Original subtitles

'In 1964,

'Granada Television brought together a group of seven-year-olds.'

When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut.

'We have followed their lives, every seven years.'

I don't want to keep still.

Life don't wait for nobody.

'They talked about their dreams...'

If I could, I'd have two girls and two boys.

'Their ambitions...'

I would quite like to go into politics.

'And their fears for the future.'

Life is what happens while you're waiting for something else.

I don't think life is there to be regretted.

You got to make the most of it while you've got it.

That's how you become the person you are.

It's a picture of how any person... how they change.

Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.

Is it important to fight?

Yes.

'Tony was brought up in the East End of London.'

I want to be a jockey when I grow up.

Yeah, I want to be a jockey when I grow up!

'At 14, he was already an apprentice

'at Tommy Gosling's racing stable at Epsom.'

'At 14, he'd left school.'

This is a photo finish when I rode at Newbury.

I'm the one with the white cap.

I was beaten a length and a half for third

and had a photo finish.

Do you regret not making it?

I would have given my right arm at the time to become a jockey.

But now...

..I wasn't good enough.

My greatest fulfilment in life...

..when I rode at Kempton in the same race as Lester Piggott.

Proudest day of my life.

What will you do if you don't make it as a jockey?

I don't know.

If I knew I couldn't be one, I would get out of the game.

Wouldn't bother.

What do you think you would do then?

Learn on taxis.

'At 21, he was on The Knowledge.

'And by 28, he owned his own cab.'

I'll give you the story, which happened.

The doorman called me up

and it was Buzz Aldrin, the spaceman.

And we drove out of the forecourt of the hotel

and a cab pulled up and taxi driver said,

"Can you get his autograph?"

So I heard it and say,

"Mr Aldrin, can I have your autograph, please?"

And the cabbie said, "No, I don't want his autograph,

"I want your autograph."

And I couldn't believe it and I said, "You're joking, ain't ya?!"

And to this day, I thought to myself,

"I'm more famous than Buzz Aldrin!

"He was the second man to land on the moon!"

'At 42, Tony had left the East End

'and moved the family to Woodford in Essex.'

Well, I think we overspent about...

Well, a colossal amount.

Thousands.

'At 49, they had taken out a second mortgage on the London house

'and put the money into a holiday home in Spain.'

So, it's seven years since we did this.

Flown by, Michael. Just gone.

What's life been like since we did 56 UP?

Well, when we had our last interview, if you remember,

I was in Spain and I was looking for a business to sort of set up.

From here, there's going to be all commercial units here.

My intentions would be to turn one of these units into a sports bar.

Did you have financial difficulties?

There was no money out there.

All the businesses started to close.

Aldi had come along and built a brand-new supermarket there.

So all my aspirations and dreams went out the window.

People kept coming back from their dream, also evaporating,

and they come back.

So, my wife and I decided to pack up and come back

and sell our house and consolidate all our finances.

I wish I was still there.

And I wish it was a vibrant city which I could have had an input in.

Because I would have loved to have maintained my property out there.

It was a dream come true for a boy in the buildings.

You must understand.

I'm only a cabbie.

Have you got a girlfriend?

Nope.

Would you like to have a girlfriend?

Nope.

Do you understand the four Fs?

Find them, feed them... And forget them.

For the other F I'll let you use your own discriminish...

I mean, this one, I tried to do the three Fs...

..but I couldn't forget her.

And why did you fall in love with him?

Dunno.

I don't know how you put up with me for so long.

I don't know how. Sometimes, I don't know how I stand him.

I'm not proud at all to say this,

but situations arise that...

..I have had regretful behaviour at various times.

But...

Through... You got caught.

Yeah, all right... And that was it.

I owe Debbie everything because she stuck by me.

And then...

..at the end of it...

..I still love her so.

And that's the reason why.

So, is this a tough time for cabbies at the moment?

Uber and all these other companies trying to take a piece of the cake

they're coming in and they're getting licenses willy-nilly.

Is there are war going on between cabbies and Uber?

What they've done to the cab trade with a 240-year-old history

I cannot stress enough.

So, all the cabbies, 4,000 of us,

we got our placards,

we marched to Downing Street on a demonstration.

And, er, I for one will be there again,

beating my drum for the black taxi trade.

How much have you lost in yearly salary?

