Original subtitles

Anybody in?

We're in the kitchen.

That's going to be very good.

There you go.

What's this one doing at home, then?

Holiday.

Last time home before Christmas.

Long weekend.

Sam took time off to fetch him so he could have a full three days.

The ladyship sent you these for the party.

We're coming tonight.

Oh, she better brought them with her.

Looking for an excuse to get out, were you?

I might have been.

It's not exactly a party, you know.

It's a business meal, really.

They can be very boring.

Sitting in a room on your own with nothing to do can be boring at all.

Can't it?

I should think so.

You'll stop, then?

Till tonight?

No, I've come to stop.

I'm not off back.

I'll come in my best.

You can put a match to that fire for me.

It'll warm the room up for tonight.

Sarah!

She's in here!

Oh, hello, Grandad.

Have you not come for lunch, I hope?

No, I just snipped in for a minute.

I forgot something when I went home.

Dad's not come yet.

Him that writes mucky books, is it?

Oh, they're not mucky.

They're a bit real, that's all.

A bit real and a bit mucky.

I thought we'd seen the back of him.

A wife and three kids he's got.

We like it no more than you do, Grandad.

Her education's done up for her, there.

Aye, well, she'll live her life as she thinks fit, won't she?

Aye, she'll do that right enough.

She'll answer to nobody.

And we know where she gets that from, don't we?

I left a photo album near the door this morning.

I meant to take it with me.

Deborah was playing with it.

It's in the hall stand.

Right, I'm picking Ethel up straight from work.

I'll see you.

Cheerio, then, Grandad.

How long is he here for, then, Pat's friend?

Till he's found somewhere to live.

Leaving his family for her, is he?

Aye, looks like it.

It can last for a lifetime, you know, the misery of it.

Well, sometimes it can be worse if you stay.

Talking from experience, eh?

Mind your own business.

There's some that can cushion themselves with money.

We couldn't.

When our Dora got left, we couldn't.

We'd noped.

Noped.

It's stopped.

What has?

Clock.

You've been looking at it for the last five minutes, so I thought I'd better tell you.

Oh, I'm all right.

Are you?

All right for what?

For what?

For time, of course.

You were awake half the night.

Twice heard you come down here.

What for?

Didn't realise I was under observation.

I'll make less noise in future.

Suffer in silence, will you?

Suffer what?

That I don't know, do I?

That I'm not allowed to know.

The other you can't keep from me.

It's in your mood and the way you behave.

And I'm to keep silent till I'm told.

All right, then.

I'll tell you.

I was going to anyway.

You'll be meeting him tonight at Sam's.

Who?

Who will I be meeting?

Tad.

He's coming today.

Isn't that right?

It's mucky books.

Poor Tad.

Label for life, mucky books.

I'm going to marry him, Mum.

Mucky books and all.

Marry?

He's married already.

I thought it was finished between you.

Marry?

We tried to keep apart.

We couldn't.

That's all.

Couldn't?

Who couldn't?

You or him?

Us.

Both of us.

Couldn't one of you say no?

Don't you want me to be happy?

To have what I want most in life?

At somebody else's expense?

Do you or don't you?

The rest is my problem, not yours.

There you go at the top.

Eh?

You what?

Do the spoons and forks.

They're for dessert.

I can see you've worked at face.

All right.

Finished that.

Thank you, love.

There's knives to spare.

They're for pate.

Pate?

What's pate?

It's a sort of potted meat.

Why don't they call it potted meat, then?

French, you know.

Posh.

Ah, posh!

I used to know a chap called Posh.

He wore a tarpaulin, so he called him Posh.

All his life, he was known as Posh.

Hey, fetch me another plate like this, will you?

This chap, Carter, is coming tonight.

He used to live round here years ago.

He asked Morris if he could meet somebody who remembered the old days.

So we thought of you.

You don't mind, do you?

Has Sam said all about him?

He's only met him once, I think.

He's been away to another firm for a bit.

He's back today.

I'll get them to fetch the other table out of the garage when they come tonight.

This isn't going to be big enough, is it?

I'm going to tell you something nobody knows except a lady ship.

She recognised him in the street when he came to see me.

Recognised who?

