- If someone comes up and starts fightin' 'em,
I think it serves her right.
- I know the one that he'd like, best.
And that's her.
- I think it's not a bad idea to pay for school.
- I'm going to work in Woolworths.
- I just walk around and see what I can find.
- I think I'll be a coach driver.
- I don't like the big boys hitting us
and our prefects sending us out for nothing.
I know I've preferred to be alone really.
And I when I said that, I know, I know even now,
I meant that.
Now if someone dropped me out in the Sahara Desert,
I probably would've been happy, more or less,
if you get the point.
Say you had a wife.
They say you had to eat what they cooked you.
And say I don't like greens.
Well, I don't.
And say she said, "You have to eat what you get, give."
So, like, I don't like greens.
Say she gives me greens and that's it.
I find it hard to express emotion most of the time.
Although, I'm getting on top of that, more now, you know.
I mean, just the simple things.
To say to Susan.
You know, I love you, something like that.
I mean, I can tell you about it,
but I really haven't been able to say it for really,
to Sue, you know?
- Did he propose to you?
- Yeah, it was strange.
We went off and bought the engagement ring, first.
And then I said to him, "You haven't really proposed to me."
- Tongue tied.
- As you can gather, he's sort of very shy.
- What was it that you fell in love with?
What is it about him?
- His helplessness, I suppose.
It was the motherly instinct in me,
to pick him up and cuddle him.
And he was also very good looking,
I think, but he doesn't agree with me.
And I'm sorry, he's got this cute little bum in shorts.
- Paul and Susan live in Melbourne, Australia.
Four years ago, they sold everything they had,
bought an old Bedford van and went on a trip
through Western and Central Australia.
It took seven months and they travelled 14,000 miles.
- I think it brought us closer together,
because, you know, we really got to know each other,
and relied on each other so much.
- I'd never been so relaxed in my life.
I felt a lot more confident in myself.
Just great fun, really.
No pressures or worries, you know,
everything was forgotten.
- When we got to Perth, I was ready to fly home.
Being together so much, it was hard.
But then we settled down,
and we must have settled down really well,
'cause I got pregnant and everything,
So something must have been going right.
- We made up.
- I think it's, now, why people like to get
back to nature, and like to feel that,
that they aren't living in the 20th century.
To me, it's just like an old dream
that you wish it could come true, you know?
Living next to nature and like pioneers type of thing.
- I love the place, you know?
I find it hard to put into words, really, what it is.
You've got the country, you've got the bush,
outback, you can do more or less
anything you want, I think, here.
Whether you can do that in England, I don't know.
- I think that this the part we enjoyed the most
because we really went out in the middle of nowhere,
where we had to carry our own petrol and our own water
to do us for the three or four days
that we were out that way.
And while we were up in Canarvon,
we went and stayed on a sheep's station
up there with our friend from Melbourne, Bruce.
And it was about a million acres,
just under a million acres,
the sheep station.
- Bruce, from Yannarie Station, he got a hold of some tails
from the 'roos herder so we could try kangaroo tail stew.
- Yeah, it was a bit rough, we had nothing to throw it in.
- Bit sinewy.
- It gave us our own piece of mind
that we could settle down
and now have a family,
that we had done something.
We hadn't just been nobodies and lived in suburbia
all our lives.
We'd done something that we were proud of
that we'd accomplished on our own.
- Do you want this for the children?
- I'd love it for the children.
I was once taught when I was at school
that travel could be the best education,
and living in conditions where you have to fend for yourself
and you have to use your own initiative is very good.
And I would like it.
- I was gonna be a policeman,
but I thought how hard it would be to join in.
I just hadn't made up my mind, yet.
I was was gonna be a phys ed teacher,
but one of the teachers told me
that I had to get up into university.
- At 21, Paul was working
as a junior partner for a firm of bricklayers in Melbourne.
- I'm not great, bricklayin', right?
But if I wasn't good enough and my boss didn't think
I was good enough, he would've never have made me
a junior partner.
I went out on my own as a subcontractor,
not long after the last show,
but then I started with a partner.
I organised everything, I bought all the equipment,
'cause I didn't wanna be dependent on someone else.
Things didn't work out between the two of us,
he was a bit lazy.
- You have the right temperament,
do you think, to run your own business?
- If you're talkin' about employing other people,
I'm not hard enough.
I'm a little bit slow with working out things on the job.
Not particularly the laying of the bricks,
but a fairly slow thinker
when you've gotta work something out.
I think that'll end up being my job for life, probably.
Not that I want it that way,
'cause it gets harder as you get older, I think.
I got 23 new pieces and I don't know
how many ha'penny pieces I got now.
- 3DB 26 past 10 with Doug Arkaleed,
14 degrees in Melbourne at the moment, 25 '...
- They live in a working-class suburb
of Melbourne.
Paul earns 12,000 pounds a year,
owns two cars, and bought his house for 34,000 pounds
18 months ago.
- We're Mr and Mrs average, that's just true.
We probably earn an average income, just an average family.
- Oh, a good fist away by Russo,
up towards centre wing.
Robertson is tied behind...
- Susan works part-time as hair dresser
and they have two children, Katie and Robert.
- Taken by Watson who shoots for goal.
- Are you ambitious for your children, Paul?
- I've said some, about wanting Robert
to be a brain surgeon.
That was a joke.
I mean, like if he's a brain surgeon,
up in Melbourne, it'd be nice to let them go
one step up from us, I think.
Put it this way: I hope he's better
at schoolwork than I was,
so that he's got a choice, you know?
'Cause really, with the education standard I got,
I didn't have a choice.
What does university mean?
- Paul started his school life
at a children's home near London.
When he was eight, he emigrated to Australia
with his father.
- Were you happy at the children's home
in England?
- I didn't mind that, really,
'cause we didn't know what was going on,
'cause I was a big young.