I would certainly say a third, which is a big kick in the rear.

And it's really hurtful.

And what about Debbie? Has she been hit by it?

Well, of course! We've all been hit by it.

That's why I'm back in Essex now.

Come on, Daisy. Come on.

Look at the head on that horse.

Ah, lovely.

Really, it was me.

I decided that I wanted to move from where we used to live.

And I come up here one day and this one was up for sale.

And then he came up here... I saw the horses.

And he saw the horses out here and he fell in love with it.

You've got to be 40 years old to live here,

you got a lot of elderly people here,

but there are ex-old East Enders

and they're all sort of like, you know, traditional East Enders.

It's all forest round here.

Got a little pub up the road,

if you go up there you can get pie-eyed

and walk down if you want.

Nature is the winner for me.

I come home at night, I see foxes running about,

reindeers at one o'clock in the morning

after I done a night's work in my cab.

Life couldn't be better, really, living up here.

How is life going for you two? In your marriage?

It's solid. Would you say it's solid?

Yeah. It's good at the moment. Yeah.

We've overcome a lot of ups and downs, but who don't?

Do you notice a change in each other?

Have we? Or what? I don't know.

Not really. He's never changed, has he?

He seems to me more grown-up, more mature and everything.

Yeah, well, I don't know about that, but...

But no, I mean, he is what he is. And nothing's gonna change him.

There is only one ambition I have, really.

I want a baby son.

If I see my baby son, that will be my ambition fulfilled.

No-one knows that. Only you, now.

'Debbie and Tony have three children.

'Nicky, Jodie and Perry.'

Nicky, as you know, he was a French polisher,

which is a dying trade in England.

So we funded him, me and Debbie, on The Knowledge.

I couldn't ask for more.

To be more proud when he got his badge,

it was... it was a gift from God for what happened.

Perry's at college at the moment.

Training to be a TA, teacher's assistant.

Because she wants a job that fits in with the schools.

High five?

Whoever wins gets a packet of sweets, agree?

We've got six grandchildren.

The three young kids, Perry's kids, my youngest daughter.

Quick!

If it goes in, you get a fiver!

Jodie's still trying to find her way in life.

She's 37 now.

Life's not been too good for her at this present time.

Debbie and I do everything we can to get her back on her feet and...

Excuse me.

When you visually see it happening,

you can see the change in her attitude,

you can see the change in her appearance,

it's not a nice place to be.

Watching your daughter struggle.

'Jodie has a daughter, Toni.'

Debbie and I brought her up, solely.

All I can say is, she's turned out beautiful.

We're very proud of Toni,

she's had to overcome a lot in her life,

but she's doing well.

Do you know all the girls and all the kids that are going?

She works hard in the pub,

she saves her own money,

she's got her own independence.

An old head on young shoulders, Michael.

She's very, very efficient.

I'm in two golf societies.

And who are the guys you play with?

Well, they're mostly publicans or taxi drivers, you know.

We always end up, you know, have a small bet.

It's good. Great shot! Great shot.

A tenner a man, OK?

No, Tone, no. Fiver. You took our money last week.

Give us all a chance, would you?

That's got 460 on the metre, that has.

So, how is your health these days?

I've got DVT, which is deep vein thrombosis,

a condition from my family, from my brother,

my sister, we've all been affected by DVT

and I'm on warfarin now for the rest of my life

because I did have a pulmonary embolism

which I had a blockage and it went to my lung.

If it had gone to my brain, or my heart,

then I wouldn't be having this interview with you now.

Nice one. That's in.

I'm more health conscientious than I've ever been, really.

Well, you ain't, cos you eat a lot of chocolate.

Well, I accept that, that's fair enough.

That's not health-conscious, is it? All right, I'll give you that one.

But I don't smoke and I don't drink and trust me, I exercise.

Most of all, I don't do any...

What do they call it?

Yeah, all right.

That's machinery under there, too. That's not... That's not mine.

'In 1964, we asked Tony what he thought

'about the English class system.'

The posh 'uns: "Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes."

They're nuts!

Just have to Tash 'em.

If you've got to work for it

and it's them, you just ask for money and get it.

And they can buy what they want.

54 to 20, Boris.

I'm one of the tail end.

You think East End boy, you know, he ain't got a no good education.