This chap Carter that's coming tonight.

Only his name's not Carter.

It's Wilson.

Harry Wilson.

Wilson?

He's your father-in-law.

Sam's dad?

Aye.

But... Sam hasn't said.

I barely knew him myself at first.

I thought his image was grained in me for life.

Was it you asked to see that photo album?

What?

Oh, no.

No, he just bought it home from Ethel's the other night.

It was a photo edit of his dad.

It's the only one I know of.

He could have known and said no to it.

He could have been checking up.

Did he show it to you?

Aye, he showed it to me.

He asked me if I thought there was a resemblance.

I said, yes, there was, but not to the man who came here, at least.

Why does he call himself Carter?

Why doesn't he say who he is?

Carter's his name.

He's changed it for reasons we'll never know.

Making his life work and to hell with everybody else's.

He's doing well for himself, by the looks of it.

All these years, how many?

Thirty-odd.

What interest can he possibly have in Sam after 30 years?

We lean back on the past as it slips away from us, love.

Suppose he'd done this, we think, instead of tother.

That's where I went wrong, as if there were a chance to put it right.

He can't put it right with Sam.

You bet he can't.

I want to cope with a present that's hard enough to hell with the past.

I sometimes think he married me because I was like his mother.

Chucked on the scrap heap with a kid to bring up.

Maybe that's why he didn't walk out when things were tough.

He'd have had to walk out on himself.

You're going to meet him, are you?

Yes.

He's staying at Sam's for a couple of days.

Until you'd sweeten me up.

Was that the arrangement?

He couldn't very well stay here anyway, could he?

We've only got two bedrooms.

He wasn't born yesterday, you know.

Still, you were right to take me into account.

You stop in your generation and I'll stop in mine and that's all we say about that.

Wouldn't think it could happen between one generation and the next, would you?

A divide like there is between us.

Ethel, this gentleman's been knocking at Jack's door but he doesn't seem to be in.

Excuse me.

I'll have to go as well.

Mrs. Barrowclough should be able to help you.

Thank you.

I see you know who I am.

It's Harry Wilson, isn't it?

Mm.

And you're George's wife.

Daughter's brother's wife.

You came before.

The old man told you, did he?

I saw you through the window.

You've changed.

There's not that much happened to you.

Not even in all these years.

I remembered.

She came to live with us when you left her, you know.

Her and some.

Long row 1934.

What do you want with him, Jack?

To find out what had been said about me over the years.

See how the boy looks on me.

He never cared for me much, Barrowclough, so I can't guess what has been said.

You worshipped the ground she walked on.

You turned your back on her.

You think he'll forgive you for that?

Or some?

At my age, you take stock of your life.

I'm not proud.

I'd admit to shortcomings.

You've left it too late.

So the old man says.

What do you want, then?

I want a hearing.

You think you're entitled to it, do you?

Barrowclough doesn't.

He's an old man.

His life's marked up on every street corner from here to Skeleton.

Where's your mark here?

I chose to get out and get on in life.

Others did that.

Life's more than just scratching for bread.

It's more than eat, sleep and work.

I was dead here.

I got out and I lived.

And we've not.

I used to think that in them days.

And after.

After George being killed, I suppose.

Not since, though.

I've looked back a lot since I've been left on my own.

I've looked at what I had and what they've got today.

And do you know what conclusion I've come to?

Yes, I take stock of my life, too, you know.

I've come to the conclusion that I've lived to some purpose.

To some purpose.

You turned your back on us.

Not just Sam.

I had a brother that went to Australia.

He didn't turn his back on us.

He took us with him.

Because he would have if he could.

I wanted to take Dora and Sam.

But she was her father's child even after I married her.

Dad says this, Dad says that.

What could you do?

You should have taken your coat off to him.

Yes, I thought that since...

They broke the mould when they made him, thank God.

You're on his side, though, aren't you?

You're against me.

It's green dinners round here to stick together.

Who's against them?

Green dinners.

How can you go against your life as you've lived it?

Mr Wilson not in?

No, no, he's... I think he's in the works, Mrs Crossman.

You know me?

Well, yes, I remember, of course.

I don't know you.

No.

Hadn't you better introduce yourself, then?