- What regrets do you have
about your education, then?
- I didn't work hard enough.
I was just very lazy at school.
You know, if you're lazy and you don't work at school,
you suffer for it.
There needs to be a little bit more discipline.
If private schools are better,
you'd be far better off spending your money,
sending your kids there,
than getting a video, or a new television,
swimming pool, or something like that, I think.
- What else do you want for your kids
that you didn't have?
- A happier family life, I think.
Well, don't get me wrong, I wasn't miserable.
I think it could have been better.
I think that'd be one of the most important things.
My mother and father got,
well, they separated originally, I think.
They eventually got divorced.
I went to the boarding school for one year
and then we emigrated to Australia.
My father got remarried.
- And how'd you get on with your step-mother?
- Pretty well, but like I said before,
I mean, I'm not, just not close, I'm not really close
to my father, either.
- Do you have any regrets
about the fact that you weren't closer to him
when you were younger?
- Yeah, I suppose that's all a waste of time, in a way,
I suppose.
I mean, he was always there, you know.
I could always talk to him but it was different.
We were sort of distant friends.
I mean, we always got along fairly well.
We didn't see much of each other.
- Say hi to Pop. - Say hello to Pop.
Here's grand-dad.
- Hey. - Here's grand-dad.
- He said, actually, to his wife, Barbara,
that had come, he missed out on his own children,
he's not gonna miss out on these.
- Divorce was something new to me until I grew up
and knew what the meaning of it all really was.
There was no divorces in our family.
I think of what Paul's been through.
I mean, Paul doesn't say it's very bad,
but I wouldn't like that for my children.
It does worry me.
You know, because it happens so much these days.
Only time will tell what happens.
- Divorcing your wife, what does it get ya?
It messes up your own life, messes up your kids' life,
your wife's life.
I don't think half the people that get divorced
didn't think about it properly.
- What mark has it left on you,
the fact that you were brought up within a bad marriage?
- The only thing I can say
that I think might have come from that
is just my lack of confidence.
And being able to show my feelings, really, I suppose.
- He is down on himself.
He has this excuse where he says,
"Oh, I'm only a bricklayer, I don't,
"it's got nothing to do with me."
I don't know why it is;
I get really frustrated with him
and I want to wring his neck sometimes when he does it.
But, he's getting better.
- So do you feel there's any conflict ahead
if Sue wants a job and a career?
- What's come up so far, since we've been married,
we've handled that.
Really, I think Susan would probably be the best one
to start a, be a business woman
and I stay at home, you know?
- One up!
- I have to push him out the house sometimes.
I think he needs a bit of extra male companionship
because, being a bricklayer, he only works with one fellow,
and we don't have a social life with work type of thing,
or he doesn't, because he's only just one person
as well as himself, and his basketball.
I think he really enjoys it,
but he doesn't really let on how much he enjoys it.
- I suppose you could see me now
when I was seven, in a way.
Like, I think it was pretty obvious
I wasn't gonna be a doctor.
- You seem such a sad little boy.
- That's me, though.
Well, now, I was pretty long-faced, sort of thing.
Oh, it's like that sometimes, out here, too.
I was always getting knocked about, though.
I don't like greens, well I don't.
- The first show I saw was at 21.
When I saw him at seven, I just wanted to cry,
he seemed so pathetic.
I suppose it's, I don't know, it's hard to say.
It really made me go to jelly inside, you know,
to see him like that.
- Do you think it's true
that we can the man in the seven-year-old boy?
- Yeah, yes it is, because in that,
he was a very gentle and, not gentle,
caring person.
Yeah, he's always cared about other people,
and always been able to work his way, toward his,
tried to give an explanation for saying something
he doesn't really wanna do, you know?
Like, what if I didn't like to eat my greens,
and all that sort of thing.
I mean, he's always, still does that,
the what if, you know, what if?
And then you know, well, he doesn't really wanna do that,
so he's trying to talk himself out of it.
Yeah, yeah.
- Does he eat greens now?
- He loves 'em.
He loves 'em, he loves 'em.
- What do you remember of England?
- It seemed to be raining all the time.
I wouldn't stake my life on it, but.
We've got a lot more that what we would've had in England,
from what other people tell us.
But there, again,
when it comes to work, I don't sit down on my backside.
I'll go and chase it.
So, it's hard to say.
I'd say like in general, I'd probably,
I probably have done better here
than what I would've, there.
The family's gonna come first,
but I'm still gonna be working, and we'll progress.
- I'd love Paul to build me a house
and I know that he'd be happy once he's done it.
Something like, he's got his children,
and then to build his own home.
It really would be the icing on the cake, for both of us.
- I read the Financial Times.
- I read Observer and the Times.
- What do you like about it?
- Well, I like, I usually look at the headlines,
and then read about them, what, about it.
- I like my newspaper because I've got shares in it,
and I know every day what the shares are.
- The stuff like misers like you like.
- No, but, on Mondays, they don't move up,
so I don't look at it.
- What's the point of the programme?
- It's the, the point of the programme
is to reach a comparison.
And I think it is.
- The point? - Because we're not
necessary typical examples.
- I think that's what people seeing the programme
might think, falsely. - Yes.
I mean, they're tempted to typecast us.
- So, everything we say,
they'll think, "Oh, that's a typical result
"of the public school system."
- Yes.
- Well, do you think there's any truth
in the ideas behind the programme?
That certain people have more options than others?
- It's certainly true that more people
know they have more options,
or imagine they have.
I think in practical terms,
the difference in numerical number of options
isn't that great.
- But the mere knowledge creates an option it itself.
- Exactly, yes. - So, I think we do
have more options. - I quite agree with you.
- And it is undesirable, but it's very difficult to correct.
- I don't think it is undesirable, at all.