All of a sudden, the East End boy's got a car,

motorbike and goes to Spain every year.

There is no education in this world.

It's just one big rat race

and you've got to kill your man next to you to get in front of him.

At the end of the day, it's always them and us.

And for me, it's still them and us.

Obviously if you come from a bit of a silver spoon,

you're going to get more attractive jobs and easier life.

And an easier success.

But that don't mean they don't have to work for it.

I feel that the economy will bust within five years.

Because people like myself, have been giving and giving all the time.

We're paying. And someone's getting it.

At our expense.

What's your feeling about Brexit?

Brexit? Well, I was a leaver.

I wanted to pass in my cab at the House of Commons

and look out and think to myself, that's where we make the decisions.

Like, Great Britain.

And I thought to myself, you know, this is what I wanted.

But then again, they moved the goalposts.

And even now, nearly two years down the line,

I'm even getting second thoughts that we should have remained.

I would never vote Tory again.

And I've been a Tory voter for all of my life.

And probably I might even vote for the Greens.

Do you have much to do with villains?

I wouldn't say I'm a villain myself.

I don't go thieving and I don't do anybody any harm, fighting-wise.

Does it worry you the possibility of becoming one of them?

How can I... how can I become a villain?

If it's not in you, if it's not born in you, you won't become one.

You had visions of me being in the nick in the next seven years,

you know, and, um...

you made a great mistake there, Michael.

Well, thank God, yeah.

It seemed possible, because things were pretty rough.

I was 21.

Everyone's allowed to be 21.

Four to one, Cooladine... Four-and-a-half 40s.

If your father gambles. I'll try my luck, see what he does.

I never had visions of me being anything else

other than a good citizen.

I mean, I am a cheeky chappie and I'll accept that

and I'll promise... Sometimes I push the barrier to the limits.

But in saying that, you are giving your truthful opinion

at that particular time

and I've always worn my heart on the sleeve

I have always, I like to think so, give you a credible,

truthful, honest opinion of what is going on in my life,

I mean, that's the way that I am.

Tell me something, what do you want to be a cab-driver for, mate?

All the holidays in Spain every year?

But, son, it's hard work out there, mate.

You're not reaching me yet.

No, you're not getting to me. All right?

Now, be bigger, dominate me.

All right? Son...

'At 28, Tony was taking acting lessons.

'Now he supplements his income with occasional TV jobs.'

Oy!

That's all I got on me.

Mate, if I had a pound for every time I heard that,

I'd be a rich man.

It's exciting times for me.

Because I got a part in a film and it's showing a premiere tonight.

I've been struggling as a film extra in 1976

when I first started on The Sweeney.

Last year was The Child In Time

with Benedict Cumberbatch,

Debbie is over there at the bar.

She's a bit nervous about it.

I mean, hopefully I've come out with some credibility on the part.

Most of all, I wanted to say to her if she sees her husband

up there rather than the character, then I know I haven't done my job.

You fucking tell that Chinaman

he'll be in there eating egg fried rice in a minute!

What's the matter with you?

It's called 90 Minutes.

But the best thing about it was the cast and crew

all become one big family and it was a joy to go and work

at Hackney Marshes, incidentally,

where I used to play football and referee.

And it was like going home.

Would everybody please sit round now, get on with their work.

I don't want to see any backs to me. Tony, do you hear as well?

One of the things at the beginning of the programme is,

"show me the child and I will show you the man."

Erm, you look at me at seven.

And you look at me even now at 63.

There's no possible way that you can't say that's not him now

and that's not him then.

You got it right with me.

I read the Financial Times.

I read The Observer and The Times.

I'm going to Charterhouse.

And after that, to 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 do you think about girlfriends at your age?

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

They're no longer just bores.

Who won't play this, or something.

And you can begin to talk to them.

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.

'By the time he was 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, Alexander

and a couple of years later, Timothy.

'By 34, he had become a partner in his law firm.'

Smile!

'Later, he joined the legal department

'of a large British industrial company.

'A few years after, they were taken over by a German firm.'

So, how are the other members of the family?

Well, Alexander, who was going out with Philippa when we last met,

got married about three-and-a-half years ago.

And they are now both working and living in London.

Timothy worked for a management consultancy in the IT area

and then decided to specialise in IT

and has gone to Birmingham University

and he's reading computer science there.