Oh, I'm Nick Ransley, one of Sam's... Mr Wilson's assistants.

How many's he got?

Well, two.

A lot of work for two, is there?

More than enough.

Don't you have a union?

Oh, no, no.

We're staff.

How long have you been at Crossman's?

Ten years.

To the day, by the sounds of it.

Oh, I wouldn't say that.

Why wouldn't you say that?

Oh, I've liked it up to, well, these last few years.

But you don't any more?

Most of me mates have gone down south, you see.

Because it's cleaner?

No, I don't think it's that.

It's money, mostly, and promotion.

Then we're a bit old-fashioned up here, aren't we?

Some firms are.

A lot of them like to be where they can get into London easy.

That's where it's all going on, isn't it?

Why don't you go yourself, then?

My wife won't leave her mother.

Oh.

No, I wouldn't want to go.

Not if the others weren't going.

Do you think they're happier down there?

Well, they try to make out they are when they come home.

Big talk, you know.

A lot of them like it better, I suppose.

A lot don't, though.

They'd have soon come back if things were different.

Like they are down there, you mean?

No.

It's the job, mostly.

Opportunity and so on.

As Sam says, Mr Wilson.

What does Sam say?

Checking up on me, Cass.

You worry too much, you know.

Why didn't you say you were coming here?

We could have come in one car.

I didn't know you were coming.

I'm picking Frank up.

What are you here for?

What do you think of this?

Sin, according to mum.

Tad's coming.

Oh.

He's, er...

He's leaving his wife.

At least I think he is.

He should have been on the train before this.

Oh, well.

Yes.

It happens in life, doesn't it?

Downfall and disappointment.

Oh, I know what you're thinking.

Do you?

Her with her high moral principles.

That's what you're thinking, isn't it?

You'll, er... You'll not remember Alan Dakin that I was married to, do you?

Yes, I remember.

He was going to wed me before your Aunt Dora's husband left her.

Sam's dad.

We'd been courting for years.

And then she came back home with Sam.

He'd been mad about her, Alan, since he was a young lad almost.

I suppose what he felt about me was like a lot of people think.

Obliged to get married sooner or later.

And she'll do as well as anybody.

Yes.

And then Dora came back.

And after she died, he was away two years at sea before he came home.

And I took him.

Until he was killed in the drift mine with young Les.

And then Frank got what he wanted.

Me.

That's life, isn't it?

What is it Frank's always saying?

One man's rise is another man's unemployment.

Give and take, take and give.

Take now, give later.

We think.

You're like all the others, aren't you?

You want me to give it up?

Well, my generation's different.

Aye, well, there's that, of course.

There's what, of course?

Living for today.

I've come for you.

I'm ready.

I don't go many places.

I'm usually ready.

Have you been drinking?

I've had one or two, yeah.

Where did you dig this up?

It was in the garage when we moved in.

It's all right, Frank.

Look, we used to have one of these.

We all used to have one of these.

They must have turned him out by the thousand.

He used to get covered up Sundays with a green cloth with big silk tassels on it.

And if you spilt your tea on a Sunday, you committed a crime.

We've come a long way since then.

If we put this one at the end there...

Nobody bakes bread anymore except the arty crafties.

When I look at this table, I can hear the slap of the door.

She shaped her loaves out of me, man.

Frank Baratluff, MP, means Master Poet.

She was a poet.

A poet with bread, she was.

I get a lump in my throat when I think of them days.

Aye, a lump in his throat and a rumble in his belly.

A lump in the throat's old-fashioned, Frank.

It's like clouting kids.

You only get clouted back.

Aye.

How many seats?

Eleven.

I dare him put the cloths on.

I'm bound to get it wrong.

Have you met Pat's mother yet?

No, not yet.

I brought her with me.

Go in and tackle her.

She'll come in when she's good and ready.

Don't let her worry you.

She's like this table.

She belongs to the past.

She's got her Sunday best on, so she thinks it's important.

Aye, it's green cloth with big silk tassels on it.

So don't spill your tea on her, eh?

Shall I bring him in, then?

I'm busy helping out just now, aren't I?

You're busy putting it off, you mean.

Am I in the habit of putting things off?

