Original subtitles

- 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 two children.

- My heart's desire is to see my daddy.

- I don't want to answer that.

- This is no ordinary outing to the zoo.

It's a very special occasion.

We've brought these children together

for the very first time.

They're like any other children except that they come

from startlingly different backgrounds.

- Stop it at once!

- We've brought these children together

because we wanted a glimpse of England in the year 2000.

The shop steward and the executive of the year 2000

are now seven years old.

- In 1964, "World in Action" made "Seven Up!"

and we've been back to film these children

every seven years.

They are now 49.

Last week we watched six of our children

grow up from seven to 49.

Tonight, we'll see what happened to the others.

- If I can change the world I'd change it into a diamond.

I don't really think that I've done anything

you can call a great success.

- When I was born, an illegitimate child,

that's something that's only whispered about.

- If I could, I would have two girls and two boys.

At times, you think Christ, what have I done?

- I read the "Financial Times".

- It's very irresponsible

because we all want more money, as much money as we can get.

- Nick, Simon, Lynn, Andrew, John and Neil.

- 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.

I tend to think most likely

the answer is I'll be wandering homeless

around the streets of London.

- We'll see if Neil

is still wandering around homeless and alone.

- When I grow up, I'd like to find out

all about the moon and all that.

- Nick, a farmer's son,

grew up in the Yorkshire Dales.

- And I said I was interested in physics and chemistry.

Well, I'm not gonna do that here.

At 14, he was away at boarding school

and at 21, reading physics at Oxford.

- So what career are you gonna pursue?

- It depends whether I'll be good enough

to do what I wanna really do.

I would like, if I can, to do research.

- By 28, he had moved to America

and was doing research into nuclear fusion

at the University of Wisconsin.

- The fusion reaction gives off energy

and produces the power

that would be turned into electrical energy

and sent out to the consumer.

- How hot is it in there?

- In there, it's about 10 million degrees.

- At 35, he was an associate professor,

And at 42, a full professor.

- And I've spent the last year and a half

writing a couple of books.

My ambition as a scientist is to be more famous

for doing science than for being in this film,

but unfortunately, Michael, it's not gonna happen.

- Over the years, Nick's research hit trouble,

and by 49, he's had to abandon it,

because the containers needed to store the hot gases

couldn't be developed.

- Was there a moment

when you realised that all you'd been doing

wasn't gonna work out?

- I think it was more gradual.

I didn't wanna admit it for quite a while.

I mean, I really believed in it.

It was a huge let-down.

So the area that I'm looking at is this times this.

I don't know why I've a compulsion to teach, really.

It was always there in me.

I just wanted to do it.

I thought I'd be good at it.

When I go into a classroom full of undergraduates,

I try and explain to them

why they might wanna try and do it.

That's my little attempt to open a little door for them.

So I'm hoping that you remember me being very stupid

and going, ow, there's arrows coming out of here.

Can we do that?

Any chance of that, okay?

They can get information from a book.

I have to keep them awake

and make the information a bit more interesting than a book.

I'm doomed to do this over and over and over.

Okay, well, I didn't even know it was happening,

so it was interesting 'cause that, you know.

And nobody's ever said that I was a typical engineer.

The undergraduates tell jokes about engineers,

and the only one I can repeat to you

is how you can tell if an engineer is an extrovert?

And the answer is he looks at your shoes

when he's talking to you.

Even though he's clearly a megastar, it's like.

Somebody came up with a theory recently

that a lot of scientists and mathematicians

are just borderline autistic.

I could easily be borderline autistic, you know.

I don't quite get how other people

feel about things sometimes, you know.

- Do you have a girlfriend?

- I don't wan to answer that.

I don't answer those kind of questions.

I thought that one would come up because when I was,

when I was doing the other one,

and somebody said, "What do you think about girls?"

And I said, "I don't answer questions like that."

Is that the reason you're asking it?

I thought so.

The best answer would be to say

that I don't answer questions like that

but, I mean, it was what I said when I was seven,

and it's still the most sensible.

What about them?

- Nick was only 17 when I first met him.

I mean, if he'd been somebody

who had had fixed ideas of a woman's role in marriage

that meant dinner on the table at six every evening.

- Ah, didn't I tell you about that?

- His wife Jackie also taught at the university

and they had a son Adam.

Six years ago, they divorced.

- Well, it was incredibly hard.

What I concluded, and I have talked to other people

about this who've gone through it,

I'm not sure if they feel it as strongly as I did,

but it was like a death.

- Anything could happen.

We could easily drift apart.

There are so many pressures on people.

- If your spouse died, you could look back and think,

well, it was wonderful while it lasted.

But in a divorce, you can't look back and say,

these are all happy memories.

It wasn't my decision.

She went to England.

Her father was ill.

By the time she'd landed, he had died,

and when she came back,

it was like a different person came back.

Was I responsible?

I could have been braver about some things

but if I'd been braver, it might have ended sooner.

You can talk to me by myself outside,

but I'll just meet you by the garage, okay?

All right, bye.

It's enormously hard to deal with.

The worst part of it was seeing how it would affect my son.

- How old was he?

- 10.

When he was first told, he was terribly, terribly upset,

and then he just pulled himself together

and didn't wanna talk about it anymore.

He's made the most of it.

I mean, the best of it.

Made the best that he can of it, I guess.

Take it easy, Adam.

Main thing is not to crash.

- Really?

You don't want me to crash right now?

- How does he deal with it now?

- He doesn't talk to me about it very much at all.

He's a private person.

It's very, very hard for me

to be spending a large part of my time with him not around.

Hi, Graham.

- What you doing?

- What you doing?

I had to go to a graduation.

One of my students was getting his PhD

and he insisted I go there with him,

and I looked around, and the person behind me was Chris.