'Andrew and Jane live in London,

'but they have a second home in the country.'

Well, we bought it just about when we got married.

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

Completely derelict, nothing in it at all except for manure.

I remember the garden when you were up to your eyeballs

in weeds and stuff like that.

Well, we moved in about 35 years ago

and we've been working on it ever since, really.

It's a never ending job.

I think the country has helped with him relaxing

when he's had very intense periods of working.

Don't you ever have any arguments or disagreements?

Of course we do.

And how do you tend to sort them out?

Jane is always right.

If only.

He's quite strong in his decisions.

And I'm not.

So, it really compliments me

that he can help me to make a decision when I'm umming and ahhing.

Now, you be careful, sweetheart. Yeah, I will, I'll be careful.

I think I'll hold the ladder for you.OK, thank you.

The latest thing we did, we went to Japan a few years ago,

and we saw some very nice Japanese gardens in Kyoto.

And we decided we would have a go

at doing something like that here as well.

The most dangerous things I do, climb up that ladder.

Work is pretty stressful, isn't it?

Yeah, I'm pretty used to it now, I've been doing it for 40 years,

so, you get pretty used to it.

Erm, but in fact, I'm retiring at the end of this year.

Which I'm looking forward to.

Come on, Millie, let's go. Where are we going?

One of the reasons why I wanted to retire now

is really because we're relatively young.

To make the most of that time.

We're in a bit of a sweet spot now,

I think, in terms of going travelling and so on.

Maybe in five, ten years' time that won't be possible.

And the worst thing is, you hear about people who retire

and then just drop dead.

Looking back, I would have liked to have spent a bit more

time with the family.

You know, rather than giving so much priority to work.

When you're young and trying to make your career, it all seems

terribly important to you to spend that extra few hours at the office.

But in the scheme of things,

it probably would have been better to,

you know, go to the school play, or the sports day or whatever.

My mother died three years ago

and that was quite sad to see her deteriorate.

Yeah. You realise what's in store for you.

You can never be sure of leaving your children any worldly goods,

but at least you can be sure that once you give them

a good education that's something that no-one can take away.

Did you ever resent going to boarding school?

I did go very young and we did decide that we would not

send our children to boarding school at such young an age.

I think it's still an age when you really want to be the one

who has the most influence on their lives rather than

them spending their lives with some third-party

who's going to influence them.

The dream for us is that our children have

a happy and fulfilling life. Do you think you have?

Yeah, I think I've been very fortunate.

But you worked for it.

Yes. As they will have to.

When I go home, I have tea.

Then I practice my piano, and then I...

One of the things about the series is the idea that you see the man

in the child. Is that true?

Obviously, at the age of seven,

you're very much a product of your upbringing up to then.

I can have quite strong feelings,

but Jane has been quite a good influence on me over the years.

Thank you. Making me more mellow.

Including in my driving and that sort of thing.

Do you think there's any truth in the ideas behind the programme

that certain people have more options than others

and this is an undesirable?

We do have more options.

And it is undesirable but it's very difficult to correct.

I think the class system itself is now based more on fame

and what you've achieved in financial terms.

Achievement is obviously more appropriate

than what class you were born into.

What's it actually been like being in the programme?

I certainly don't look forward to it every seven years,

because I don't have a particularly good memory,

it's quite interesting to me to see what I was like

when I was younger as well.

I think we still all feel very nervous doing this,

but I suppose as you get a bit older, you feel less inhibited.

Maybe going back to what you were like...

Not quite going back to what you like when you're seven,

but you've got less to lose, I guess.

If we did all love Geoffrey and we all want to marry him,

I think I know the one that he'd like best. And that's her.

She keeps changing her mind, though.Yeah.

I don't know which one, really.

'Sue grew up in the East End of London.'

I don't think I'd...

..get married too early.

I'd like to have a full life first.

Marriage means a different thing to me.

I still got my ideals about marriage,

I dunno what it's all about.

'Sue was 24 when she married Billy.

'And they had two children.' 60.

To get married young, there must be things that you miss.

You must miss that crucial stage

of being yourself,

because the minute you get married, you're no longer a single being.

You're a partnership, and that should be the idea behind it.

'By the time Sue was 34, she was divorced.'

I've never sat down and thought,

"What was it? Was it this, was it that?"