No.

But it's important to me.

Do you think it's not important to me that I'm to meet the chap that wants to leave

his wife and children to marry my daughter?

For her happiness in exchange for theirs?

How do you know she'll be unhappy?

Maybe she'll be glad for him to go.

Will she?

Is she a bad wife, then?

No.

You're honest.

I'll give you that.

An honest thief.

Thanks, Mum.

You're doing well.

Keep it up and you'll make damn sure he goes back to her, won't you?

Me against someone you've never met?

I thought that's what you believed in, what was right.

Not just what was right for you and yours.

I don't want to talk about it.

Thank you.

You heard.

She's a lesson to learn that I can't teach her.

All right.

What it costs to practice what you preach.

That's what she's got to learn.

Harry Wilson's here.

He come just now with young Naomi.

He was round at our house earlier on.

At your house?

What's he want with you?

He was looking for you.

You were out.

Thought he'd come to see if I was on his side, did he?

On his side?

You could take his side, could you?

I didn't say I could.

I said he might think so.

What grounds would he have for thinking that?

She left him that first time, didn't she?

It was her that walked out that first time, not him.

She's reason to walk out, by God, she had.

So had a lot of women.

More so than they have now.

Slaves to men we were.

Tied to the house and the kids.

The oven, the rubbing board.

You had your clubs and such.

What had we?

When did we get taken out, even?

Women in public houses in them days.

Ah, you'd have kept things as they were, you would, wouldn't you?

And you didn't want it for Dora, did you?

To marry a collier.

You didn't want that for her.

Was I wrong to want so much better for her?

You wanted what wasn't to be had.

What was to be had was different, not better.

When the novelty wore off, what had she?

You're saying it was me that put our Dora round.

I'm saying you to look all round it.

He left and went out.

That other he married in Canada, he left her, we know.

From what away is it?

We don't know that, do we?

We know what he did.

And why he did it, we know that too, do we?

You know why death and out-else-parted most of the

marriages round here in them days better than I do.

There were nowhere to go but the cemetery.

Well, he found somewhere else.

You've railed against what's been made of this place all your life.

You faced it, fought it, it soured you.

And what's been gained, master?

What's been gained?

Come in this way, please do.

Oh, Jack.

Ethel.

Seems we've come too early.

No, sorry, let me introduce you.

This is Mr. Harry Carter from Cape Town.

Sam's aunt, Mrs. Barraclough.

You'll try and leave some for the rest of us, won't you?

And we've a guest in the next room in case you've forgotten.

Let Morris look after him.

What a charming host.

Who is he, the bloke?

It's business, love.

We've to be nice to him because he sells what we make in South Africa.

You sell to South Africa?

She's off.

He wasn't born and bred there, if that makes any difference.

He was born round here.

He shook the muck of Cuddy off his feet 30 years ago.

Left us to fend for ourselves.

Us?

I mean he got out, that's all.

Some do, some don't, eh, Tad?

Some stick it out, some sling their hooks for the promised land.

Not that I blame them.

I'll take that into the next room.

You won't, you know.

Need it to help you stick it out, do you?

I thought you were hitting at her, and of course you weren't, were you?

You were hitting at Tad.

Mind your own damn business, Sam.

Tad didn't get out.

Not like that.

He took it with him, didn't you, Tad?

Carried it about in your head.

When Tad comes back and sees they've pulled

down a few of the old houses, he don't like it.

Because it's not what you've got in your head, is it, Tad?

All right, Sam.

It's not all right.

It's far from all right, Tad.

Look, I understand what you're saying and I agree with you.

You're right.

Why is he right?

Well, I've got this cosy picture of the past in my mind.

I resent it when it's disturbed.

What's so cosy about it?

Try telling that to Grandad and his generation.

I said a cosy picture.

I didn't say the real thing.

So, what was the real thing, Tad?

Like Pat says, I suppose.

I thought you'd converted her, not the other way round.

You don't want to take any notes of her, you know.

She was coddled from the cradle.

The worst of it was over before she opened her eyes.

You don't have to have lived it to know about it, Sam.

We used to rattle on about ends and means.

You should have heard us, Pat.

We knew it all.

Yeah, and politicians.