I think what's undesirable is people who have had options,
don't make advantage or take best advantage of them.
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 School,
and at 21, was in his final year reading law
at Christchurch, Oxford.
- I do believe parents have a right
to educate their children as they think fit.
And I think someone who works on the assembly line
of some of these car factories and earning a huge wage
could well afford to send their children to private school
if they wanted to.
Just because some sort of people perhaps
don't put that as high on their priories
as, you know, having a smart car or something.
- I'm going to Charterhouse,
and after that, to Trinity Hall at Cambridge.
- Andrew went to Charterhouse
and read law at Trinity College, Cambridge.
- I mean, 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.
- When I leave school, I'm going to the Dragon School,
I might.
And I might go to, after,
I might go to Charterhouse, Marlborough.
And, now what other place?
I can't remember all the other places,
'cause Mummy's got so many,
but there's some of them.
- What about university, Charles?
- I might go to Oxford.
- Charles went to Marlborough,
but didn't make it to Oxford.
Instead, he went to Durham University.
- I'd say I'm pleased I didn't, because there's very much
a sort of, certain from Marlborough Prep School,
Marlborough-Oxbridge conveyor belt,
shoved out at the end.
And when you go to Oxbridge, and it's obviously not true
in all cases, but, I think for the majority,
they mix with the same people
as they were with at school and so on.
- When they were 21, we asked them
what they thought they would be doing at 28.
John.
- Might be at the Bath.
- Doing what?
- Perhaps chancery practise.
- How do you see your life at 28?
What do you want for yourself, then?
- I'd quite like to be married by then.
- John has just announced his engagement.
He is a successful barrister in the chancery division
of the high court.
At 21, these were his thoughts about his career.
- Law sort of interests me.
I think it's sort of good life.
It's hard work, but you sort of,
when you get to a certain eminence,
you know, you take the work you want,
and you take the holidays you want,
and you don't really dance to anyone's tune.
All of which quite suits me.
- And what about Charles?
- It's hard to say.
Probably scribbling away in some basement
for some London newspaper or something like that.
- Charles did scribble away
for an East London newspaper.
He moved on after a year and joined the BBC,
where he now works as an assistant producer.
And Andrew, what did he want?
- I'd like to be a solicitor.
And also fairly successful.
- Andrew is a solicitor,
working for a large firm in the city.
- What qualities do you think
it needs to be successful?
- Well, you have to have a legal ability
in my business, obviously.
And you have to have a sort of bed-side manner
as far as your clients are concerned,
because it's no good being brilliant
if you can't communicate with your clients.
- And what do you think about girlfriends
at your age, now tell me what you think of girlfriends.
- I've got one, but I don't think much of her.
- The girls never, never, never do what the boys want them.
They always start playing with dolls
when the boys want to play rough and tumble.
- It's quite true. - Yes!
- I don't think I financially come
from the same background.
Andrew didn't go for a haughty deb,
he went for a good Yorkshire lass.
But, I mean obviously he knew what he wanted.
- Andrew and Jane were married 18 months ago.
- I think I'm probably quite down-to-Earth,
and I tend to be less extravagant than maybe some women are.
I don't go out and buy lots of expensive dresses,
I just go out and buy one or two.
- And even better, pay for them.
- They spend their weekends
in the Sussex countryside, where they are converting
an old barn, which they bought with financial help
from their parents.
They plan to live in it permanently
when they start a family.
During the week, they have a flat in London,
and Jane has a full-time job as a secretary.
- I think it's not a bad idea to pay for schools,
because if we didn't, schools would be so nasty
and crowded.
- Yes, yes. - So do I think so.
And the people in it, and our schools wouldn't...
- And poor people would come rushing in.
- The man in charge of the school would...
- Get very angry.
- Would get very angry, because he would...
- And he'd get bankrupt, once more.
- He wouldn't be able to pay all the masters
if he didn't get any money. - Yes!
- Well, I've never really experienced
the state system, but I think you get a better level
of education if you can go to a private school.
- Do you think it's bad
that people like you opt out of the state system?
- Well, there are really two counter-arguments.
First of all, there's the argument
that people should have the choice,
if they've earned the money to spend it.
And then the other argument is that if we all
went to the same sort of schools,
those schools would probably be better
because those people who had influence
would do their utmost to make sure they were better
if they had to send their children there.
Whereas, they just look back and don't particularly care
what happens in the state system.
- And what do you feel about that?
- Well, I think probably the latter choice
is fairly impractical.
So, I suppose that one has to continue
with the idea of everyone having a choice.
Once, I had to talk to Grevile, he was in my house.
And I asked sir if he could put him out of my house,
because he was always getting minuses.
Looking back on our film of us at seven,
certainly I was a fairly precocious little brat
and I hope I'm no longer.
- Do you still read the Financial Times?
- No.
- Run up there, good shot!
- You mustn't give it, no feeding, it says.
- I'll feed it.
Can feed whenever you want to.
- Look at them, John!
Look now, John.
- Stop it at once!
I don't think much of the accents.
- Neither do I.
- But they're poor children. - It doesn't really
prevent me liking them.
- Da-da-da, yes, and that mustn't be late there.
Quite quietly, it's a very nonchalant little theme.
- Well, yes, I do feel
I've had the best of everything as far as education
is concerned.
But, I mean, you know, to get here,
I had to work very hard.
- But you don't deny
you've had a silver spoon?
- I think anyone who goes to a really good school
has had a leg up.
But I mean, I wouldn't say I'd had,
been unduly privileged.
If I'd missed exams at my school
and had to sort of grotty,
grotty public school,
I wouldn't have thought I had any advantage at all.
Yes, I must say, all this talk about opportunities.
It's something I did slightly object to in the programmes.
We were shown at the age of seven,
outlining, sort of the academic sort of career
that most of us did, in fact, pursue, you know?