I just knew it wasn't working.

I mean, there have been relationships

when I could have settled, but they didn't feel quite right.

So I've always come away and pulled away and just waited

until the right one came along.

If they ever do.

♪ ..said you'd be coming back this way... ♪

'At 42, when we filmed Sue in the karaoke bar,

'she brought Glenn along to watch her sing.'

♪ Baby, baby, baby, oh, baby... ♪

Well, we've been engaged now for about 14 years!

I'm not beating any records, but it's quite a long time, innit, yeah?

Where you going?

So, what is the status with you and Glenn?

We are still in the middle of the longest engagement known to man.

We've been together now over 20 years, still not married,

never say never...

But no plans.

Goldfish. See? Oh, yeah, yeah.

We're both fine as it is.

If we do it, it's just gonna be, "let's do it."

A spur of the moment thing.

We love each other, we've got a nice life.

He came along at the right time for me.

I've been on my own with the kids for quite a few years.

He probably had the worst years, really.

The teenage years, but he stuck around, bless him.

He's been so supportive.

There's been some medical stuff and scary stuff going on,

and he's been there and he's been my rock.

Sometimes we go and play nicely with the boys and sometimes we go

and argue with boys.

He's having a new love in his life

which has been very, very difficult for me...

Who are you on the phone to?

What do you mean?

Motorbikes. God!

But...

..he does like me to get involved in this,

and I won't get on the back of it, not yet.

Maybe when he's had a few more years of experience under his belt.

Have you and Glenn thought of having your own child?

Well, Glenn got with me

when I was in my 40s and I didn't want to do all that again.

I would have loved to have had a baby,

because he would make a wonderful parent.

But the timing was off.

So she's your baby?

She's my new baby, yeah. My kids are my babies, but she's my new baby.

She's our baby.

Mine and Glenn's.

We lost our Jesse and Jesse was the star.

She got to a good old age and we lost her.

The grief is unbearable when you lose a dog.

People with pets will know.

And then a friend of mine asked me to take her dog.

And they brought her round to meet us. Well...

It was like, "Well, how could you not love her? She's gorgeous."

Hang on, Molls.

I do quite a bit of typing,

but a lot of my work is involved in making bookings

and dealing with hotels abroad.

'At 21, Sue worked for a travel agent.

'At 34, part-time for a building society.'

Everything has changed for me

cos I'm now supporting myself a lot more.

'At 42, she went back to work full-time.

'Helping to run the courses

'in the legal faculty of Queen Mary College, University of London.

'At 49, she was the main administrator for their

'post-graduate programme.'

Do you like the responsibility? Yeah, I love the responsibility.

I think I was born for the responsibility.

You can't do two modules that are taught

taught at the same time, obviously.

It's physically impossible for us to timetable every single module...

Nothing has really changed, I'm still working for Queen Mary,

20 years under my belt. But I still enjoy it.

Once you get to your 60s, it all gets a bit,

"Ah, how long have we got now? How many years?"

Counting down. But no. Still got the energy, thank goodness.

So what happens when you get to your 70s, do you think?

Oh, God...

You tell me, Michael, you know.

I've worked all my life, you know. I can't imagine not working.

I work at home one day a week now, which is good

because the Central line was killing me.

Erm, it's such an awful experience.

Thank you very much. See you at graduation, yeah? Bye.

Do they have a retiring age there?

I think mine is 66.

I say I'm not looking forward to it, but I don't know, really,

if I am because I can't imagine what it's like to fill your days.

Where does the life of my respectable middle-class mother

overlap with a working-class slapper who leaves her

illegitimate child on a church door step?! She was not!You don't know.

She was young...

I still do my drama. Do my luvvie stuff, as Glenn calls it.

I like to sing, perform and that's my hobby.

Cheers!

Cheers to the in-laws.

Today we're having a very lovely afternoon tea.

So, it's just a small gathering to celebrate my birthday.

When I got married, the primary reason was

because I wanted to have a child.

The two, to me, went together.

How are the two children doing? Brilliantly.

They've both bought their own flats,

they're both independent people, good jobs.

Both my kids are single still.

Both haven't met Mr Right.

They seem to be happy and they are a joy to me.

Well, I'm telling you now, that little pink cake over there...

I do worry about the future for younger generations.