- Hey, Graham.

- Who is my new wife.

Are you okay?

- Did you fall in love quickly?

- Immediately.

- Except that you decided that if I couldn't find you,

I'd failed the test. - I decided it was his work

to find me.

We did shake hands at the end of graduation,

stood up and said who we were, but he immediately forgot.

He couldn't remember who I was.

- Okay, I know who she is,

so I don't have to worry about this anymore.

So I forgot.

I do, that's very me.

She came down to the student union to meet me

and I barely knew what she looked like.

I looked at her, I guess that's her

and I sort of looked and did this, and she did the same.

She did a mirror image of that gesture,

and I thought, I can't explain what that was

but I just felt

very strongly drawn to her by that little gesture.

- And there was no way I would say no

to being married to this man.

I wanted to be with him.

Has he changed my life?

Dramatically.

Have I changed as a person?

I hope so.

- You'll give them a push?

- I don't mean to be superficial,

but I think she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

- Is he sexy?

- Oh, man.

Absolutely.

Didn't you have fun with that one?

- Graham was very good about the ducks.

The ducks were--

- I only have one child, Courtney,

and he only has one child.

There's a symmetry with that.

- Would you ever have wanted a child of your own,

the two of you?

- Well, absolutely,

but it's not exactly practical, so we're just--

- No.

Of course, Graham has added an element that's just joy.

And I know Nick likes little guys.

He just likes little kids.

- They'd like to come out for a holiday in the country

when we like, when I like to have a holiday in the town.

It is very difficult being in a place

where you're a long way away from all your background,

and you don't have any sort of support network.

- I could try that. - It's frightening.

It's frightening.

- My parents are alive.

They both had very significant health issues.

My father keeps pointing out that old age isn't for sissies.

- You need a secretary.

- Nick has two younger brothers back in England,

Andrew and Christopher.

- Christopher, the deaf one, got divorced,

and he reported to my mother that if Nicky can do it,

then so can I, so that changed.

- Are you missing England?

- I always miss England.

I was really not the sort of person

who should ever have moved very far.

- When he was 42,

we took Nick back to where he had grown up in the Dales.

What did you learn here, do you think,

that you carried with you?

- I sort of feel as if you could look deep

somewhere inside me,

I feel like there's some of this in there somewhere.

I think of it as being magnificent but rather grim, really.

It's very uncompromising, and sometimes it's rather tragic,

but it makes other places you go

seem rather trivial as well.

- We call it one of our Dales rooms.

We have things that reflect the Dales in the room,

we have cards that we framed,

and some of the china from Nick's family

is displayed up here.

- Well, we're driving from Madison to Minneapolis

'cause Chris lives in Minneapolis and I live in Madison,

so we go up and down alternate weekends.

- Does it put a stress on the relationship,

these separations and reuniting?

- I would say absence makes the heart grow fonder, really.

- Chris lives in Minneapolis,

a five-hour drive from Madison,

where she is an associate professor

in the department of education.

- Hey, you wanna see something?

- Work is a big part of both your lives, isn't it?

- It is.

- Yeah, so we're both kind of workaholics.

There's a bit of a comma over there--

- Is there anything that you would like to change?

- It's all right. - Oh, that would be

really risky business, wouldn't it?

- Well, I thought you had changed a few of them, no?

- You know, you don't mess with Mother Nature

in terms of little things,

like how somebody does their toothpaste,

those silly nonsense things.

He would not just say yes, he immediately attended to it.

I had never been with anybody who did,

so you have to be really careful

with what you ask him to do.

Oh, go easy on the butter, please, all right?

- Okay.

- I mean, I could see it being a slippery slope.

I didn't wanna go that way in terms of my

ordering his life. - She didn't want to make

to many demands.

- I didn't want him to be a different person.

- If I can change the world,

I'd change it into a diamond.

I think this film is extremely important.

It's important to me but it seems to be important

to other people as well.

That doesn't make it an easy thing.

It's an incredibly hard thing to be in,

and I can't even begin to describe

how emotionally draining and wrenching it is

just to make the film and to do the interviews,

and that's even when I am pretending

that nobody else is watching it.

- I think it's a heavy reminder that he's missing his roots.

I mean, there are an awful lot of emotions attached

to having a scrapbook that's as vivid as this.

- I'm going to work in Woolworth's.

- Lynn is the third of our East End girls.

She went to primary school with Jackie and Sue,

but chose to go on to a grammar school.

At 21, she set out on a career

as a children's librarian

in a mobile library in East London.

- Have I stamped yours?

- Yes. - Yes.

I've not stamped yours.

"Sleeping Beauty".

Teaching children the beauty of books

and watching their faces

as books unfold to them is just fantastic.

To work with children of that age, you've got to love them,

and I love children.

- Because of cuts in the education budget,

the mobile library was shut down.

At 42, Lynn was working at Bethnal Green Library.

- You can draw better than I can.

Good morning.

- At 49, she's still there.

- Good morning.

- What about you?

- Good morning.

- Are you gonna say hello?

- Good morning.

How are you?

- How much of your work is with people like this?

- Probably 5%.

It's a very, very small part of it

but probably, currently, the most challenging part of it.

- Elephant.

- He's an elephant.

Where's the elephant?

We still get six other schools

regularly send classes in here.

It's busy most days.

- Well, I know he loves her, and he loves her.

- I don't, I love him.

- I've been married a year in a couple of months.

You do think, Christ, what have I done?

- When she was 19, she married Russ.

- We married young,

but because we wanted to go out and have fun together.

30 years, and we're still together.

He's my soul mate, he's my partner.

We respect each other,

hence he's not here, and you will not see him on this film,

because he has always, always felt

that the intrusion into our private life

that this causes is too much.