Each sentence ended up, you know,
"John is at Westminster",
"Andrew is at Charterhouse," and everything,
implying that we just sailed through,
merely manifesting an intention at the age of seven.
But it didn't show the sleepless nights,
the sort of pouring over our books,
the sort of, all the sweat and toil
that got us to university.
It was presented as it if was just
part of some indestructible birthright,
that we went to all these places,
and I thought that was unfair.
It didn't show us having
to do beastly jobs in the holidays, you know,
to make ends meet.
It didn't give a very real sort of impression.
- Do you want to be rich?
- Well, yes, because I don't want to be tied down
to the dullness of an everyday job.
I want to be able to have enough money
so I can indulge in the things that might interest me,
like collecting paintings.
I do believe in a sort of ordered
and structured society,
and I think we're not exactly alive for very long.
We've each got our own job to do,
and our own little position to be in.
Some people have a better time than others,
but it doesn't mean
because you sweep the streets you're any less valuable
than someone who's running a huge corporation.
Not everyone can be a the top,
and as long as people are happy in what they're doing,
that's, I think, the greatest good that can be,
and this is what worries be about these new,
sort of invidious class attitudes,
that certain subversive elements are introducing,
based on envy and things.
- John declined to be interviewed at 28.
He felt satisfied with what he had said
in the previous films and had nothing more to add.
- The rich children always make fun
of poor children, I think.
- Yes. - Yes.
- Yes, they say, "Oh, look at that lovely little sissy
"over there," or something horrible like that.
- Yes, and they throw things at them.
I don't particularly want to be rich,
but I'd like to have enough money.
- Well, what do you mean by enough?
- Well, enough to have a nice house and be able
to send the children to a private school,
if you want to.
I really don't see how one's life
can be a failure and that if I became a journalist
and got sacked at 30, it's probably because I'd grown
out of it or I'd changed, so I was no longer suitable,
so therefore, I'd find something else which was,
which I would find I enjoyed and which my talents
were suited to.
- Charles has found a career suited
to his talents.
At the BBC, he makes documentary films.
He decided not to take part in this film.
- I'm quite happy living in the society
that I am living in.
It's a shame that more people can't get the opportunities
that I've had, and I'm not sure how one deals with that.
- But you've been lucky, haven't you?
What about those who haven't been so lucky?
- Absolutely, I have been really lucky.
- Well, we pretend we've got swords,
and we make the noise of the swords fighting,
and when somebody stabs us, we go, "Arg!".
I think if you're healthy have good friends,
you can get on perfectly well,
but everybody would like to be rich.
- Neil was brought up in a Liverpool suburb,
went to comprehensive school, and dropped out
of Aberdeen University after one term.
At 21, he was working as a casual labourer,
on a building site in London.
- I came to London and I contacted an agency
for squatters, and they were able to give me the address
of somebody who was able to help people
who were looking for accommodation in the London area.
And by a process of chasing people around,
I eventually managed to find this place.
I think in questions of squatting, a bit of humanity
is more important than vague rules
about who can live where.
- But you've kicked
against the stability that's been offered.
- I don't think I ever had any stability,
to be quite honest.
I can't think of any time in my life when I ever did.
I don't think I've been kicking against anything.
I think I've been kicking in midair the whole of my life.
Last three years, I have, in fact, been unemployed,
but travelling quite a bit, mostly in Britain.
Been abroad once or twice, but not as extensively
as I used to do.
Thanks!
Shall I put the luggage in here
or do you want it in the back?
I live off money from Social Security,
which does me for my rent and my food.
I've been moving about a bit
between different places, really.
I've been unsettled, but I'm very shortly
moving to live-in digs.
- For the last seven years,
Neil has been moving around Britain.
He spent the summer on a farm in North Wales,
and when we found him, he had just arrived
in the Western Highlands of Scotland.
- Do you think people like you,
who live off the state, are scrounging?
- No.
If the state didn't give us any money,
it would probably just mean crime.
And I'm glad I don't have to steal to keep myself alive.
I do it simply because I don't want
to be without any money at all.
If the money runs out, well, then,
for a few days there's nowhere to go to.
And that's just, that's all you can do.
I simply have to find the warmest shed I can find.
- Neil rents whatever kind of home he can find.
- The last job I had was cooking
in a youth hostel, some cleaning work as well.
And I was the only person in the hostel
that could speak French, so I'd have a bit of that.
- Do you eat every day?
- Yes, yes.
I'm eating better now than I was at times
when I was in Aberdeen.
In those days, sometimes, I really was short of food.
Well, I'm going to take people to the country,
and sometimes, take them to the seaside,
and I'll have a big loudspeaker in the motor coach,
and tell them whereabouts we are and what we're going to do,
and what the name of the road is, and all about that.
There's a lot more to do in the mountains
than there would be in a suburb or in the city centre.
What I've found here, in fact,
is that you don't talk about things like the weather,
because the weather is all around.
Everybody knows it's been raining,
so you don't talk about the weather.
That makes good sense to me.
I'm not the sort of person who can go into a pub,
sit down with a drink and listen to the jukebox,
and talk a lot of rubbish.
A lot of people find that very relaxing,
but if I'm gonna talk to somebody,
A, I have to be able to hear myself speaking,
and B, I have to be talking about something
that actually has a meaning.
I'm not trying to denigrate the way that most people relax,
but I can't do that, so I'm lost in a noisy pub.
I'll sit in a quiet corner of a quiet pub
and then I'll want to talk about literature
or something like that, which not everybody will want to.
- How do people regard you here?
- Well, I'm still known as an eccentric,
as I have been since about the age of 16 or so.
- Do the days seem long for you?
- They can do.
- Do you have any friends anywhere?
- I have some good friends, still, in England.
I don't think I need to go to university,
'cause I'm not gonna be a teacher.