You know, what's going to happen,

because the NHS cannot carry on like this.

It can't cope. It can't cope now.

I think I'm probably the last generation

that will get a decent NHS service.

I don't like people that are too posh.

They look down on everybody else.

Do they think they're better? Yeah.

At the roots of this film, is the class system.

Do you think it's still alive and well?

You are what you're born into.

You'll never be upper-class because you're born into upper-class.

But you can mix in those circles.

I mean, I don't know. I've never been upper-class,

I'm never likely to be upper-class in my life.

Working class, always.

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.

People are struggling now, benefits are not what they used to be.

I mean, I work in London, so I see homeless people all the time.

I don't remember it being that bad when I was younger.

I suspect it was there, but I don't remember it being as bad as that.

My generation, we had wonderful support from the council.

Which meant that if your parents were council tenants,

you would get a council house.

Which got me into a house, which then enabled me to buy it

and get onto the housing ladder and change my life.

That's not there any more.

Now, council housing is so difficult to get.

You've practically got to be homeless.

What would you do if you have lots of money, but erm...Me?Two pound.

One of the premises of the film is give me a child until you're seven

and I will show you the man. Do you think that's true?

I think it probably is to an extent.

You can be born shy, you can be born as an extrovert...

..you can be someone who likes to make people laugh,

you can be someone who is much quieter and deeper

and I think that's in you, but then life happens...

..and every experience will change you.

My mum and dad, thank the Lord, are still with us and fighting fit.

Not fit, but fighting to be fit, you know?

My mum's currently in hospital.

I mean, I've lost family members, yeah, and everything is sad

but I can say I've had a huge tragedy in my life yet, Michael.

You know, we know...

..we know what's coming...

Sorry.

♪ Smile though your heart is aching

♪ Smile... ♪

Do you think that these films have any value?

They have a value to me.

Because it's a lifelong achievement to be part of this programme,

you know?

And I'm astounded sometimes by the people I meet...

..and they all know about this programme.

They may have not watched all of it, but they'll have a memory from it.

They pick up on things I think that affect them.

The things we go through are what everyone's going through.

Cheers!

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 going to do that here.

'At 14, he was away at boarding school and at 21,

'reading physics at Oxford.'

So what career are you going to pursue?

It depends whether I'll be good enough to do what

I want to really do.

I would like if I can to do research.

'By 28, he had moved to America,

'and was doing research into nuclear fusion

'at the University of Wisconsin.'

The fusion reaction gives off energy and produces the power

that would be turned into electrical energy and sent out to the consumer.

How hot is it in there?

In there, it's at about ten million degrees.

'At 34, he was an associate professor.

'And at 42, a full professor.'

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 going to happen.

Now, do you want some water?

Do you want constant water here?

I am seriously ill. I have a cancer in my throat.

I don't know what the prog... I don't know what's going to happen,

so I'm not really focused on the long-term future.

I'm focused on fairly short-term futures at the moment.

A lot of the treatments that I've been having

are things that are not good for your blood.

And I'd had a couple of them in rapid succession I guess, and so...

Yeah, my blood's a bit thin at the moment.

Ten days ago I went in and had a blood test,

and the nurse told me that the level of my haemoglobin was such that

she expected me to be in a wheelchair.

Do you have a girlfriend?

I don't want to answer that.

I don't answer those kind of questions.

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

..when I was doing the other one, and somebody said,

"What do you think about girls?"

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

Is that the reason you're asking it?

The best answer would be just to say that

I don't answer questions like that.

It was what I said when I was seven and it's still the most sensible...

But what about them?

If you'd been somebody who...

..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?

'By 28, Nick had married Jackie, a fellow student from Oxford.'

We don't want to miss out on the chance of having a significant

career and we don't want to miss out on the chance to have kids

and to be involved with them.

The one moment of pure, unadulterated joy in my life was

when my son was handed to me when he was born.

I have never felt so optimistic, so just purely...

..unworried about anything as that. It was just the stra...

it was just... phew!

So, that's...

Did that last forever?

Well, no. I mean, no, it didn't.

'By 42, they were divorced.'

What I concluded and I talk to other people about this

who have gone through it,

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

but it was like a death.

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.

You can talk to me by myself outside,

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

All right. Bye.

'Nick's son, Adam, was ten when his parents divorced.'

