I've done quite a lot of different things
over the last seven years.
You know, we all make mistakes,
in everything, from parenting to decisions in life.
You make mistakes, and that's how you become the person you are.
You can talk to me outside,
but I'll just meet you by the garage, okay?
All right, bye.
Nick's son Adam was 10 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 anymore.
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.
He's getting more mature, and he has to be very patient with me.
Can you imagine having me for a dad?
Do you think it would be a low-pressure existence?
This is my little school.
I'm nuts, and I would drive a kid nuts with all my nagging.
Do you think you've pushed him too far,
which is why he's now backing away?
Anything I push him to do, he's going to do the opposite.
So there's a real... You know.
They'd like to come out for a holiday in the country
when I'd like to have a holiday in the town.
It's a fixed reference point, in a sense,
that sort of earthy life-and-death cycle you get
living on a farm.
If something dies, it rots and feeds back into the earth.
He has a density to him.
One of the first things he said to me is,
"My feet are in the mud."
The whole idea of being deep in the mud
and very attached to a foundation makes good sense to me.
Nick has two younger brothers, Andrew and Christopher.
I come up most weekends.
Then Chris gets up usually in midweek,
so he helps with shopping and stuff like that.
We don't get over to England very often,
and so you can count on one hand
how many times you're gonna see your family
before somebody dies.
And that's getting more and more pressing every time we come.
You know, so, yeah, this is tricky.
How are they doing?
Not well.
They're very old.
Yeah, I don't really want to elaborate on that.
'Cause it's full of emotion, I guess.
It's all the stuff that we repress as hard as we can,
isn't it, but...
Yeah, it really is.
I'm looking at these names, who they all are...
This, of course, is Granny Hitchon
and Grandpa Hitchon.
When I was a little guy, I got up at the crack of dawn
and scooted nextdoor to spend the morning with her.
So, yes.
She died when I was 5 or 6, I think.
So I think I was devastated. Yeah.
And you still remember her?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I know you should let these things out.
And I don't. I store them up.
But that's the character with me now,
and I can't change it.
Thank you very much.
Nick is truly English.
I mean, my father is English
and I was probably in my late 20s, maybe early 30s,
before I uttered the words "I love you"
to either one of my parents.
There is a difference, a distinct difference between
the type of English person he is
and the type of American people I've been with.
You may know the difference, too, Michael,
because you've been in both settings.
♪ If I said that I love you ♪
What do you think about making this program?
I think it's just ridiculous.
I don't see any point in doing it.
Why is it that we are so annoyed about this program?
I think the problem I have is that you don't get
a very rounded picture.
You get the odd comment that comes out on a particular topic.
But because of the time restraint
that this program obviously has,
otherwise we'd be on for a couple of months if you were trying to get
everybody's real thoughts on things.
It's just that the limitations of such things
as what the audience require
and the time don't allow it to be a real study.
I think I'd like to say this and I'd like to say that.
And then they film me doing all this daft stuff.
And it goes on seven days out of every seven years,
it's sort of biblical something or other,
and it's all this excitement
and so on, and then they present this tiny snippet of your life
and it's like, "That's all there is to me?"
When I go home, I go and see my mother.
Then I have tea and watch TV.
And then I, um...
do my homework, and then I go and see my father.
Were they, in the '60s, trying to say
that the fact that I supposedly
had a more privileged upbringing,
that I should have been the one who'd become the high flyer?
Absolutely.
You having come... I just think that's so wrong,
but is that what they were trying to get at?
The idea of looking at a bunch of people over time
and how they evolve, that was a really nifty idea.
It isn't a picture really of the essence of Nick
or Suzy, it's a picture of Everyman.
It's how a person, any person, how they change.
You know, just seeing me this age and the next age
with more wrinkles and more... oh!
I think we have all got a few of those.
- Oops! - Oops!
Just, it's not an absolute accurate picture of me,
but it's a picture of somebody, and that's the value of it.
But then we're putting ourselves out to be that person.
Well, I didn't want to do it when I was 14.
I know I was very difficult
because I was very anti doing it.
I was pressurized into doing it by my parents.
Um...
And I hated it.
And I vowed I'd never do it now. But here I am.
I mean, who knows in seven years whether it will be done again.
But this is me saying
hopefully I'll reach my half-century next year
and I shall bow out.
I don't know what happened.
I was quite adamant I wasn't going to do it.
And then...
I don't know.
I suppose I have this ridiculous sense of loyalty to it,
even though I hate it.
And that's just such a contradiction, isn't it?
But...
And also I think...
It's like reading a bad book.
I'll still read it, I'll still see it through.
And I guess I'll put this down to being a bad book, but I'll see it through.
Symon was brought up in a children's home,
the only child of a single parent.
They say, "Where's your father, then?
You know, when your mum's out at work,
you stay with your father?"
And I just tell 'em I ain't got one.
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,
sort of more like friends.
When he was 35, Symon's mother died of cancer.
There was so many things I never actually said to my mum
that... just things that,
you know, you think about after, but it's too late
because they're not there anymore.
What sort of things?
Dunno, just "I love you," every day.