I moved up to a comprehensive school.
I found it much bigger, of course,
and I found it hard to settle into at first.
I did make an application to Oxford,
but I didn't get in.
Well, I think that's in the past now,
and I don't know whether I would've been
any happier at Oxford.
It always had been a dream to get into Oxford,
I think because people had encouraged me,
and because I knew famous people having been to Oxford.
That is still something that occasionally
I think about, and think, yes, I know I could've done well.
I've been playing since I started
at the comprehensive school, since the first year.
I don't think I was half as clever as I was told I was.
I think, unfortunately, I grew up
against a background of fairly,
of people of pretty average intelligence.
I don't think I went to a school that was full
of bright people.
If this had been the case, I don't think
I would've been so big-headed.
I know I went to university expecting
to be something of a genius,
and found that this wasn't the case at all,
which is a good thing for me.
I mean, it's very good that I didn't count that opinion.
I don't think I was so much clever,
I just think I was quite enthusiastic,
particularly when it came to A-levels.
I was enthusiastic about the subjects I was studying,
and therefore, with the help of good teaching,
I was able to get good results.
- What were your results?
- Well, I did well enough, I'm not gonna boast.
- Well, then tell me, tell me the fact.
How many O-levels and how many A-levels did you get?
- Well, I managed, I got 10 O-levels,
and then I got four A-levels.
- And did you get good grades within them?
- Yes, the grades were quite satisfactory.
Well, I was only taking university seriously
for a matter of a couple of months, two or three months.
Maybe I went to the wrong university,
or maybe university life didn't suit me.
Either way, I felt a very great need to get out
of the system.
No formal education can prepare anybody for life.
Only life can prepare you for what comes,
and sooner or later, you're gonna have
to cross certain barriers,
and I don't think you ever cross those at school,
or at university.
You come across the problem of mixing with other people,
but the real problem,
I mean the real problem of becoming a success in the world,
is one you have to tackle yourself.
On the grass, we play international wrestling.
- Yeah, that's only at summertime, though.
- Yes, only when we can go on the grass.
Being in set one, it's very, very hard
to keep up with the leaders.
I never have a time to relax at all.
I don't know what sort of stumbling blocks
should be put in a child's way
to get him used to living in the outside world.
'Cause I think, maybe, this is something
that was wrong in my upbringing,
I didn't have enough obstacles to get over.
I still set myself high standards
if I'm doing something I want to do.
But that's, that's important,
that's not too bad a thing.
- But you talked also
about not having enough obstacles in your life.
How do you feel about that now?
- It's funny, that, isn't it?
I can't remember saying that, but now I do remember,
and it seems that the whole situation is reversed.
- In what way?
- Well, now, I'm a free, I've got a free hand,
but I've got nothing to do with myself, so.
In the winter, if you lived in the country,
well, is was just all wet,
and there wouldn't be anything for miles around,
and if you get soaked, if you try to go out,
and there's no shelter anywhere, except in your own house.
But in the town, you can go out on wet, wintry days,
'cause you can always find somewhere to shelter,
'cause there's lots of places.
I don't think I've been typical of the environment
in which I lived.
I might still have been unemployed,
but what my background has given me
is a sense of just being part of
a very impersonal society, the suburbs.
The suburbs force this kind of feeling upon somebody.
The most you can hope to achieve is,
is to have the right to climb into a suburban train
five or 10 times a week, and just about stagger back
for the weekend.
The least is, is just unemployment.
Great, thanks.
I just needed just a nice woolly pair.
- Roughly lined good?
- Yeah, yeah good.
- What other things
about modern society turn you off?
- The cheap satisfaction in so many things.
The aimlessness.
But I think the total lack of thought
is at the bottom of it.
Nobody seems to know where they,
or anybody else, is going.
And nobody seems to worry.
You know, you finish the week,
you come home, you plug into the TV set
for the weekend, and then you manage
to get back to work on Monday.
And it seems to me that this is just a slow path
to total brainwashing.
And if you have a brainwashed society,
then you're heading towards doom.
There's no question about that.
- It would be pretty tough
to convince most people that what you have here,
the way you live, the way you look
is better than a suburban life.
- Well, I don't want to convince anybody, I know it is.
See, what I look like isn't necessarily what I feel like.
I'm not claiming that I feel as though
I'm in some sort of nirvana,
but I'm claiming that if I was living
in a bedsit in suburbia, I'd be so miserable,
I'd feel like cutting my throat.
And so, there is a slight difference.
When I go home, I come in and Mummy
gives me a cup of tea and then I go out and play,
and when it starts to get dark, I come in again,
and put on TV.
I don't think I was really taught any sort of policy
of living at all by my parents.
This is probably their biggest mistake,
and I was just left to fend for myself,
in a world which they seem completely oblivious of.
And I found that even when I tried to discuss problems
which were facing me in school,
my parents didn't seem to be aware of the nature
of the problem.
We made up quite well
after the bad times we went through
when I was in my early 20s.
There are still awkward patches,
but I think suddenly, perhaps almost mutually,
it dawned upon us that we were all making mistakes.
And also, that some of the things we did
couldn't be helped.
And I think now, perhaps the greatest thing
we've achieved is,
is we know when to say nothing.
And we know when to do nothing.
And we know when to be tolerant of each other.
And that's a great thing, that's really tremendous.
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 is necessary.
- Were they upset with what you said
about them in the last programme.
- I'm sure they were,
but I don't wish I hadn't said it,
because I said exactly what was going through my mind.
I think I was very venomous, and I think I,
had I been in an easier situation myself,
and had I had less worries myself at the time,
I would've been perhaps a little kinder.
I had to take out my anger on somebody,
and I think it came out on my parents.
But, perhaps, unconsciously,
a lot of what I said was what I did feel underneath.
But I don't want the scar to remain.