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

And then he just pulled himself together

and didn't want to talk about it any more.

Take it easy, Adam, the 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.

He's getting more mature

and he has to be very patient with me, really.

Can you imagine having me for a dad?

Do you think it would be a low-pressure existence?

Hey, Graham!

Chris is my new wife.

I don't mean to be superficial,

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

And how's married life?

Well, me being very ill

has certainly made... been a bit of a damper on things,

but Chris is being actually a complete angel about it.

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

'And by 42, he was forced to abandon it.'

When I was 13, I got hold of a book...

..which said that we were really in trouble because of pollution.

And because of this, I went into this nuclear fusion thing.

So, I made some choices to start working in this field

that handicapped me later.

..cos I still can't make it work.

There were scientists in essentially the same organisation I was in

saying you cannot build these things.

So, I had to pay attention.

I had to try and do something different.

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

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

'It was just always there in me.

'I just wanted to do it, I thought I'd be good at it.'

So, I'm hoping that will remember me being very stupid and going,

"Ow, there's arrows."

Are you still teaching?

'Yes. And my students are wonderful.'

..Yes! That's really impressive...

'I'm hanging in there as long as I can with them.'

It's great to be around them. Unless they've got a cold.

And they are insisting on coughing on me.

I try to get them not to cough on me,

but it's a bit hard to...

..hard to deflect them.

What attracts you about America?

It's an exciting place to be.

There's a lot going on, it's much easier to go out

and get things done... than in England.

When you came here, was it a surprise to you?

America was quite different than I would have expected.

What do you make of Trump?

Oh, gosh.

I don't know how much of what he says is for effect

and how much he believes.

And that's the huge question in my mind.

Theresa May was at Oxford at the same time as me.

You don't get to do that going to Bradford Poly.

OK, yes, so, this was my staircase on my, in my first...

'You're still seeing that people from the right public schools

'continue to run the country.'

Those people are not necessarily the ones

who are most fit to run the country.

They have a superficial glibness.

They can present themselves well on a podium,

but it's alarming that they are the only ones who have

a clear route to running the country.

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

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

Do you want to take up farming?

No. I'm not interested in it.

My youngest brother, the deaf one, if he can't do anything else,

he can probably run the farm.

But as a last resort...

It's a fixed reference point in a sense, that sort of earthy,

life and death cycle that you get living on a farm.

What did you learn here, do you think, that you carried with you?

I sort of feel that 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.

And sometimes, it's rather tragic.

But it makes other places you go seem rather trivial as well.

I come up most weekends.

I think Chris gets up usually in midweek.

We don't get over to England very often, so you can count on one hand

how many times you're going to see your family before somebody dies.

And that's getting more and more pressing every time we come.

Have I seen you since you lost your dad? No.

I loved my dad a lot, but he was an old man and he was in his mid-80s.

I mean, the last time I saw him there wasn't much left of him.

He was a tiny little frail thing who didn't have much to say.

I don't...

OK.

I don't know... I mean, you know me, Michael,

I'm sure I haven't dealt with it fully.Yeah.

But, um...

..yeah.

But it's full of emotion, all of this.

It's all the stuff that we repress as hard as we can, isn't it?

But, um... yeah, it really is.

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

I'm still the same little kid, really. Probably all of us are.

I think I can relate to that little guy.

He was sort of all eager and earnest.

Trying to answer the questions.

You know, so, yes, I think you can tell I'm still the same kid.

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'm pretending that nobody else is watching it.

It isn't a picture, really, of the essence of Nick...

..it's a picture of every man.

It's how a person, any person, how they change.

It's made me think about all sorts of things more intensely

than I probably would have otherwise.

There are lots of issues that it raises that

I've over stewed over over the years.

It certainly highlights the difference

between living in America and England.

Relationships with spouses...

It's given more intensity and focus by being discussed.

What has been the saddest thing?

Right now, I'm struggling with being ill

and I'm very sad for the people who are being affected by that.

Life doesn't turn out the way I expect.

Are you frightened about it?

Not for myself. But for them, a bit.

Yeah, I'm frightened for them.

'And what about the other children? Where are they now?

'What are they doing?'

I would like to get married when I grow up.

I don't think you ought to go to university

if you want to be an astronaut.

I'm going to work in Woolworth's.

My heart's desire is to see my daddy.