Uh, when I was born, an illegitimate child,
that's something that somebody whispered about.
People, you know, feel strongly about in those days.
But nowadays, you... It's...
It's not a serious matter.
The serious point is whether
you stay with somebody or you leave them.
Um, since 21, I've got married, had a couple of kids, and, um...
By 28, he had married Yvonne
and they had five children.
They've got everything, then.
They've even got what I never had.
- Which is what? - A father, innit?
So, I mean, they've had everything.
By 35, they were divorced.
At one stage, they all stopped 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.
At 42, he married Vienetta.
Hiya!
We used to go out when we were younger.
We met in the launderette.
- Once a week. - Once a week.
Vienetta already had a daughter, Muriel.
And she and Symon had a son, Daniel.
Is there anything of you in him?
Ah, his dashing good looks, yeah.
That's me.
And his love of sport, as well.
Well, today's Daniel's big, big day.
He's now 18,
and he's a young man.
He says.
And he's done very, very well
with his schooling and everything.
The beginning of the week, I received the e-mail
saying that I got into my apprenticeship with Procter & Gamble,
which I'm very... I'm excited about.
And I start that in the next couple of weeks.
All I want to say is that I have had
the proudest week of my life.
With my son passing his exams,
he's passed his test, and if
the money runs through, he might get a car.
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
But here, people are undecided about you.
They can be your friend one day and not the next.
Obviously, when children come into foster care,
family and friends are involved, as well,
and we have to ensure that the children are kept safe.
By 49,
Simon and Vienetta had decided to train as foster parents.
Went to boarding school when I was young,
and I always felt that that was regimental.
They didn't allow for personal care,
for loving from the adult carers,
so I wanted to do something like that for myself,
you know, in my own home.
And we always say to foster carers,
please do not cut the children's hair
without the permission of the parents.
So, what's the toughest thing
about being a foster parent?
You're taking a chance when you do it,
'cause you don't... you really don't know what you're getting.
It's something that all children want,
is to be loved.
Is to be wanted.
So, if you can give that to them,
then everything else is second.
You know why Uncle Symon looks younger?
'Cause he's so laid-back.
Some of them come back, 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.
I once tried to count,
and I got up to 65,
and I stopped.
Because if you know that you're going to get 50 people...
She's like a mother to me.
She's always been there.
There was a time where I felt like
I want to give up and everything,
and she kept saying to me, like,
"You have to keep on going."
Like, "You have to keep on trying."
Oh, I get emotional.
Sorry.
When I came for the airport and that, like,
my family wasn't at the airport to collect me and that,
so, you know, I just had to stay somewhere
for, like a temporary base.
I was there for, about, I think, five to six years?
I couldn't ask anything better, to be honest.
Yeah, they were really nice, you know, yeah, really nice.
Were you looked after at some point?
My real mother died at birth,
and my dad remarried, and my mother
is the person who made me the person I am today.
Because she was always helping other young people.
And she used to always say to us,
"Don't be jealous, 'cause you've got my love,
but they've got no one to love them."
You know?
As well as fostering,
Vienetta also works for an organization
that takes homeless young people off the streets.
And what happens to the fostering children
when you're here full days?
Symon and I balance them together, we juggle.
Symon sometimes works late, sometimes I rush home.
He'll do the school run in the morning,
I'll do the school run in the afternoon.
But my job is very flexible.
So, you have an incredibly busy life, don't you?
Very busy.
Well, we started to feel that we were getting
sort of tense and tight, you know,
and that normally means you need a holiday.
Because we found ourselves doing too much.
So, at some stage, you've got to chill out.
Symon took the family to Portugal.
Oh, look at this.
- That's nice. - That's quite...
- What do you think? - That's blingy.
That's really nice.
So, Jess is by your first marriage,
and Minnie is your child by your marriage.
And the relationship's strong?
They know each other from being young.
They did things together, went out together.
So, they're not, like, strangers.
Before I'm old enough to get a job,
I just walk around and see what I can find.
Was going to be a film star, but...
Now, I'm going to be an electrical engineer...
which is more to reality, really.
By 21, Symon was working in the freezer room
of Wall's Sausages in London.
I know I can't stay at Wall's forever.
It's just not me.
I couldn't stay there for that long.
My mind would go dead.
Do you never feel you should be doing better jobs than these?
Aren't you worth more than this?
No, I haven't really.
I suppose I just like hard work, I don't know.
The factory closed down.
Since then he has worked near Heathrow Airport
handling freight.
If I'd 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.
If we'd got together when we should have got together
there's no way he'd have been a forklift driver.
Not where I'm with, no way.
Not with all that brains.
I've got common sense and he's got the brains.
I am the proof that you need to push yourself and go on.
If you want to get on, if you want things in life,
you have to push yourself to keep going.
I should have been an accountant.
But I went in this office,
I looked at this gray, grubby office,
and the people there looked gray suited and miserable,
and I thought, "This isn't for me."
I want to stay out in the fresh air.
I don't want this.
Years later I realized that not every office is like that.
Some offices are vibrant and moving.