I wanted white wedding, all trimmings,

and Russ would've been satisfied with very little.

- Are you in love?

- Very, very much.

He knows how much I love him,

and in my heart of hearts, I know how much he loves me.

I put him on the spot sometimes.

If I could, I would have two girls and two boys.

- Yeah, so would I.

- Lynn and Russ have two daughters,

Sarah and Emma.

- Emma's installation coordinator for a window company.

Sarah is an accessories buyer.

It's a family-run business.

- At 42, the girls

were both doing very well at school.

- All right, honey?

- Yeah.

- Neither of the girls went to university?

- No, no.

- Was that disappointing to you?

- No, their choice, we discussed it.

It's what they wanted to do.

They felt that the academic side wasn't for them.

You have to accept that it's their lives,

and you can only guide and be there for them.

- Aw, you boy.

- Where's your drink?

- So you got a grandson?

- He's a lovely lad, he really is.

I'm watching him in the same way.

I mean, from 21 years ago, when I held Sarah up

When she was just born, and now, I am watching Emma now,

and what goes round, comes round

because Emma now says that she says things to Connor

that she can hear me saying to her.

- Rabbits.

- Yeah, you have to look out for their holes.

That still catches me out sometimes

when suddenly I say something

that was purely and utterly me mum.

Sorry.

- So was the arrival of Connor a shock to you?

- No, well, yeah, but, no.

I mean, as soon as Emma was expecting Connor,

got the phone call, "Mum, need to meet you."

So she actually told me face to face that she was expecting.

Fine.

She was 19.

She's old enough.

Probably watching you.

- You'll go to bed as well.

- When she was 34,

Lynn was having health problems.

- Stuck all these tubes up inside me

and discovered that I've got these veins

up here that shouldn't be there.

- In your brain?

- Mm-hmm.

- And what can they do about it?

- Not a lot at the moment.

No change.

It's not going away, but it's no more problems.

Nothing.

I mean, you have the aches and pains of getting older.

I've got bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome in both my wrists.

Guess who had it, my mother.

And that comes and goes, hence, magnetic bracelets,

which help, but you have to overcome it.

What's white?

- Red.

- Yeah, we know that's red. - Yeah, that's red.

- For the last 30 years, bang my head against a brick wall

to maintain children's services,

but this time round, no one's listening.

We've just done purple.

They say that the work that I do that anybody can do it.

- Blue.

- There would be no specialist running it.

One.

I may not have a job.

- Hern loves Tintin.

- Hern absolutely adores Tintin.

Yeah.

It's cost cutting.

- So that's what it's about?

- Yeah.

They would deny that.

Can you speak to me today?

- No. - No?

I see.

- Is it emotionally very demanding

working like this with people like this?

- Yeah, but it's so fulfilling

that, beyond belief.

Azir, can you say it for me?

I know you can.

But are you get, no!

No, you're not gonna do it today.

Azir spoke to me on the phone a couple of years ago.

First time he'd ever spoken to me, and really got me.

It's extremely difficult for him to speak,

and when he does, you know he's making so much effort,

and it gets me.

- Hello.

- Hello.

- Excellent.

Thank you, Azir, thank you.

- You've come a long way

since the back of the van.

- No, no, I was on the back of a bus yesterday.

We took a mobile vehicle out to a school

who was having a book week just round the corner,

and I had forgotten how much it sways.

Where's your stamp?

- Been a hell of a commitment for you, hasn't it?

- Yeah, but.

But it will end.

- But has it been worth it all?

- Yeah, very much.

Come on, speed it up.

All these things that I have said over the years

are flying through my mind at the moment

but, yes, it has been worth it.

And you better cut it 'cause otherwise, I'm gonna cry.

- What do you think about rich people?

- Well, not much.

- Tell me about them.

- Well, they think they can do everything

without you doing it as well.

- Simon was brought up in a children's home,

the only child of a single parent.

- Rich people, they have all different things.

Have everything they want.

Whereas poor people, they don't have nothing,

and they know they haven't got nothing,

and so they know they're missing something.

- What are you missing?

- I'm missing a bike and a fishing rod and.

20 years ago,

when I was born, an illegitimate child,

that's something that's only whispered about.

People feel strongly about it in those days,

but nowadays, it's

it's not a serious matter.

The serious point is whether you stay with somebody

or you leave them.

Since 21,

I've got married, had a couple of kids.

- By 28, he had married Yvonne,

and they had five children.

- Well, I don't think there's anybody else

I could have ever married except Yvonne.

She's been my life, really, because we're together,

we have our children and everything.

- By 35, they were divorced.

At 42, he had married Vienetta.

- We used to go out when we were younger.

- We met in the launderette.

Once a week.

- Once a week at the launderette.

Baked beans.

- Pickles.

- Go and get the water and--

- One stage, we went to marriage guidance

'cause the pressures of being together

were getting to us because we are

two completely different people.

I'm very laid back,

and she always says if I go any further back,

I'll fall over.

- Oh, look, broccoli.

When two people are together

and you both have separate lives,

it is hard, and there are silly things,

like leaving the toilet seat up or something

or when I put something here, I expect to see it there.

Simon can be really untidy.

He'll take everything off and fling it around the house.

- Sorry, dear.

- Don't get it all mixed up.

- Is he romantic?

- If we've had an argument, and he doesn't know

'cause I will shout, and he'll think, what have I done?

And I'll be here, like now, and I'll be here,

and I'd see him with flowers

and a bottle of wine or something,

and he'll say, "I'm sorry, I don't know what I done,

"but I'm sorry."

- Vienetta already had a daughter, Miriam,

and she and Simon have a son, Daniel.