They're still telling us how to get there without telling us where we're going.

I knew somebody else had said that.

Oh, yes?

And where did that little gem emanate from?

Your dad.

He's what it all about.

He used to say, George, your dad, if you believe it, take notice.

He was talking about your marriage, trying to justify his.

And it was Sarah that talked about sticking it out, not me.

Well, this isn't right.

Oh, you have a hard time sticking it out, you do.

Aye, we do.

We both do.

Both of us.

That's life, Patricia.

Bang, bang, bang.

Seven days a week.

It's a wonder sometimes you can stand the sight of each other.

I suppose there's something worthwhile at the end of it all.

Don't ask me what.

Love?

Well, where is he?

He's in there.

Help yourself.

Now, that's Deb's with the sugar in it.

They want to come down.

Well, they can't.

They've got visitors.

You're in charge, so don't let them.

Only not too bossy.

They'll come down if I'm not bossy.

Better take notice when I'm bossy.

We've not had much time to talk yet, have we?

Still, you're here till Sunday.

I've got to be off soon after dinner on Sunday, Dad says.

Ethel's taken the plunge.

I've left her in there with Tad.

Hold the door open for him, will you?

Sarah, I'm sorry.

It's at the top of the stairs on the left.

Hello, Tom.

I can see who this is.

Oh, yes, Tom, this is Mr Carter.

Hello, Mr Carter.

Hello, Tom.

Here, let me carry that for you.

Thank you.

You're like your father, aren't you?

A bit.

And these for your brother and sister, are you?

Yeah.

What is it?

Drinking chocolate or coca?

Coca.

Coca.

I can't be expected to see it from any other point of view.

Mrs Barrett, love.

She's not that far off 30.

She's wasting her life with you.

I wanted to marry her.

Wanted to?

Sorry.

He's changed, of course.

I'm not surprised Sam hasn't recognized him.

Your sister-in-law reckons he has.

And he's said nothing.

Neither of them has, as far as I know.

But why?

They're on the edge of a bloody deep hole, aren't they?

30 years deep.

Sorry.

I'll not have more than one more.

One little more, I promise you.

You'll be ill if you go on like this, you know that, don't you?

Go and count the empty bottles in the cupboard in there.

I've left them there on purpose.

Count them.

All in this last week.

Look, after tonight I'll get back to normal.

And we've a visitor.

Sam.

What is it?

Sorry.

Mrs. Pankhurst, I presume?

Hello.

I'm late.

Are they waiting for me?

Oh, no, I don't think so.

Stay here and talk to me, eh?

Talk to you?

Good heavens, I'm doing the kitchen.

I'm supposed to be helping.

That's nice.

Just carry on.

I'll see to things.

You've got your hat on still.

Never mind.

I'll see to it later.

Where shall I start?

Where is everybody?

I thought they'd all deserted me.

Everything's ready now.

I'll round them up.

You know how to keep your marriage going, don't you?

At it in the kitchen, in the middle of all this work.

He was apologising for something.

It's not like an Aussie bar in here.

What have you been using brandy in?

Nothing.

That's what the apology was for.

Oh.

Yeah, that's what they say.

Good evening.

Oh, hello.

Good evening.

I've worked a bit of rustic.

All right.

It's a pleasure.

Come on, Maurice.

We're eating.

Yes.

Excuse me.

He introduced me to the other two.

Your eldest boy.

Oh, aye.

It's a nice family house.

Yes, it is.

It's a remarkable likeness, your eldest boy.

Well, he's not mine.

He belongs to Sarah's first marriage.

Your father died?

No, no, he left them.

Didn't have what it takes, it seems.

What it takes?

Staying power.

Sorry it's taken so long already.

You sit there.

Thank you.

I'll say grace, shall I?

I think you insist.

No, I don't insist.

I simply thought it might be expected of me.

It is expected, Maurice.

You say grace, Maurice.

Yes, well.

If you insist.

For these and all thy mercies, may the Lord make us truly thankful.

Amen.

Amen.

It's party.

You see that, can't we?

She made it herself.

You can't see that, can you?

I can't.

I'm a woman.

And why haven't you shaved?