But it was too late then... I'd already sort of...
stagnated myself
driving forklifts and working in a warehouse.
You could have made a lot of money being an accountant.
Yes, he could have.
She looks after me.
She doesn't just push me, she looks after me.
You know?
She would never let anything be wrong for me.
Baked beans.
At one stage we went to marriage guidance because the pressures of being together
were getting to us,
because we are two completely different people.
I'm very, um... laid back.
You know, she always says,
if I go any further back, I'll fall over.
Is the chemistry still there between you?
Yeah, I think so.
I hope so.
- Yeah. - Is it?
- Yes, darling. - All right.
Yeah, the chemistry's still there.
Yeah.
We've been saying that, what, nearly 20 years?
- Is that all it is? - Yeah.
Oh, come on, Symon, hurry up!
Catch up!
Come on, Jess and Daniel!
Do you think you could ever retire
and ever just chill out?
There's people who I've noticed, they stop work,
and they have no other interests,
they suddenly get old.
Yeah, so you're old, you've got a few bulges,
a few wrinkles, but life still goes on.
Enjoy life.
So, who won?
I came here first. I think that was me.
Beautiful.
Did I win and just allow you to come...
No, no.
Dad, you was, like, the person that comes round on the tractor.
I think I admire people with great determination.
You know, like, people who have just come up from nothing.
They build up their life from absolutely nothing.
Well, do you see some parts of life as success
and some parts a failure,
or do you not think like that?
No, you don't stop life because you've made a mistake.
If you go down the wrong road
it doesn't mean that's the end of the road.
There's no chance, you have to turn round and come back.
- Start again, isn't it? - Do a u-turn.
And, to be honest,
what do you think about our life?
I think it's been more ups than downs.
And hopefully there's a lot more ups to come.
Well, my girlfriend is in Africa,
and I won't... I don't think I'll have
another chance of seeing her again.
You got any girlfriends?
No, no, not yet.
I'm sure it will come.
But not yet.
I mean, I do think a lot of people think too much about it.
I think I would very much like to, um,
become involved in a family, my own family, for a start.
That's a need that I feel I ought to fulfill
and would like to fulfill, and would do it well.
Yes, I haven't got married or whatever,
and I suppose, you know, that that would have been
something which I hoped had happened.
Well, you're getting on a bit, are you getting worried?
Well, not particularly, I mean, I'm always optimistic.
I mean, who knows who I might meet tomorrow?
And, in the middle of a conversation
about something completely different,
he just asked if, um,
if I'd like to marry him.
And if I hadn't been listening carefully,
I would have missed it completely.
"To love and to cherish."
To love and to cherish.
"Till death us do part."
Till death us do part.
Don't argue very much.
Not really, I mean, we haven't really had
a sort of full-blown row.
Our arguments sort of tend to be two sentences
and I go off and sulk for 24 hours.
So, is Bruce getting any better
at expressing his feelings to you?
Um... Uh...
Unh...
Not... not really, by the sound of that.
We may have children, I don't know.
I mean, if in seven years' time or so,
we're living in a slightly bigger house
with a young family, that would be nice.
I mean, I don't want to pin all my hopes on it and nothing happens.
We are quite old.
I can see bringing up, say, teenage children
when you're in your fifties, might be a bit strange.
Go on, then, Henry, get on.
Bruce and Penny have two sons, Henry and George.
I mean, seven years ago,
you were taking a bit of a pasting from them.
Well, yes, exactly,
And that's, you know, if they sat on me now,
I wouldn't be able to get up again.
And in the second year, I was in the rooms
at the top of that staircase there.
Bruce and Penny took the boys away for a weekend to Oxford,
to see Bruce's old college
and to watch their father play cricket.
It's just nice drifting along the river
without making too much noise, you know?
If you can see the old wildlife,
and so, when you come up
on it unawares, kind of thing.
Muddy water and a spider, ta.
One of you link up one, and one of you...
I think it's more of a father-son thing
to go along and watch and support,
and we always have lunch, then tea, then a barbecue afterwards.
We're not very good at this, are we?
Ever since Cornwall, there was to be no more camping.
My heart's desire is to see my daddy,
who is 6,000 miles away.
What happened between you and your dad?
I suppose the separation and the distance...
when I was 14, I went out to Zimbabwe,
and then later, when he retired to England,
we felt that it was a lot of distance between us
and ground to make up.
I think it's going to take quite a while.
The boys are still young enough
for us all three to fit into a small tent.
I suppose it's a bit of "dads and lads," and getting to know each other
and forming a relationship and so on.
I think you're the wrong way.
Oh, lord, that's not going to go in there.
Okay, boys.
What's that, then?
They always come first.
I mean, we've got our work and so on.
So, we'll do a variety of things with them.
We'll do it later, dear.
I'm off to play cricket.
Bye-bye.
Is the forecast to rain tonight?
We're rising on our toes, we go sideways.
Commence!
When he was seven,
Bruce was at boarding school.
He went on to Oxford,
where he got a maths degree.
You can show that this is irreducible.
Then you do a transformation on this polynomial,
X=T+2
After Oxford, he worked in the city for a year,
then decided to teach.