Is there anything of you in him?

- His dashing good looks, yeah.

That's me and his love of sport as well.

He goes to school in Slough,

because that's where they do grammar schools.

He's doing very well there.

They say, "Where's your father then?

"When your mum's out at work, is there your father?"

And I just tell them I ain't got one.

They've got everything.

They've even got what I never had.

- Which is what?

- A father, innit?

So, I mean, they've had everything.

At one stage, they will stop seeing me at all,

but now, bit older, bit wiser,

and I'm a bit older and wiser, and now three of them see me.

Jessica has been very busy herself.

She's got her work, she's got college.

So who do you support?

Your lot comes second.

Jonathan's been in transitional period

with changing jobs and building up his new life.

The two that don't, I can't really see their point of view.

- So what's it like being a grandfather?

- Oh, it's bloody easy, actually.

You can see them all day long and then let them go back.

- And you've got one?

- Two, actually.

One that I see and one that I would only see

if I kept going round to see him.

Otherwise, I wouldn't see him,

so I am waiting for the return visit now.

Before I'm old enough to get a job,

I'd just walk around and see what I can find.

Was gonna be a film star,

but now, I'm gonna be an electrical engineer

which is more to reality, really.

- By 21, Simon was working in the freezer room

of Wall's sausages in London.

- I know I can't stay at Wall's forever.

I mean, it's just not me.

I couldn't stay there for that long.

My mind would go dead.

I'm quite happy to stay there.

Doesn't look like it's gonna close down,

so, I mean, better the devil you know, innit?

- Wall's did close the factory down.

Since then, he has worked near Heathrow Airport

handling freight.

- The only reason I really went there was to work

near to where my son was going to school

so I could drop him off.

- Do you feel you could have done more

with a career with your work?

- If I had pushed myself at school,

probably I could have done a lot better.

- Does that give you pause for thought?

- No, that means I was a lazy sod when I was younger.

Somebody once said that you don't live to work,

you work to live, and that's how it should be.

- Obviously, when children come into foster care,

family and friends are involved as well.

- A couple of years ago, Simon and Vienetta

decided to train as foster parents.

- Went to boarding school when I was young,

and I always felt that was regimental.

It didn't allow for personal care,

for loving from the adult carers,

so I wanted to do something like that for myself

in my own home.

- And we always say to foster carers,

please do not cut the children's hair

without the permission of the parents.

- So what's the toughest thing

about being a foster parent?

- You're taking a chance when you do it

'cause you really don't know what you're getting.

One child had two knives in her hands

because she didn't wanna stay in this country.

Two knives in her hands.

- She threatened you?

- No, she was just a threat to herself.

Some of them come back.

They ring you up and say,

"Hello, auntie, hello, uncle, how are you?"

They come and have Sunday dinner, come and visit us,

which is good.

At least you know you've made a little difference

to that child or that person's life.

- Okay, obviously, we have Heathrow in our borough,

and that gives us extra things

that foster carers might need to do.

- So where are these children coming from

that come to your house?

- Oh, all over the world.

So anywhere.

- Anywhere.

- When they come off the plane,

they expected to be meeting somebody

but that person doesn't turn up.

- Simon.

- How you doing?

- Simon had been at the children's home with Paul,

so we brought Paul back from Australia to reunite them.

- Was it good, though?

- Yeah, yeah.

- You can see Windsor Castle from their house.

- Look at that.

- We don't actually see each other, touch each other,

but we're living each other's lives.

Every seven years, it all comes back

and we get up to this far, and we've done this,

and you've done that.

I remember--

- When they were 21,

we took them back to where they had spent

some of their formative years together.

- Went over four, doesn't it?

Remember him?

- Yeah.

- He was a real bastard.

I do try to be disciplined but I actually hate discipline.

I believe the school has taught me that.

- There's always been a bit of turmoil inside.

I believe that divorce affects children a lot.

- See, I can get on well with my mother sometimes.

We talk very well with each other,

but it's sometimes not quite as mother and son.

- When he was 34, Simon's mother died of cancer.

- There was so many things I never actually said to my mum,

just things you think about afterwards.

It's too late, because they're not there anymore.

- What sort of things?

- Just I love you every day, you know.

Later on in life, I did realise

that she got depressed as well,

so that was probably a bigger reason

than not being able to look after me.

- My mother wrote to me when I was 21,

and I hadn't really had any contact with her.

When I was 21, she come out and visited,

but I did grow up without her,

so it was like looking at a total stranger.

I didn't recognise her at all,

so there was no real in-depth feeling there.

- Paul, get in there next to him as well.

Come on, let me get you organised.

- Are these two guys very alike?

- Well, I think they're alike

because they don't seem to jump into things.

They'll stand back and have a little look at it.

You make them enjoy themselves,

like when we went for a walk around London yesterday,

I said, "You are coming,

"and you are having a good time doing this,"

And he did have a good time doing it, so,

they're both very family-orientated,

and they both married noisy women.

- That's true.

- That works for me.

I had one dream when all the world was on top of me,

and everything was on, and I just about got out,

and everything flew up in the air.

I still look up in the sky, because I don't know any better.

Everything I have, I always think, is that okay?

Is that right that I should have that?

People are undecided about you.

They could be your friend one day and not the next.

I wanted to be a boxer, actor,

but I never actually really wanted them.

I just wanted to be liked.

- Paul actually gets,

that's all he ever wants out of people

is just people to like him for who he is and what he is

without having to put on any false pretences.

I think that's why he doesn't open himself up to people.

- Hello, darling.

- How are you doing?

- Hello.

- Do you have any regrets, the two of you?

- Yes, I do.

That we didn't get together earlier.

- I think marriage is good for me.

- What does she give you?

