not allowed
to use the word mad
but you know, I think
most people are mad here
but I think it's a mad world.
I think I remember walking
in London 12 years ago
and just walking through the city
and they were digging up the drains
and there were cranes
knocking down buildings
and there were cars trying to get down
impossible narrow alleys and
having to reverse out again
and policemen doing all kinds of things
and I thought this world
is just mad you know,
this world is just mad.
Yes I'd say I believed in God.
- Are you religious?
- Well I go to church with
my parents on Sundays.
I don't know even know whether
I do believe in God or not.
I thought an awful lot about it actually
and I still don't know
but I still led to believe
that it was absolutely certain if one was
to survive in the world
one had to believe in God.
- And how's
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.
Sometimes very benevolent,
sometimes seemingly needlessly unkind.
Well after I'd tried every
remedy one could possibly
think of for my personality disorders,
I thought well I'm going to trust God
because other people
have done so seemingly
with positive results.
I can't say the moment I
trusted God my life was fine
and I can't say all the time
that I think I've found
the answer but I can say
with some certainty that
once I started believing
that there is actually a God
who has something of a design
for the world, who is working
in a certain way in the world.
After that some things
became clearer to me,
I really can't say much more than that.
- Coloured people we
don't like them very much.
- No it sounds like
ghostly coloured people,
you think of a sort of purple person
with red eyes and yellow feet
and you can't really think of
what they really look like.
I find it hard to believe
that I was ever like that
but there's the evidence.
Probably when I was seven I
just lived in a wonderful world
where everything was all sensation
and them I could be happy like this,
I could be miserable the next one.
I don't have a yearning for
any past time in my life.
Perhaps in my subconscious
I could recall a time
when everything was a lot happier
my teens were terribly unhappy years.
- If we come back in 7 years
how would you like us to find you?
- In a job from which I
was getting satisfaction,
married, probably with
children, with a good salary.
Enough to as I said before to be able
to live fairly comfortably
and with friends
who I could contact when I wanted them.
- So do you
think you have failed?
- Can't really judge.
- Do you feel
you've failed yourself?
- Well my life isn't over.
- Can you think what you'd like
to be doing in the year 2000?
- 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?
- What are
you likely to be doing?
- That's a horrible question.
I tend to think most likely the answer is
I will be wandering
homeless around the streets
of London but with a bit
of luck that won't happen.
I always feel that somehow
a good fairy has waved
a wand over me and saved
me from that because
that seemed very much what
the end would be for a while.
That's why I cling on here,
I know how tempting it is
to escape into fantasies, to believe
that I already am a successful writer.
To believe that I've got lots of friends,
to believe that if only I had
done such and such my life,
would've been different but I
mean the most difficult thing
is to accept the reality, to
be what we are in a situation.
That's terribly difficult.
- No not intentionally.
- I must you, I'm a
moustache fellow, a beard.
- 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.
And Bruce
John.
Suzi.
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.