He taught an estate school.
Yes, sir!
General education is better for society, I think.
There is a class society,
and I think private schools may help its continuance.
At 35, Bruce took a sabbatical
and taught in Bangladesh.
The straight line, yes, keep going.
At 42, he was back in the East End
as head of the maths department
at a girls comprehensive school.
At 49,
we found him teaching at St Albans,
an independent school.
In the early days,
the school was in the abbey, going back
to 948.
948?
Yes, so, the head quite likes to say
we're in our third millennium, you know.
So, the school is over 1,000 years old?
Yes, in one form or another.
Now, you have to make "X" the subject of this equation.
You've got to get "X" on its own.
So, what's the first thing we do?
Has it been a kind of compromise
of political principles for you, this?
Well, I would say, you know,
have a million angels in front of every teacher
who's prepared to slog away at an inner-city comprehensive.
Make way, make way, this is somebody who is prepared to
turn up each day and do that job.
Do your old friends give you a hard time about what you've done?
They certainly do, they absolutely do.
They say, oh, you know,
"Have we joined the Tory party, the golf club, the Masons?"
You know.
I'm quite happy just being an ordinary maths teacher
for the not many years I've got left, actually.
Um...so, I'm quite happy.
I'm not ambitious now.
So, do you enjoy watching cricket?
Mm, I can watch it for short periods.
But it's a,
sort of a sport tax on Bruce.
He plays cricket, I go and shop.
So, is he playing as much, Bruce, as he used to?
No.
No, and when he does, he usually manages to pull a muscle.
So...
But they lost by about 70 runs, and our team lost by about 70 runs.
At the end of the game,
somebody is nominated
to wear that ridiculous garment.
I think bringing you lot along for the weekend
had a lot to do with me wearing the...
wearing the jacket this time.
So, the jacket is not an enviable thing to wear?
No, no.
Well, going to Africa,
and try and teach people who are not civilized
to be more or less good.
It all springs from, uh...
loving God and Christ, I suppose.
Some people often will say that
the bully is upset about something in their own lives,
and so, when they're bullying, they're...
I suppose I'm taking them to Quakers
so that they learn the Christian stories
and a lot of what's embedded in our culture.
They're good moral tales that we should, when they reflect upon,
you know, they may give them
a sense of right and wrong and so on.
We like the ethos of
tolerance and understanding.
The boys go to a local Quaker school
where Penny teaches.
Everybody in the school,
from the youngest 2-1/2 year old in the nursery to the headmaster,
is known by their first names,
and there is no uniform
and very few formal rules.
Oh, pull up, because he'll take...
Are you ambitious for them?
Yeah, I mean, some people work ferociously hard,
and while that's rewarding and they enjoy that
and they enjoy the success and so on,
you just hope they get a nice balance to their lives.
What are your fears for the future
with the boys?
That they don't fulfill their potential,
that they're led astray in some way...
drugs or something.
They end up unhappy, with regrets about
not having done as well as they could.
What a night we're going to have here!
Right, if I wake up to find anybody clutching my genitals!
George!
They're very good company, but they will grow apart.
You know, eventually leave home,
and we won't see them so often.
And in a way,
I'll miss them dreadfully,
but that's the natural order of things.
Just think how comfortable Mummy is in her bed-and-breakfast.
But just remember, when we're in a tent,
the Balden family
are a non-farting family.
- Thank you, father. - Dad, shut up.
I'm going to work in Woolworth's.
Lynn grew up in the East End of London.
Why am I using a wooden spoon, please, to stir this saucepan?
Well, in a grammar school, I don't think you'll find
many girls that really want to do all that hard woodwork.
At 21, she began a career as a children's librarian,
starting off in a mobile library
in East London.
I've not stamped yours.
"Sleeping Beauty."
Teaching children the beauty of books
is just fantastic.
To work with children at that age,
you've got to love 'em, 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.
You can draw, better than I can.
Good morning!
When we went back at 49,
she was still there.
Good morning!
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.
They say that the work that I do, that anybody can do it.
There would be no specialist
running it.
One!
I may not have a job.
At that library review,
I got a job.
Two years later, another review.
And cutting departments again.
That time I didn't get the job.
But has it been worth it all?
Yeah, very much.
All these things that I've said
over the years, flying through my mind at the moment,
but yes, it has been worth it.
Mm.
And you better cut it, because otherwise I'm going to cry.
Fortunately, I was over 50 and I could draw my pension.
We decided, we can downsize,
we'll move out, smaller property,
it's only the two of us at home now.
And we'd be great.
Then the crash came.
And then Riley was born.
And what I thought was stress
was nothing.
Riley is one of Lynn's three grandsons.
How much did he weigh when he was born?
Two pounds and a quarter ounce.
As soon as he was born, they took him straight through
to the neonatal intensive care unit.
Three! How many you got?
He was put on
oxygen, monitors on,
tubes coming out of everywhere.
And he's absolutely fine,
thanks to the NICU unit
at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.
Mummy's going to work, say "Bye-bye, Mummy."
Riley has an older brother, Connor.