- Hot dinners and a warm bed.

She gives me a balance in my life because

on my own, I would probably be your typical slob.

Men behaving badly.

We do get things done, and we do things together.

'Cause you've multiplied before, so now you divide it.

- Is it tough for the two of you

being in these films?

- I will say that I do love watching everybody else.

I always hated them, to be honest.

By the end of it, I normally hate you.

Direct all of my anger in one place.

- I read "The Financial Times".

- I read "The Observer" and "The Times".

- What do you like about it?

- Well, I like,

I usually look at the headlines and then read about it.

- At seven years old, John, Andrew and Charles

were in a private preparatory school in London.

- What's the point of the programme?

- It's that the point of the programme

is to reach a comparison.

I don't think it is,

because we're not necessarily typical examples.

- And I think that's what people seeing the programme

might think.

- Yes.

- Falsely.

- That's one of the troubles with this sort of programme.

I don't really think that people like us

unless we are being seven and being rather funny,

have very much to say that's very interesting,

'cause we don't know very much.

- We didn't know very much when we were seven,

but we were still quite funny. - At least funny.

- What do you think about girlfriends at your age?

Tell me what you think--

- I've got one, but I don't think much of her.

They're no longer just bores

who won't play this or something.

- They're the other half of the community

and they're there.

- You can begin to talk to them.

- I don't think I financially come from the same background,

and Andrew didn't go for a haughty deb,

he went for a good Yorkshire lass.

But, I mean, obviously he knew what he wanted.

- Does money concern you a lot?

- No, I think as long as one has enough to be comfortable,

that's really what one should aim for.

- What's the most difficult thing

about keeping the marriage together?

- I don't think it is particularly difficult, actually.

We seem to manage all right, would you say?

- I think so.

We talk, don't we?

- So how is married life?

- Well, I still love him, if that's what you're asking.

- And likewise.

I am going to Charterhouse,

and after that, Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

- Andrew went to Charterhouse and Cambridge

where he read law.

- I'd like to be a solicitor and also fairly successful.

- At 28, Andrew was a solicitor.

What qualities do you think it needs to be successful?

- Well, you have to have a legal ability

in my business, obviously.

- By 35, he had become a partner.

- In a couple of weeks,

we are going be having our legal conference in Dublin.

- At 49, Andrew has left the law firm.

- I've moved to a large industrial gases company

which makes oxygen and nitrogen, hydrogen, things like that.

- Were you taking a chance?

- Yes, I've been at the same firm for over 20 years,

but it's not very challenging, and changing like this,

particularly quite late in your career,

sort of stretches you.

- I think it's not a bad idea to pay for school

because if we didn't, schools would be so nasty and crowded.

- Yes.

- So do I think so, and the people

in the schools wouldn't, and the--

- And the poor people would come rushing in.

- The man in charge of the school would--

- Get very angry.

- Would very angry because he would--

- And he'd get bankrupt.

- He wouldn't be able to pay all the masters

if he didn't get any money.

Education is very important.

I mean, you can never be sure

of leaving your children any worldly goods,

but at least you can be sure

that once you've given them a good education,

that's something that no one can take away.

- Andrew and Jane have two sons,

Alexander and Timothy.

- Alexander's at university.

He's in his first year at Newcastle,

and Timothy's at boarding school.

- I think he'd like to go to university

but I think that's as far as he's got, really.

Maybe even over the summer holidays,

we might start to talk to him about,

are there any universities he would like to go and look at.

- Andrew and Jane live in London,

but they have a second home in the country.

- Well, we bought it about just

when we got married.

It was a 200-year-old barn that we bought in an auction,

completely derelict, nothing in it all except for manure,

and then, slowly over the years,

we've just been converting it.

But it's really taken us up

until fairly recently to do that.

Ollie, come on.

There's a railway line that runs along

the bottom of our land.

There's a foxes' den down there.

We've been seeing a few cubs recently.

- What sort of hobbies does Alexander enjoy?

- Well, on the odd occasion,

he's quite keen on doing what we call dangerous sports.

And we're going to treat him to a balloon ride

sort of in advance of his birthday, which is coming up soon.

- Whoo, here we go.

- See you all.

- See you later.

- I have actually been in a balloon once myself.

It was for my father's birthday,

and it was all going very well until the end,

when we managed to hit some trees and--

- Oh, don't tell me that now.

We landed on the basket, we landed on its side.

- It's very high.

Very high.

- When we landed, there was a request that

all the ladies go downwind

so that we could land on top of them.

Once I had a talk to Greville,

he was in my house, and I asked

if he could put him out of my house

because he was always getting minuses.

- Do you think life is tougher out there

for your children than it was for you?

- Yes, certainly, I think it's much more

competitive for children.

When I leave this school,

I go to Broadstairs, St. Peter's Court.

If you look back at us sitting on the settee

at the age of seven, and I was saying what was I gonna do,

as if my life was mapped out for me.

Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

You know, you could never get a child doing that now

saying, "I'm going to go to Cambridge."

Things have become less certain as a result.

- And you three on that settee

had huge opportunity.

- We did, absolutely, yeah.

- Well, I think boarding makes you feel self-sufficient

and also teaches you to be away

from your parents and to live with people.

- And who was the big influence in your life

in giving you a sense of proportion and value?

- Well, obviously it's your parents.

They bring you up for the first 18 years of your life.

Well, I have my bath at six o'clock and then go to bed at--

- Do you ever look back and think

is there anything you would like to have been

different from what it was?

- I think, from my point of view, perhaps,

as the children were growing up,

I would liked to have spent a bit more time

at home with them rather than in the office

but that's something that it's too late to do now.

So everything we say, they'll think,

oh, that's a typical result of the public school system.

- Yeah.