You'll have noticed quite a few changes since you were last here, Mr Carter.

A few, not as many as I expected.

You mean it's the same bloody place it always was?

Is that what you mean?

I mean it's as I remembered it.

Is there much unemployment?

Aye, since the war this year.

It's been a bad winter in more ways than one.

Coldest since 1740, isn't that what they say?

I can remember a colder.

That winter, you and your ma'am come to live with us up on Long Row there.

And I had to go and beg for blankets where I knew there'd be to spare.

Where a chap had died that day, us weren't in need of them no more.

I can remember no colder winter than that.

They've closed most of the pits round here and brought little else in the place.

They?

Who's they?

All right then, Dad.

We have successive governments.

Union as well.

Say so then.

It's all they these days.

They did this, they did that.

Cold takes a back seat nowadays.

When did it not?

Apart from bloody war, when did it not?

My dad was killed in the pits.

It's a thankless job.

I would have thought you'd have been glad the

day they whipped the last ship, Mr. Barrett.

Of course he would, provided he put something else in its place.

When a pit closed in the old days, the whole place went on the breadline, eh, Dad?

We were on breadline when they were open, never mind when they were closed.

Insult a man's labour and he'll turn to idleness,

which is what this bloody generation's done.

Oh, thanks, Grandad.

Well, there's exceptions, of course.

You said that just in time.

Exceptions prove the rule, don't they?

Well, it's all in the past anyway, Grandad.

Past's a load of rubbish, I know mine is.

I don't care about the past, it's the future that counts.

Well, I'm the past, aren't I?

What else am I?

Do I not count then?

I didn't mean that, Grandad.

Well, say so, then don't lump me with what you consider is rubbish in your life.

If you can't find what you want at home, you've got to go

out into the world on your own two feet and look for it.

Not sit on your backside and wait for it to come to you.

At least, that's my philosophy.

Well, that's fine if you're young and single, Mr. Carter, but some people have.

..

have responsibilities.

Well, if blacks in South Africa do it, they have to travel hundreds of miles for work.

They're compelled to travel hundreds of miles, you mean?

No, no one compels them.

Oh, so there's work where they live if they want it?

No, that's why they have to travel, of course.

Have to, yes, that's what I said.

They're compelled to.

I see, yes, well, I suppose in that sense you're right.

That was the sense I meant, actually.

Well, they send money back to help their families.

There's no compulsion there.

I dare say there are those of my own race and

generation who could learn a lesson there.

George went looking for work that time with Alan once, do you remember?

Aye, I remember.

Well, he couldn't bear to leave his own fire aside, but he went.

Nothing for him, though.

Chose to be hungry at home instead of among strangers in the end.

We don't want that kind of world back again.

You were an infant.

If it was my world, not yours, I'd have it back again.

Some of it, anyway.

It's not a question of sitting on your backside

and waiting for it to come to you, Mr Carter.

Not for most people.

Not as I see it.

People have roots.

And mostly the responsibility is where the roots are.

You think the blacks in South Africa like the way they live?

Well, it's the way things are.

It's not a perfect world.

Oh, I know that.

It's why I'm a politician, for what it's worth.

Well, they have their uses, politicians.

Did you hear that, Dad?

I heard it.

What else do you want me to say?

We're hoping you can help us.

Me?

I think we'd better talk about that tomorrow, Mr Carter.

Talk about what, Morris?

Um, I think it's a question for the board.

Well, Cassie's on the board.

I'm on the board.

You are.

Yes, well, Mr Carter thinks he might be able to sell

around 50 engines a year for us in South Africa.

Probably more.

I'm sorry.

And further afield after that.

Rhodesia, perhaps.

Thank you.

Uh, ancillary equipment, too.

The stuff that you're equipped to make here.

We can ship the components out and assemble in Cape Town.

You know what you're saying.

I'm saying that you'll have to expand.

You couldn't possibly deliver under existing production.

That's what you've been wanting, isn't it, Sam?

Aye.

Well, then.

You'd better ask Morris, hadn't you?

We'll have to build an assembly plant out there, don't you see?

Well, you can do that for us.

You wouldn't mind a few months in the sunshine, would you, Mrs Wilson?

You and the kids?