For the last 18 months or so,
I've actually had Riley full-time.
If I could, I would have, um, two girls and two boys.
I've been married a year and a couple of months.
You do think, "Christ, what have I done?"
When she was 19, she married Russ.
They had two daughters, Sarah and Emma.
I'm very much geared to the family unit.
I mean, us all, we do things
together all the time.
At 42,
the girls were both doing very well at school.
Neither of the girls went to university?
No, no.
Was that disappointing to you?
No, their choice. We discussed it.
It's what they wanted to do.
They felt that the academic side wasn't for them.
Sorry.
So, was the arrival of Connor a shock to you?
No! Well, yeah, but...
She was 19.
She's old enough.
Oh, look, he's coming after you, look,
he's coming over here to see.
And how is old Connor doing?
He's doing great.
He's off to his new secondary school.
Keeps telling me he's nearly as tall as me, but I keep saying,
"No, you've got a while to go yet."
How does he deal with Riley?
He loves Riley to bits.
But Riley is just a two-year-old.
Sarah and Adam have got married since we last saw you.
They have got a little boy
called Harry.
He's getting on fine.
Sarah, having just had Harry,
was put in the same boat as I was.
The day before she was due to go back to work
after maternity leave, made redundant.
Yeah, so, there used to be a lot more subspecies,
but for various reasons...
And she's now trained as a child minder.
She's doing absolutely brilliantly.
And is Emma still in the same job?
- Yeah. - Is that going okay?
I mean, with the recession,
work dropped off an awful lot,
but seems to be picking up again now.
So, Russ took early retirement, too,
so, what's happened with him?
Because of the crash,
he picked up a job,
and instead of the two part-time jobs,
he got a full-time job.
So, we are looking at a much longer working life
than perhaps we thought.
Yeah, for everyone.
The goalposts keep climbing.
People that thought when they started work
that they were going to retire at 60,
draw their state pension as well,
it's totally changed.
They come round and mop the floor,
and then a couple minutes later another waitress...
I'm not politically minded, but I still believe
that they haven't got a clue what they're doing.
Some people are never, ever going to recover from it.
It's unfortunately
going to be quite devastating for them.
We've no left-wing Labour Party anymore.
Tony Blair saw to that.
They all veer to the right.
Didn't know I was getting into this!
Are you all right?
Yeah, I think so.
This is unbelievable!
No, look out.
Russ is still such a great support for me.
And he is still my soulmate.
You take care, I love you!
After all this time.
We've flourished together.
I had an all-white wedding.
All white.
We were both in white, and my bridesmaid was in white.
37 years.
Gone extremely quickly.
We've just grown together.
We learnt to be friends before we had children.
We established a solid foundation
from which to work from.
Think of how fit it's going to make you.
So, for you, that's...
I'm happy with the way my life has gone.
I'm still a governor.
I'm still Chair of Governors at St Xavier's.
Just been appointed for another four-year term of office
from the London Diocesan Board of Schools.
Must be doing something right.
Ah!
I read the Financial Times.
I read the Observer and the Times.
What do you like about it, John?
Well, I like... I usually look at the headlines
and then read about them... what... about it.
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 in Trinity Hall.
John went to Westminster,
then on to 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 practice.
I now have a career.
I'm a barrister.
Other than that, life chugs along in varying degrees.
Well, in a sense, not very much has changed in my career over the last 14 years.
I'm still a barrister, and I still wear a curly white wig.
The only visible difference, I suppose,
is I wear a silk gown, because I'm now a QC.
So, week after next is ideal, except for Monday.
I do largely litigation.
I enjoy the work, which is intellectually stimulating
and always interesting.
I'm blessed with an exceptionally nice
group of people in these chambers
who I really get on with.
I've been ushers at many Members of Chambers' weddings.
I've been godfather to at least three Chambers' children.
It's a really nice, close set of friends here, and that...
I think I'm very blessed in my work environment.
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.
By 35, he'd become a partner.
Later, he joined the legal department
of a large British industrial company.
A few years after, they were taken over
by a German firm.
There was a bit of uncertainty when you get
two large organizations coming together.
You know, who was going to have a job at the end of it?
Who was going to be made redundant?
I was fortunate enough that I still had a job at the end of it,
and it's worked very well.
When boys go round with girls,
they don't pay attention to what they're doing.
For instance, 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.
My great-great-grandfather,
who was the first Prime Minister of Bulgaria
when the country was liberated from the Turks in 1879.
Well, I think everyone needs to have a feeling
that they belong somewhere...
there's a plot of land or somewhere
where they hail from and their roots are.
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're at the Centre for the Rehabilitation
of Disabled Children at Dalbok Dol
near Troyan in the Balkan Mountains,
which our charity in London has helped quite a bit.
We feel we can help in all sorts
of smaller ways, particularly
with art classes or pottery classes or dancing classes.
You can revolutionize the life of a child
without actually having to raise huge sums of money.
What do you think about girlfriends at your age?
I've got one, but I don't think much of her.
They're no longer just bores
who won't play this, or something.
They're over 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.
Um, Andrew didn't go for a haughty deb.