When I get married, I don't want to have any children,
because they're always doing naughty things,
and making the whole house untidy.
I always told myself that I would never have children.
- Why?
- Because, because, well, because children inherit
something from their parents,
and even if my wife were the most high-spirited
and ordinary and normal of people,
the child would still stand a very fair chance
of being not totally full of happiness,
because of what he or she will have inherited from me.
- Coloured people, we don't like them very much.
- No, it sounds like with ghostly-colored people.
You think of a purple person with red eyes
and yellow feet and you can't really think
of what they really look like.
- What goes through your mind,
when you look at those, saw those two films,
when you were at seven, bright and perky, and...
- I find it hard to believe that I was ever like that,
but there's the evidence.
I want to know why I was like that.
I want to know what it was inside me
that made me like that.
And I can see, even at 14,
that I was beginning to get more subdued,
and I was putting a lot more thought into what I was saying,
and to a ridiculous degree.
And probably, when I was seven, I just,
I don't know, I lived in a wonderful world,
where everything was all sensation,
and I could be happy,
and I decided to be miserable, actually.
I know at seven years old, I was fascinated
by everything around me.
The colours of things and things that were funny,
the sounds that things made.
I had, if you like idiosyncratic views
about things that other people hadn't even thought about,
I remember I thought that coloured people
had purple noses and green legs, or something like that.
Perhaps I'm still looking for...
It's difficult to explain.
Perhaps I'm still looking for the green nose
and this sort of thing.
And I know that they're still there.
I know that when you look at a human being,
that there's more to that person than just a robot.
When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut,
but if I can't be an astronaut,
I think I'll be a coach driver.
This is probably linked up
with the fact now, is I want to travel.
I mean, my thoughts haven't really changed, definitely.
So, although I definitely wouldn't like
to be a coach driver, now.
I suppose, yes, well, I would like
to be somebody in a position of importance,
and I've always thought this.
But 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.
But I suppose I'd probably find that just as tedious
as all the other jobs I've done, so.
All the things I always thought I could do,
I could give lectures on erudite subjects
that I'd read all about, or I could work in the theatre,
perhaps lighting or directing a show.
- And is all that lost to you?
- Does seem to be, yes.
I don't see any way out.
I've thought of everything I possibly could.
It seemed to me for a long time,
that getting a reliable job or a nice place
to live would be the solution.
Well, I haven't succeeded.
I can't see any immediate future at all.
But here I am, I'm still,
I've got clothes on my back,
not particularly nice clothes, but I've still got them.
I have a place to go to.
I have some prospects of work.
I'm still applying for jobs, I haven't given up.
I think I'm lucky because I've met so many people.
I've worked with people who have no future whatsoever,
for whom life is finished, completely, at 50.
And yet, they still have to somehow keep going.
And I don't want it to seem
that I'm complaining too much.
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've said, I sometimes can be found behaving
in an erratic fashion.
I sometimes get very frustrated, very angry,
for no apparent reason, for a reason
which won't be apparent to other people around me.
It's happened from time to time.
- Have you had treatment?
- I've occasionally had to see doctors, yes.
I haven't had any treatment.
- And what have they said to you?
- I've had a lot of advice,
but you know, the best medicine is kind words.
And it usually comes from somebody who has nothing
to do with the medical profession.
Which isn't to say that doctors can't be very helpful,
but really, the thing a sick person wants
is to be away from doctors as soon as possible.
- What did they say was wrong with you?
- Well, I have always had a nervous complaint.
I had it since I was 16.
It was responsible for my leaving university,
and for some of my difficulties with work.
But as you know, you can't afford
to go around looking depressed.
That in itself is bad enough.
- So, can you lick it?
- It remains to be seen.
Yes, I'd say I believed in God.
- Are you religious?
- Well, I got to church with my parents on Sundays.
Oh, 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.
But still, there, this was the absolutely certain one,
if one was to survive in the world,
one would have to believe in God.
I don't think of God as a creature,
but I think of something, time, destiny,
which is regulating everybody's affairs,
and which you cannot, you cannot fight against,
and you cannot order about.
- And how's He been treating you?
- Well, I said to somebody last week,
that I preferred the Old Testament
to the New Testament because in the Old Testament,
God is very unpredictable.
And that's, I think, how I've seen Him in my life:
sometimes, very benevolent,
sometimes, seemingly, needlessly unkind.
- If we come back in seven years,
how would you like us to find you?
- In a job, from which I was getting satisfaction,
married,
probably with children,
with a good salary,
enough to, as I said before, to be able
to live fairly comfortably,
and with friends whom I could contact when I wanted to.
I'm a lot happier now than I was seven years ago.
I'm more content.
I don't have such dreadful yearnings.
I don't feel so hopelessly,
as if everything is against me.
- Do you think, "What a waste"?
- Yeah, perhaps.
- Why should you accept this?
You're better than all this, aren't you?
- No, I'm not better than anything or anybody,
I'm just somebody with my own particular difficulties,
my own particular obstacles to surmount,
and everybody else is doing exactly the same thing.
- If we did all love Geoffrey,
and we all want to marry him...
- Yes! - I think I know
the one that he'd like.
- Jackie, Lynn, Susan.
After primary school, they separated,
and at 14, Lynn was at grammar school,
and Jackie and Susan were at comprehensive.
- We had a teacher at school... - Are we on?
- That his favourite ploy was, "All you girls want to do
"is walk out, get married, have babies,
"and push a pram down the street
"with a fag hanging the side of your mouth."
- Women are expanding into so many different areas now
that it must getting easier, and I mean I could...
- Susan has been married four years
and has a son of two.
Her husband, Billy, is a gas fitter,
and they live in a council house in the East End of London.
- 74.
- I'm lucky, I expect,
because I still manage to do my own thing.