I'm not on the board.

We've the means to expand, of course.

It's work, Morris.

Idle machines put to use.

Yes, well, that's on the credit side.

There are things on the other side, too.

Like the sort of worries Peter used to have about growth.

What are you worried about?

He didn't turn his back on it, did he?

We're not on the board to cut down and worry, are we, Morris?

No, but I don't subscribe to the belief that bigger means better, that's all.

It's work, Morris.

Shrink or grow, that's the choice.

That sounds like Hobson's choice to me.

Is it, Morris?

Well, yes, I suppose it is.

Under the circumstances.

That's to go in first.

Do you know what that is?

My what?

Usually, when Morris is here with a visitor.

Why didn't he take them to his own house?

Well, there's nobody there except Morris, is there?

I'm his head cook and bottle washer.

Was he after you once?

A long time ago.

Ages ago.

Not now.

Good heavens, no.

He knows a one-man woman when he sees one.

Are you?

Probably, but don't you ever tell Sam I said that.

Hey, get a tray for this, will you?

What's get you two together apart from that?

The kids?

Partly, I suppose.

Mostly, maybe.

And if there were nothing but the kids to stay for and everything somewhere else?

Pat, I can't.

I can't say it for you.

You can't decide things like that for somebody else.

It's not a perfect world, he said in there.

We all bloody well know that, don't we?

Why should I be expected to be perfect in it?

Here comes another pair of hands, not to mention a body.

I think I'm too revealing tonight.

I could have a word with the Board of Trade if you have any particular problems.

It'll have to be a long-term commitment because of spares.

It could be a political problem.

It's a defence contract, you see, Frank.

Oh.

And there could be a socialist government next year.

Not before time, neither.

That's your opinion.

I'm sticking to it.

And there's the problem, all right?

What problem?

It's work, isn't it?

What problem?

Their policy on apartheid, Dad.

What's that to do with us?

Brotherhood of man, Grandad.

Socialism's more than the problems on your own doorstep, Dad.

Are you telling me what socialism is, are you?

Dad took us through the Depression.

You had to set your sights close up in them days just to survive.

Bread-and-butter socialism.

What you call cloth-cap socialism, you mean?

Well, yes, perhaps.

What's wrong with you?

Nothing in context.

In what?

It was right for the time.

There was a Depression.

Well, he knows that.

He lived here.

He saw it start to happen before he slung his hook.

I'll answer for what I am.

What have you done on your own doorstep that's so bloody clever for a start?

I've done what I could, Dad.

What's been possible?

Take him, show him skeleton, show him what's still there.

Same muck we lived in when we were a lad at school.

Same muck he will.

We've not been in government all that time.

Six years since the war.

Expand, he says.

More work, he says.

Will that shift muck?

You need a brush and shovel to clean up muck, Grandad.

Somebody to use them.

There are too many people in the world, Mr Bartlett.

Too many people.

And they're still here, aren't they?

And they keep coming, don't they?

How many have you brought into the world?

Three.

That's more than your bloody share.

You can have no more, you know.

I had three, Miss Anne.

But I left school when I was twelve.

And we'd not got the bloody equipment you lot have got.

Care for them, do you?

That's a pointless question, Grandad.

What do you think he is?

I don't know what he is.

I can show you plenty of hard-hearted buggers that don't care that I brought

more than their fair share of hungry mouths into the

world and not cleaned up their share of the muck.

Many of them made it.

Never mind, get rid.

What you care is what you do.

You've said that before, I know.

Should I not, then?

Was I wrong, then?

You talk about the brotherhood of man.

You're a wealthy generation than what mine was.

You practice on your own doorstep the talks about the brotherhood of man.

Some of us do try, Mr Bartlett.

Good intentions.

I spit on them.

We ask for bread and they give us good intentions.

Do what you said.

Get them work, hard work.

See to it.

Good intentions never got call or face to start a fire going.

They talk themselves into the ground about what they'll do and not do.

They stang their gussing about their good intentions.

And they do note.

Notes gained.

Notes gained.

When I'm too old.

Too bloody old.

Too old I am.

I'm sorry, love.

I've had too old me.

Grime, Dad.

Is that the lot?

Er, yeah.