He went for a good Yorkshire lass.
Does money concern you a lot?
No, I think as long as one has enough to be comfortable,
that's really all 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 think the most important thing to us,
apart from our marriage, is our children.
So we look at them, and we see
that they seem to be happy and getting on well.
We're pleased to be sitting here
after however many years it is...
28 years... still happily together.
Andrew and Jane have two sons, Alexander and Timothy.
And 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.
Alexander is now working in Canary Wharf
in the city of London.
And Timothy has just left St Andrews,
graduated this year, and he's going on
to do a postgraduate degree at Durham University.
I'd quite like to go into politics,
but, I mean, that's easier said than done.
Who knows?
I haven't written myself off
as a potential politician, even though I'm already 49.
I always wanted to go into politics,
but whether I'll ever do anything about it...
I'm afraid I'm too old now.
That's the truth, I mean...
But it's depressing.
My two oldest friends are both ministers at the moment.
One I've known since 4, one I've known since 5,
and obviously one can't help feeling one's a bit of a failure
by comparison.
I think it's more fair if they're elected.
Yes, so do I, but I think it's better to be appointed.
Yes, because it doesn't take such a lot of time.
- It doesn't... - Appointed?
I'm pleased that we have a coalition,
because I've always, at heart, believed in consensus politics.
One thing that really does worry me
is their attempts to solve economic stagnation
at the moment in this country by building all over
the green belt and other areas of countryside.
I've no doubt that, whether it's five years or ten years,
this recession is going to be over one day,
but if the countryside is ruined, it's ruined forever
and for our children and our children's children and so on.
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.
And it was a 200-year-old barn
that we bought in an auction, completely derelict,
nothing in it at all except for manure.
We've been here now 28 years.
Time has gone by, but the thing has obviously got more mature over the years.
So, is it done?
It's never done.
There is always the problem of weeds.
As a couple, are you concerned by the destruction
of the environment... is that something that...
I'm very interested about it, and I think what worries me is
that we have the opportunity now
to save animals, flora and fauna
that will be lost, and we don't know what benefit they will be to us.
I think a lot of people say, "Well, global warming is bad," but are they actually
prepared to do anything about it?
The company I work for
is developing hydrogen-powered fuel cells
for cars in the future.
It's still some way off,
but I think that's the way that cars will go.
There must be times,
you know, when you look and think,
"Well, I did well with this,"
or, "I should have done that differently."
Well, I think, when there are sort of events in your life,
like when, for example, Timothy graduated recently,
and we thought, "Well, that's quite nice."
You know, here he is, he's at the next stage of his life.
You know, he's done quite well to get there,
and he seems well balanced.
And that's... it's those sorts of things that make you reflect.
When Alexander got his first job was very exciting.
Yes, absolutely.
He got the phone call, and he screamed
down the staircase, "I got the job!"
And a tear came to my eye.
It still does now.
It was such a lovely feeling, really.
I've been very fortunate
that Andrew has provided very well for us
without me having to go to work,
and I've been able to nurture the boys.
But I'm not sure whether, looking at the next generation,
you feel a lot of women have to work.
And I admire them for doing it.
But in some ways, I think maybe it would be good to work...
not necessarily full-time, maybe take time off
until the children are at school.
But then you get to my stage, and you think,
"Well, it would be nice to have something to do."
I mean, are you grateful she made that decision?
Yes, I am, but I can see that now maybe she'd enjoy more
having some sort of career at this stage.
Is that doable?
No, I don't think so.
I would say it probably is...
it's a matter of self-confidence.
But obviously in the mid-50s, it's a bit more difficult.
I'm not in the mid-50s yet, remember.
True.
Does she lack self-confidence, do you think?
Um, to a certain extent.
I think she doesn't realize how capable she is, really.
I think it's not a bad idea to pay for schools,
because if we didn't, schools would be so nasty and crowded.
I think that the premise
on which the program was based...
namely, that England, that was still in the grips
of a Dickensian class system... was outmoded even in 1964.
It didn't reflect realities in '64.
The hounds are over there, I think.
Insofar as the program touches me,
I feel it's a complete fraud.
It all appeared
part of some indestructible birthright.
What viewers were never told is
that my father died when I was aged 9,
leaving my mother in very uncomfortable
financial circumstances.
She had to go out to work
in order to see us through school,
and that, you know, I got a scholarship to Oxford.
Then the rich children always make fun
of poor children, I think. - Yes.
Yes, they say, "Oh, look at that lovely..."
I think the premise of the original film was
that there was a very strong class system at that time,
and I think that's absolutely true.
There is still a class system,
but I think it's based more on financial success.
Well, there's an underclass,
where people can't work.
It's true, but there are extremes at either end.
And there are very successful people, extremely rich,
and there are people who have very poor prospects.
It's true, but it's been ever thus.
I don't think... I don't think that's going to change
in the future, and it's always been like that.
Last time I appeared on the program,
a very generous film director based in San Francisco
saw the program and sent us a large check
running to many thousands of pounds,
which we were able to do a great deal of good with
in Bulgaria at the time, so that was
a wonderful byproduct of the program,
and perhaps it's slightly softened my objections.