I've got a husband who lets me do what I want,
and a mum who helps me out.
You know, and I do a little part-time job,
which is enough for me, because I don't think
I could cope with a full-time job,
and I wouldn't want to, personally.
- 60.
- Jackie was married at 19
and her husband is a decorator.
She works for an insurance company in the city.
- I certainly don't want to stay
in the position I am at the moment, forever and ever.
But how ambitious, I'm not really sure.
Tends to change as you get older, so,
just gotta wait and see, really.
- Lynn also married at 19.
Her husband works for the post office
and they have two daughters.
They moved out of the East End to Kent 18 months ago.
- I'm going to work in Woolworth's.
- At 21, Lynn was working in a mobile library
in Tower Hamlets.
She's still there.
- 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 gotta love 'em, and I love children.
- Well, I know he is her,
and he loves her.
- I don't, I love him.
- I don't think I'd get married too early.
I'd like to have a full life first and meet people and...
- Like to enjoy myself before I'd...
- Yeah, before you commit yourself to a family.
- Before you get married.
- If you think that getting married,
as far as we're concerned is a case of going to work,
come home, cook tea for hubby, going to bed,
getting up, going to work,
you're totally mistaken.
- Did you meet enough men
before you decided who to marry?
- I've been married a year in a couple of months.
You do think, "Christ, what have I done?"
- See, I've still got more...
- And I'm bein' honest about it.
And Les thinks the same, you think,
at times, you think, "Christ, what have I done?"
It is a partnership marriage yes.
We married, say, ominously, young,
but because we wanted to go out
and have fun together, and grow together.
- I'm not sure I would recommend it.
I think, if, but again, you're generalising.
I mean, if, I would say, on average,
19 is probably too young.
- I've had good time, up 'til I was 24,
and I think that to get married young,
there must be things that you miss.
You must miss that crucial stage of being yourself,
because the minute you get married,
you're no longer a single being,
you're a partnership and that should be the idea behind it.
If I could, I would have two girls and two boys.
- Yes, so would I.
- And what about you, Jackie?
- My mum, 'cause she's got five girls,
she had seven years bad luck,
that's why she's got five girls.
I'd like it to be how,
have a happy family.
I mean, I know that's not possible,
to be happy all the time,
but as much of the time that it was possible.
Go through there, that's the nursery.
- Got any plans.
- Oh, do me a favour.
- At 21, Jackie had moved into a new house.
She has decided not to have any children.
- Basically, I would say because I'm far too selfish.
I enjoy doing what I want when I want and how I want.
And certainly at the moment,
I can't see any way around that.
And it's not to say that that's a forever decision.
Some people can make it work,
I just don't think I could.
- You don't think you're missing out
on what they have, their stake in the future?
- No.
Actually, that's a terrible, terrible way to put it.
- No, I don't think that that'd it.
- You know?
I mean, that makes you sound like you're saying,
right, great, we're gonna have a child.
And that's us.
I do feel to a degree that yes, I am missing out,
but I also think that I get far more pleasure,
or I'm gaining far more experience by not having that tie.
- When I got married, the primary reason
was because I want to have a child.
The two, to me, went together.
I can understand Jackie's decision,
because I think there's still a lot of pressure
put on young married couples to have children,
as though it's expected of them,
and I think it's all wrong.
It's just a personal decision
that everyone's entitled to make.
And knowing what it does to your life,
I can fully understand someone who decides not to.
What would you do if you had lots of money,
but made two pounds.
- I would buy meself a new, new nice house, you know,
one that's all nice and comfy.
- Do you get depressed by money problems?
- No, why?
Why should you?
If you can manage on what...
- Foolish to get depressed over money.
- It's so easy to, by would you?
Why bother about it? - Well, I've reached
the 18th day of the month
and my mortgage is due on the 20th
and there's nowhere near enough money in there,
I'd get depressed about it, obviously.
What money?
- It was hard first of all, when I gave up work,
from having a fairly high salary,
to nothing, was hard.
But you get used to it.
Whatever your circumstances are,
you live in them, you get used to them,
and you cope, everybody does.
I didn't feel like going to a grammar school,
just a comprehensive school.
It just seemed more friendly, you know, at the time,
at least, by now, they're really different.
- They're really good.
- Grammar school is fantastic.
- If you say so, Lynn.
- We found that it doesn't scratch the bottom.
Why am I using a wooden spoon, please,
to stir this saucepan?
- I don't think anybody influenced me.
It was a conscious decision.
Obviously the decision was discussed at home,
but it was always in me to go.
- There may come a time, perhaps later on,
when I'll regret not having,
is it, we're talking about examination results, really.
That's what it boils down to.
And I got some examination results,
some O-levels, CSAs, whatever, didn't need them,
for the jobs I decided to do, so.
- With this school, we do metal work and wood work
and the boys do cookery,
and we get a share of everything, sort of thing.
Most parents would want every advantage
that they can get for their child.
Now whether you class
going to grammar school as an advantage,
is dependent on your entire outlook.
If you don't class it as an advantage,
then you're not gonna push that.
- My mum left me, she knew I could go to grammar,
and I decided that I didn't want to.
- You didn't want to, the choice was yours.
- And she encouraged me in the choice in that I made and...
- That's right. - But right or wrong,
that was my choice,
as much as I was capable of making a decision.
And I enjoyed myself.
- My father had a reasonably good education,
he never went to the local comprehensive,
but at the same time,
I don't think he was too worried which way I decided to go.
I think he probably knew me better than I did,
which was that basically,
I was a very lazy person, academically,
and I think I would've found grammar school a push.
- Do you have any regrets about it?
- No, no.
You can only have regrets about things
if you're not happy with the way you are.
- You look at the old film
and you see yourselves at seven.
Do you think you've changed?
- No, I don't think I have, really.
- We're the same people as we were then.