- When we were seven and 14 and 21,

we were fairly prepared to say what we thought,

but we have become more guarded over the years.

- What are you guarded about?

- I'm guarded about being guarded.

- Here we go, ooh!

- So did you ever fall on the ladies?

- No, the lady fell on me.

But it was my wife, so that was good.

- When I leave school, I am going to the Dragon School,

I might and mum is, and I might go to,

after, I might go to Charterhouse, Marlborough.

I don't particularly want to be rich

but I'd like to have enough money.

- Charles went to Marlborough

and then onto Durham University.

Since 21, he's taken no further part in these films.

- When I leave this school, I'm going to Colet Court,

and then I will be going to Westminster boarding school

if I pass the exam,

and then we think I'm going to Cambridge and Trinity Hall.

- John went to Westminster,

then onto read law at Christ Church, Oxford.

- I'm thinking of following a legal career

with a view to ending in parliament.

Might be at the bar.

- Doing what?

- Perhaps chancery practise.

I now have a career.

I'm a barrister.

Other than that, life chugs along in varying degrees.

Well, in a sense, not very much has changed

in my career over the last 14 years.

I'm still a barrister, I still wear a curly white wig.

The only visible difference, I suppose,

is I wear a silk gown, because I am now a QC.

- Are you ambitious?

- Yes.

- What for?

- Fame and power.

- What sort of power?

- Political power.

I would quite like to go into politics,

but, I mean, that's easier said than done.

- Meet Morris.

- I have actually thought about whether I shouldn't try

and get myself onto the candidates' list

but who knows?

I haven't written myself off as a potential politician,

even though I am already 49.

I worry about the quality of our democracy.

I worry in particular about this government,

not because they're socialists

and they're to round us all up

and take us off to Trafalgar Square in tumbrels

to face the guillotine.

Far from it.

In fact, Tony Blair is a very good conservative,

as I see it, but rather because of the insidious damage

they're doing to our constitution.

- Rich children always make fun of poor children, I think.

- Yes. - Yes.

- It's very irresponsible because we all want more money,

as much money as we can get.

The acquisition of sacks and sacks of money

is not something that I set much importance by.

I'm not money-minded, I would say, in that sense.

I mean, obviously it's nice to have a fair amount of money,

and money does enable you to go on nice holidays,

buy nice things, so on and so forth,

but as a goal in itself, no.

I mean, who wants to be the richest corpse in the graveyard?

- By the time he was 34,

John had a house in London and another in the country.

- I seem to spend an awful lot of my time

gardening furiously, trying to tame the wilderness

that we inherited there.

I'd have laughed if 10 years ago,

you'd have told me that I would spend most of my time

digging herbaceous borders and things,

but that's what I seem to do, and I enjoy it.

One good thing about having quite a large house

in the country now

is that I have taken up playing the piano.

- It's a very nonchalant little theme,

butter wouldn't melt in its mouth,

so take it very quietly and let it present itself.

Off.

- A couple of years ago,

I did start again and even practising,

but I am afraid I've lost an awful lot of dexterity.

Whether it's old age and arthritis,

or whether it's falling off horses too many times,

I don't know but, I mean, I don't feel I've got quite

the dexterity in my fingers.

- Certainly, I can never tell the difference

between you playing and the CD playing

when I'm out of the room.

Yeah, very good, very good.

- Well, she's very diplomatic.

- No, no.

- When boys go round with girls,

they don't pay attention to what they're doing.

Since my grandmother had an accident

because a boyfriend was kissing his girlfriend

in the street.

- By 35, John had married Claire,

the daughter of a former ambassador to Bulgaria.

- It is coincidental that we met

but it's obvious that the Balkan connection

was a strong mutual interest.

- We have a charity, Friends of Bulgaria,

which started in 1991,

which actually made quite a lot of money

which we invested in medicine and took out to Bulgaria.

We support some children's homes in Stara Zagora,

an institution for disabled children,

and we make donations to other charities.

People who go on about the government

butchering the national health service

I think should come over to Bulgaria

to see what being kept short of necessary supplies

and funds really does mean.

We've been told that in some places,

it's impossible to do even operations,

albeit they have the operating theatres

and they have excellent doctors

for want of simple anaesthetics.

Up till then, there'd been no provision

for education of disabled children,

so we started what was called a Parallelca,

which is parallel education for the disabled,

and we've now got two classes here.

What is your name?

- My name Desis Desteanna.

- Cristo Christoff.

Claire and I have been giving prizes

to the most talented children in this town.

The school that we're in was actually built by my family

at the end of the 19th century

and they also used to present prizes

to the best children from the school each year

right until the advent of communism in 1944.

I come from a very old family

with big traditions of service to this country,

and, really, when I come here,

I feel very proud of them because I feel, in so many ways,

they've helped build Bulgaria.

This church is quite interesting.

It was built by my great-great-great grandfather in 1834.

They say he made off with eight tonnes of gold,

and even today, the mountains here

are full of treasure hunters

who keep digging up all the caves and everything

in the hope of finding the treasure.

I wish I could find it.

I mean, once I'd refunded my equitable life pension fund,

I reckon if I shoot the horses, shoot the wife

and only drink Bulgarian wine,

I may be able to retire age 94 or something.

Straw Macanessy got three minuses in a day.

He's a pest.

It has to be said that I bitterly regret

that the headmaster of the school

where I was when I was seven

pushed me forward for this series, 'cause every seven years,

a little pill of poison is injected into--

- Oh, no.

- Well, it's the truth.

There are times when I have felt appearing on this

may get causes near to my heart a bit of publicity

and certainly, when you came to Bulgaria

for the "35 Up" programme,

that did lead to us getting quite significant assistance

which possibly we wouldn't have got.