It's not something I look forward to
every seven years, appearing in this program.
I'm always surprised that, you know, you appear
for five or ten minutes and anyone remembers your face.
But apparently they do.
♪ I'll get you back ♪ Well, I suppose the only thing for me
is that I've seen what my husband looked like at 7
and 14 and 21, before I knew him,
and then when I had my own children,
I could see which of them looked like their father at those stages of life,
and a lot of women just don't have that.
I think what's undesirable is, people who have had options
don't make advantage of... take best advantage of them,
but I can't see there's anything wrong,
as long as people don't abuse
the opportunities and privileges they've had.
It's a very nonchalant little theme, you know,
butter wouldn't melt in its mouth.
So take it very quietly, and it'll just present itself.
If one descants, one can be a train driver or a major opera singer,
a concert pianist... it would have been nice.
I mean, I was never good enough.
I'm enjoying my professional career very much indeed,
but, you know, doing something for other people
gives you a satisfaction that even
winning a fantastic case on some ludicrous arcane point of law
won't quite deliver.
I think the thing where I would regard myself most successful
is that I'm blessed with wonderful friends.
I'm happily married.
I think I'm an incredibly lucky person in all sorts of respects.
Is it important to fight? Yes.
Tony was brought up in the East End of London.
When I grow up, yeah, I wanna be a jockey when I grow up.
At 14, he was already an apprentice
at Tommy Gosling's racing stable at Epsom.
At 15, he'd left school.
This is a photo-finish when I rode at Newbury.
I'm the one with the white cap.
I was limping off in third
and I 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 fulfillment in life...
when I rode at Kempton in the same race as Lester Piggott.
Proudest day of my life.
And you let it go?
I let it go.
What will you do if you don't make it as a jockey?
I don't know.
If I knew I couldn't be one, I'd get out of it.
I wouldn't bother.
What do you think you would do then?
London taxis.
At 21, he was on the Knowledge,
and by 28, he owned his own cab.
Surprising who you pick up.
I once met Kojak, I picked him up.
I'll give you a story which happened.
The doorman called me up, and it was Buzz Aldrin,
the spaceman, and we drove out the forecourt of the hotel
and a cab pulled up, and taxi driver said,
"Can you get his autograph?" so I heard him
and, "Mr. Aldrin," I said, "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,
I said, "You're joking, ain't ya?"
And to this day I thought to myself, you know,
I'm more famous than Buzz Aldrin.
He was the second man to land on the moon.
Have you got a girlfriend?
Nope.
Would you like to have a girlfriend?
Nope.
You understand the four F's?
Find them, feel them... then forget them.
For the other f, I'll let you use your own discriminish.
But I mean, this one, I try to do the three f's,
but I couldn't forget her.
I went to a discotheque.
He was in the pub earlier on.
And afterwards we went to a discotheque
and Tony was standing there.
And from there I just... that was it.
By 42, Tony and Debbie had left the East End
and moved to Widford in Essex.
At 49, they'd taken out a second mortgage
on their London house and put the money
into a holiday home in Spain.
From here, it's about 200 yards long.
It's going to be all commercial units here.
My intentions will be to turn
one of these units into a sports bar.
We're putting all tellies around in a sports sort of way.
Football shirts and all that memorabilia.
Aldi come along and built a brand-new supermarket there.
So all my aspirations and dreams went out the window.
But, Michael, that used to be my bank.
And that's been closed now for about 18 months.
As you probably understand, there is a world recession,
and they were affected like everybody else.
My character seems to have slowed down while I'm out here.
And the pace is different.
And everything's slower here.
You know, just go to the beach.
Everyone sort of mingles in and it's lovely.
Our jobs are to make it accessible,
where we can come four hours door to door,
from Spain back to England.
We can work three weeks,
a commitment of getting our money
and still, you know, having a life out here.
It's a bit quiet, though, for you two, isn't it?
Yeah, but then you got your bingo.
It's not quiet when we get here.
There's only one ambition, really.
I want a baby son.
If I see my baby son, then my ambition's 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.
- Cheers, everyone. - Cheers.
We got him the bike.
We got him the runs. We paid his tutoring.
And I couldn't ask for more, to be more proud
when he got his badge.
It was a gift from God for what happened.
I'm very proud of Perry as well.
She got in the post office, and that's what she's doing.
Postman Pell, that's our Postman Pell.
She's got a lovely boyfriend
and he's certainly got my blessing.
Big lad, very nice guy. Loves his football, you know.
Typical East End kid.
You're not lazy. Far from it.
But I just think it's easier...
No, you pays to get your own done,
like you still do today... you always have paid.
So how is it, all of you in the house together?
Yeah, it's all right.
She's only here because she's pregnant
and she doesn't carry too well.
Sometimes she gets on my nerves.
Sometimes they all get on my nerves.
Sometimes I get on their nerves.
It's just what happens.
- Well done! - The ironing board give way.
Well done!
Jodie, I mean, at this present time,
she just relies on us a great deal.
And...
She's been very scarred with
a relationship that she was in.