Half of the cups.

No.

No touching.

That's all it is, isn't it, us?

Physical indulgence.

No.

You might help me.

You might say yes.

I don't believe it.

And if you don't believe it, then it's justified.

And it isn't, is it?

I don't know.

What does he say?

What you care is what you do.

Do you believe that?

Maybe.

In a way.

But if I left them, I'd still care.

What game would that be to them?

Not much.

I'm almost 30.

I'm not saying I'd have married if I'd not met you.

Or had anyone the same, even.

And I work.

I've got... Oh, what is it they're calling it nowadays?

I've got job fulfilment.

Is work enough?

No.

Did you tell her you were leaving for good?

I thought you would last time I saw you.

Even today.

Waiting for the train and seeing you on it.

I'm glad you came to me.

No guilt.

Unshackled from all my past chains, I thought.

Free, like the young generation.

But I'm not.

I'm a generation behind.

Old-fashioned, conscience-ridden.

Morality's grained in me like it is in my mother.

Eyes watch me behind net curtains as I walk down the street.

More than that, though, I... I watch myself.

A mutton disguised as lamb.

Papered over, working class.

Chained to a past I don't even remember.

Because it is a matter for the board, you understand.

These, er... these 50 engines.

How firm an offer is it, politics aside?

Oh, I've got all the details, sir.

We'd place two-thirds of the order ourselves, as agents.

No strings?

None other than the usual contractual details, of course.

Well, we need the work here.

You've seen that for yourself.

The politics don't bother you there now, what your cousin said.

The brotherhood of man.

What happened to bother me?

I just think you should clean up the muck in your

own backyard before you start on somebody else's.

This used to be my backyard once.

I looked at the muck and I turned my back on it.

You wouldn't understand that, would you?

Am I?

I did the same thing myself once.

Something me grandad said stayed with me.

Brought me back again.

He'll have spoken to me.

Why?

Oh, he... he remembered you then.

Ah, yes.

Yes, he remembered me.

And you?

I remember a street in Cuddy.

You came out of the shop and you gave me a

shilling and said, be a good lad for your mum.

I was nine years old at the time.

You're very close, you and the old man.

Oh, he was like a father to you, wasn't he, Sam?

Aye, like a father to me.

Well, it'd not be me that'd go out there to see to the assembly plant.

It'd have to be somebody else.

You're tied up here, are you?

It took me in.

Saw me on me feet.

Hi-ho.

Old ditz.

I used to spend a lot of time when I was a lad, standing at the window, looking down

at the street, wishing for somebody to come to take me away from it all.

I'm glad now nobody came.

You can belong in a place without knowing it, can't you?

Right.

Night, Sam.

Goodnight.

Well, I'm on for the news.

Aye.

Is this what we pay us bloody licence for?

I don't think I'll let you up on that.

You'll be off to South Africa, then?

Nay.

Turn you back on to work?

I've enough work on here, Appen.

It'll not work out anyway.

For what our Frank said, politics.

Appen.

Is politics not about work and immoval, then?

Well, Grandad, it's about work when there's no work.

When there's plenty of work, as there is for most outside this bloody cul-de-sac,

it can afford to turn to other things.

It was like a little castle skeleton in the old days, walled in, cut off.

Even the war went on outside more than for most.

Nowadays we can switch this on, see it all going on.

I can't take off of it, him.

They talk about things that's passed by knowledge.

Is it me age, then?

Do you take it in?

Some of it.

Makes sense to you, does it?

I'm closer to you now, Grandad, than this new lot.

I'm not a lad any more.

I'm cut about by the old days, what you're to do to live, bread and butter.

I got through to you, did I?

Better than him that's just left could ever have done.

Why didn't you tell me it was me dad?

You knew him, did you?

Aye, I knew him.

When did you know him?

I don't know, Grandad.

I just knew.

He come between us in the old days.

There's not many in my life that sent the blood up to me head like he did.

Sometimes you don't see reason.

You take no blame to yourself.

I spoiled her.

I wanted somewhat better for her than a collier's lass.

I were idle.

Had no work.

I was soured weed.

Soured for living.

For making allowances.

For seeking to change it through reason, not rum.

Aye.