Well, I think it's a very good system.

I suspect that why this programme

is compelling and interesting for viewers,

and I quite see why it is, is because, really,

it's like "Big Brother" or I'm a celebrity,

get me out of here!

It is actually real-life TV

and with the added bonus that you can see people grow old,

lose their hair, get fat.

Fascinating, I'm sure, but does it have any value?

That's a different question.

- Well, we pretend we've got swords,

and we make the noise of the swords fighting,

and once somebody stabs us, we go, ahh!

- Neil grew up in a Liverpool suburb.

He had dreams of going to Oxford, but didn't get in.

Instead, he went to Aberdeen University,

but dropped out after the first term.

At 21, he was working on a building site

and living in a squat.

- I would like to be somebody in a position of importance,

I have always thought

but I don't think I'm the right sort of person

to carry the responsibility for whatever it is.

I always thought well I'd love to be,

possibly love to be in politics or something like this.

- By 28, he was homeless,

wandering around the west coast of Scotland.

- If the money runs out, well, then, for a few days,

there's nowhere to go to, and that's all you can do.

I simply have to find the warmest shed I can find.

- How do people regard you here?

- Well, I'm still known as an eccentric.

I'm not claiming that I feel as though

I am in some sort of nirvana,

but I am claiming that if I was living

in a bedsit in suburbia,

I'd be so miserable, I'd feel like cutting my throat.

- At 35, we found him living in a council estate

on the most northerly part of Britain,

the Shetland Islands.

- It's an environment which sustains me,

it's one in which I can survive.

The reason I don't feel safe

is because I think I am getting more and more used

to this lifestyle, which eventually,

I shall have to give up.

- And what would you like to be doing,

say, in seven years?

- I can think of all kinds of things I'd like to be doing.

The real question is, what am I likely to be doing?

- What are you likely to be doing?

- That's a horrible question.

I tend to think the most likely answer

is that I'll be wandering homeless

round the streets of London,

but with a bit of luck, that won't happen.

Can I just point out some of the considerable disadvantages?

First of all, they are geographically--

- By 42, Neil had moved to London

and was a Liberal Democrat on Hackney Council.

- Public transport.

While I was in Shetland, I felt very strongly

that I should become involved in politics,

simply because I felt I was not achieving anything

in the ways I really wanted to.

- So, didn't expect to see you driving, Neil.

- Well, neither,

if you'd asked me that question a few years ago,

I would have been surprised

but it was my brother's wife's car, and fortunately,

she was about to change vehicles at the time,

and they let me have it without charge,

which was really a very magnanimous gesture.

- At 49, Neil has left London,

moved to Cumbria in the north west of England

and become a member of the local district council.

- Fairly simple.

It was a committee decision, majority decision.

His own group on the establishment committee

agreed with the decision.

Councillor Hughes.

- Well, for Councillor Niland's information,

Councillor Cook has reconsidered his opinion

he ventured at that meeting.

I'm a Liberal Democrat,

I'm standing for the county council for this seat

which is 400 square miles in size,

so it's a huge, a huge constituency,

and this is only one of the 84 seats.

- Who has the seat at the moment?

- It's a conservative councillor at the moment.

- Big majority?

- Significant.

There's a lot of work for me to do,

if not this time, maybe next time.

- What are the chances this time?

- I'm doing my best.

Funnily enough, when I first came up here,

I was considering giving it up altogether,

but after only about two days, I just got involved again,

so maybe it's impossible to give up politics.

- I have a great deal of respect for the Liberal Democrats,

but I think that I won't vote for them this time

because I'll vote for Mr. McClain.

And in particular, he's keen on to preserve our way of life

in the country with hunting, in particular.

- Well, it's gonna very disadvantage us

because we have changed our farming policy

since foot and mouth or any type of dairy cows.

- Certainly more people vote,

perhaps they see the impact on their lives more starkly

than people do in the city.

I found in London, many parts of London,

there was a huge apathy because it seemed,

like they used to say,

"It doesn't matter who you vote for,

"the government always gets in."

- When I saw you seven years ago,

you seemed content, happy in London, so why the change?

- I neither felt that I was satisfying

the community around me,

nor did I feel I was satisfying myself,

and that was obviously not an ideal situation.

- At 42, when Neil first arrived in London

from the Shetland Islands, he lodged with Bruce.

- He was a model host,

although he did always insist on measuring

the amount of bathwater that was in the bath,

and I am not quite sure why that was.

- He'd find the fridge a bit noisy, so he would turn it off,

or if I had to Hoover, he'd walk round the block or--

- No, I accept that I wasn't the model lodger in every way

and, however, that only emphasises

how patient you actually were.

- No.

- I've had little contact with Bruce.

We've exchanged one or two letters,

but maybe ours was a friendship which flourished

and it was a genuine friendship

in the circumstances in which we found ourselves in London.

- I think that's what happens in life,

that people you're close to,

and then circumstances drift you apart,

and you find other people,

and you wonder now and again what's happening to them

and hope they're all right, but that's what happens in life.

- In the winter, if you lived in the country,

well, it was just all wet,

and there wouldn't be anything for miles around.

I feel, especially sometimes when I'm on my own,

that I'm losing touch with the way other people live.

- Do you worry about your sanity?

- Other people sometimes worry about it.

- Like who?

- As I said, I sometimes can be found

behaving in an erratic fashion.

Sometimes, I get very frustrated, very angry

for no apparent reason,

for a reason which won't be apparent

to other people around me.

- Do you ever think you're going mad?

- I don't think it, I know it.

We're not allowed to use the word mad but...

I think most people are mad here, really.

- How's your health?

- It's probably very good at the moment,

and living in this rural setting

is obviously healthier than living in the middle of a city.