A relationship with her first love of her own life was...
very terminal, but he's the father of her kid.
Jodie has a daughter, Toni.
Toni, as you appreciate, she's living with us.
My daughter Jodie, she's at this present time
having emotional problems and various other problems.
And most of all, I've got to make sure my Toni grows up
with a safe environment.
Once her mother does get better, I will certainly
bond them back, and hopefully, which we pray,
they'll become mother and daughter
and everything will be fine after that.
She's growing up at an alarming rate.
When she's with any one of her friends, I'll go to her
and say, "Toni, no, no."
"Stop it, Grandad! You're embarrassing me!"
And I have to sort of pull the reins in for me.
How is the cabbing going?
We had an influx of Arabs come for Ramadan.
Without them and the injection of wealth,
I think the cabs line would have sunk.
- It's been so bad out there. - It's very hard.
The ratio before was about 10 cabs to 7 jobs.
When the Arabs come, it was about 10 cabs to 9 jobs.
When they go away and the recession came,
it's 10 cabs to 2 jobs.
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. Now, someone's getting it
at our expense.
How did you prophesy what was going to happen
in this last program?
You seemed to know that the economy was going to go bust.
I feel the Labour government has got a lot to answer for.
Draining the system dry.
Giving out aid to all the countries around the world.
Hemorraghing money through your war effort.
Giving money to the banks and no regulation on the banks.
You can see the "drip, drip, drip" situation at the end of the tap.
And by the time there's no water left in the tank,
they want us to put it all back in.
Sometimes on Saturday morning, I go to the pictures.
Sometimes with my friends, sometimes with him.
You don't.
I do!
She don't.
And why did you fall in love with him?
Dunno.
I don't know now. You bothered me for so long.
Sometimes I don't know how I stand him.
He was just saying, another 10 years,
me and him might have split up.
Quite possible.
You don't know.
I'm not proud at all to say this, but...
Situations arise that...
I have had regretful behavior various times, but...
You got caught, and that was it.
You must appreciate, 32 years
is a long time I've been married.
And most of all, I've got a...
an open characteristic way about me.
And sometimes it has got me into trouble,
which has been well documented before.
I owe Debbie everything because, good or bad,
high or low, rain or shine,
she stuck by me.
And then...
At the end of it...
I still love her so.
And that's the reason why.
And that will always be the reason why.
Were the kids angry with you?
Yeah.
Yes, they were angry with me and...
The situation was, it was an hard pill to swallow.
Because the kids are my life.
Nicky, Jodie, Perry.
Uh...
The grandchildren.
I draw a circle... they're all mine,
and I'm lucky... I'm very, very lucky, Michael.
Michael, up there's my old flat I used to live in.
I lived up there for 28 years.
For me, it's so small around here now.
I mean, I come back, and the memories I've got in here
is unbelievable.
Would everybody please sit round now
and get on with their work?
I don't want to see any backs to me.
Shouldn't be anybody turning round.
Tony, do you hear as well?
I want your work in front.
Tony! Don't turn round again.
As you can see, Michael, the Bethnal Green I knew as a kid
growing up, now it's changed quite dramatically.
Not one East Ender, Cockney person like myself,
or anyone in the East End,
ever had a say in immigration.
No one had a say of the popularization,
as far as was there too many, was there too less?
Listening to you, sometimes you sound racist.
Racist?
Wait a minute... you talk about Asians,
you talk about Japanese, and yet here in Spain
you seem to really work to integrate into the community.
Well, Michael, with respect to you,
that word "racist" covers leaps and bounds of characteristics.
I've never been racist in a million years.
In a million years... I love people, I'm a people lover.
And I think that, with respect to you, is over the top.
Michael, this is the food and veg shop.
When I was 7 years old, I had my first wage in there.
10 bob a week.
This here was a pub.
This is where the dray horses used to deliver the beer.
I used to run in and get them my apples
and I used to feed them.
And when I was so small, they were mammoth.
That's where I got my love for horses from.
4.5, 50s; 4.5, 50s.
If your father gambles, you always look how he gambles.
I'll try my luck and see what it does.
And I took it from there.
This is the pub and area where my dad used to meet.
And what they used to do, get an orange box
with three cards on it, a queen and two fours,
and what they'd do is called "Find the Lady," a three-card trick.
And consequently they'd just sort of take the money
off of all the general public.
He used to go in the nick once a week at least.
And the firm used to take their money out, pay the fine,
and he was back out on the street
to do his sort of devily ways.
I've come back here again and it's
really a travesty what's happened here.
I mean, it makes you feel like crying.
For me, it's quite sad, you know, but I mean, if that's
what they call progress, well, so be it.
Where are we now, Tony?
I'm back at the old dog track.
We're at the Olympic stadium, Michael.
This is where the old dog track used to be, on this site.
I'm here today and I cannot believe the transformation.
It's a dream. It's just spectacular.
And the torch from these games
shall be now passed to the East End
for a new generation to come through.
Wheeee!
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.
Suzy.
Jackie and her friends.
Give me a child until he is 7,
and I will give you the man.
This has been a glimpse of Britain's future.