There is less stress.

I ended up with a former council flat,

which is nothing luxurious, but I was lucky to get it,

and as soon as I could see the view out of my window,

across the stream and trees and the hills in the background,

I knew I was in the right place.

I know that many people

say they feel closer to God in the countryside.

I wouldn't wanna be simplistic about it,

but because one is much closer to natural life,

one's therefore much closer to the springs of life.

Yes, I'd say I believed in God.

- Are you religious?

- Well, I go to church with me parents on Sundays.

I don't know even now whether I do believe in God or not.

I've thought an awful lot about it, actually,

and I still don't know.

- How has he been treating you?

- Well, I said to somebody last week

that I preferred the Old Testament to the New Testament,

because in the Old Testament,

God is very unpredictable,

and that's, I think, how I see him in my life.

♪ My Jesus ♪

♪ My saviour ♪

♪ Lord, there is none like you ♪

♪ Tower of refuge and strength ♪

- I bring Jim and Ann

and Bruce and Julia and--

- Doreen.

- And Doreen as well and also.

I was first a lay reader in London.

After completing a little more training,

I was re-licensed by the bishop of Carlisle.

Nature's lovely, nature's made by God, but it's lovely.

Gives me the peace of mind to accept

when things don't go the way they want to.

Politics can be a very bruising game.

I will maintain my faith, I will continue to trust in God.

- Yes.

- I'm absolutely sure that my faith

has helped me through these difficult times.

- Would you ever see having a career

in the church?

- While I have a dedication to the church,

I haven't experienced

what I'd call a calling into the priesthood

or anything of that kind,

so the answer is no at the moment.

When I grow up, I wanna be an astronaut,

but if I can't be an astronaut,

I think I'll be a coach driver.

If the state didn't give us any money,

it would probably just mean crime,

and I am glad I didn't have to steal to keep myself alive.

- Neil spends one day a week

doing voluntary work for Oxfam.

- Bernard, can you tell me why people keep putting non.

I enjoy doing this, it's relaxing.

I love books, and I enjoy the company here as well.

I'd much rather have a full-time job where I was being paid,

but because of the council work I do,

I really want a job in the rest of my time

that isn't too stressful.

Well, these are all 6.99 new,

so I am putting them in at 1.99.

I get just over 200 pound a month allowance

for being a councillor.

On top of that, I get nine pound a week

Jobseeker's Allowance,

and because I am entitled to the Jobseeker's Allowance,

I get my housing benefits as well, which pays my rent.

I did some teaching of French

to young children last year for a while,

and that was very useful income while I did it.

When I go home, I come in, and mummy gives me a cup of tea.

I don't think I was really taught

any sort of policy of living at all by my parents.

This is probably the biggest mistake.

I was just left to fend for myself in a world

which they seem completely oblivious of.

What I'd like most of all would be,

would be to be able to do something for my parents

when they're older, to be there when the time's necessary.

Well, my father died five years ago,

I do feel, however,

that I'm a little nearer to my mother since then,

but both geographically and possibly emotionally,

it's never been an easy relationship,

and I am not claiming that everything is healed now

but I feel I can speak to my mother.

- Do you miss your dad?

- I had a great relationship with my father

when I was much younger.

My relationship with him did deteriorate as I got older.

I sometimes felt that he made the wrong decision

in advice he'd given me or things he'd done

but then, obviously, he had his own life to lead

and just a few months before he died,

we went together to a cricket match.

Well, we had what I knew would probably

be the last long talk we would have

because he was dying at the time then,

and I felt that we were both relaxed

because we were doing something we enjoyed doing,

which was relaxing in the sunshine and watching sport

so I felt that some way of some bridging of the gap

did take place that day.

When I get married, I don't want to have any children,

because they are always doing naughty things

and making the whole house untidy.

I always told myself that I would never have children.

- Why?

Because, because well,

because children inherit something from their parents,

and even if my wife were the most high-spirited

and ordinary and normal of people,

the child would still stand a very fair chance

of being not totally full of happiness

because of what he or she will have inherited from me.

No, I've never married

and I don't have a girlfriend at the moment, and I've,

it's one of the regrets of my life, actually,

that I've not met somebody of the other sex

I thought I could have a more permanent relationship with,

but I'm probably not the easiest of people to get on with.

I did have one girlfriend for close on two years,

so maybe I'm not as completely hopeless a character

as might appear to be the case.

- Do you miss a physical side,

a sexual side in your life?

- Well, I am a physical person,

so I imagine I could be happy

in a lasting relationship with somebody

but you have to make do with the reality,

and there are many things that might have happened

in my life that haven't happened,

and there is little point in being regretful

and angry about that.

- You seem to have such much stronger

sense of purpose to your life than you've had before.

- I see that life comes once, and it's quite short,

and you have to appreciate what's good in it,

and if I could just tell a short story.

I was just sunbathing and a butterfly

landed quite close to me,

beautiful wings, deep red colours

and white sort of circles on them

and these creatures don't last very long

but it landed very close to me.

It didn't seem frightened.

And it just seemed to delight

in opening and closing its wings

and just actually being beautiful for that period of time,

enjoying the sunshine, and perhaps,

there isn't actually any more to life than that

than just being what you are,

realising that life goes on all around,

and there are millions of other living creatures

who all have to find their paths as well.

- Whee!

- At the end of their very special day in London,

after their trip to the zoo and the party,

we took our children to an adventure playground

where they could do just what they liked.

Those from the children's home set about building a house.

There's Nicholas.

And Tony.

Andrew.

John.

And Bruce.

Suzie.

Jackie and her friends.

Give me a child until he is seven

and I will give you the man.

This has been a glimpse of Britain's future.