- I was always chatty,
Jackie was always chatty,
and Lynn was always the quieter one.
- Is that depressing or frightening
to think that we're all set by the time we're seven,
and that's it?
- I don't think one's set by that age.
You progress, but the overall character
is there to come up.
- I think the basics are there.
- Yeah, the basics are there.
- And why is it that you three
haven't changed so much, do you think?
- Hopefully, we never know that.
- Perhaps we've never grown up.
- We've all had a stable background
with stable relationships all the way through.
I mean.
- The same people are there now that were there then.
- The poor, if you don't help them,
they'll sort of die, soon, wouldn't they?
There are some people who are just born into rich families,
and they're lucky.
- I don't see why they should have the luck
when people who have worked all their lives
never got half as much as what they have.
It just don't seem fair.
- I've had the opportunities in life that I've wanted.
- I say I've had more opportunities.
- You've married.
- I'm not saying choose. - Yeah, you've married.
- So you three working-class girls
don't feel bitter about a society
that maybe gives one strata of it more opportunities
than another?
- No.
Not bitter.
- Not at all.
- I don't even think, to be honest,
we consciously think about it until this programme comes up...
- We think about it and there they are.
- Until this programme comes up once every seven years.
I really don't think we even think about it.
I do not sit there saying,,
"She was born into money, he's had more,"
I mean it just doesn't, it doesn't even cross my mind.
- I think that we all could've gone
in any way that we wanted to at the time,
within our capabilities.
I mean, we chose our own jobs,
we were able to choose our own jobs quite freely.
- If you've got a comfortable background,
then perhaps it can make life easy,
but I think you've also seen,
within this programme, that it doesn't always work that way.
- In some respects, I think that the boys, and Suzie,
didn't have such an open choice as we had.
It was mapped out from such an early age,
as to where they were going, and they had to live up.
It's a hard thing, living up to parental...
- Expectations. - Expectations.
- Before I'm old enough to get a job,
I 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.
I often say I'm saving to settle down with Yvonne.
And then I think to meself,
"Oh, I might buy a car, instead."
Since 21, I've got married,
had a couple of kids.
Hey, give me your hand, too.
Well, I don't there was anybody else I could've ever married
except Yvonne.
She gives me my life, really,
because we're together, we have the children
and everything.
- And what is it, with Yvonne,
that you fell in love with?
- Her nature, really.
She's always quiet and thoughtful,
except when she's laughing.
Don't tell lies.
- Tell me, do you have any girlfriends?
- Well, not many.
- What do you think about girls?
- Well, not much.
Look at the parrot.
- When you decided to have the five,
did you want to have them close together?
- Yeah, because if you separate your kids,
say one is 15 and one is six, and there's such an age gap
that they could never get on,
they never grow up together,
they won't know each other.
- Why did you want to have a large family?
- Well, I wouldn't really call it a large family.
- Well, I think it is large
by average standards.
- Yeah?
We just wanted five kids.
You know, we got exactly what we want:
three boys and two girls, so, I mean.
- You gonna have any more?
- No, no, no, it was exactly,
though it's a handful, you know?
- Do you push your kids at school?
Those that go to school already?
- No, I don't push them, I encourage them
in what they, they come home, when they come home,
and I come home in the evening,
they tell me what they've done.
You know, if they've done anything bad,
I'll tell where they've gone wrong.
And if they want,
what's the word, not encouragement,
praise, for what they've done,
then I'll give it to them if they've done well, yeah?
- Do you see maybe your kids
are gonna be smarter than you are?
- Oh, yeah, there's a couple of 'em already,
look like they're gonna be smarter.
- How are you gonna handle that?
- I keep 'em on my side.
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.
- What effect has that had on you?
- Well, I don't think it's had any effect on me,
'cause what you don't have, you don't miss, and this.
20 years ago, when I was born,
you know, an illegitimate child 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.
- What would you like to give your children
that you never had?
- Well, 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.
I feel like bundling, when there's already a fight.
I always feel like that.
- Simon was brought up in a children's home.
He went back to live with his mother
when he was 13.
- I was at a boarding school,
and I liked the discipline.
That gave me kind of freedom.
- Do you encourage that with your children?
- Yeah, I do encourage that.
They go to bed the same time every night,
and they get up 'round about the same time every morning.
And they go to school the same time every day.
You know, it's good to have discipline and routine.
- But what about in your life,
do think there's been too much routine?
- No, not really.
I mean, somebody else might think so, yeah,
but I enjoyed having the routine.
I enjoyed knowing where I was gonna be next,
and what I had to do next,
because that sort of relieved me from responsibilities.
- At 21, he was working in the freezer room
of Wall's Sausages in London.
- How do you see the future,
as far as work goes?
- Well, 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 don't know, I've been there about eight or nine years,
or something like that.
There's a lot of people I know there, now.
When I first went there, I mean,
there's gettin' to know people.
Now that I've been there so long,
I mean, I know practically everybody who's in there.
Now, I don't think my mind could go dead
'cause I got a lot to talk about
every day I go to work, you know?
There's always somebody says something smart, you know?
I just want to
be just like anybody else, you know?
Nothing too marvellous.
I feel okay just gettin' on in life.
Just sort of keepin' up.
But I know if I really wanted to, I could get on.
Yeah, only take a little spark in me to do it.
Oh, 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?
- Did 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.
But it's never really sort of worried me.
I suppose it should, but it just hasn't.
Not really interested in moving' on, up the scale.
- Why?
- I don't need the hassle it would be
to charge-hand, manager, or whatever.
I had one dream when all the world was on top of me,
and everything was on it,
and I just about got out,
and everything flew up in the air.
It all landed on my head.
See, I mean everybody's got the same start.
They got their little bit of grey matter in their head,
and depends how they use it, and for what purpose.
Yeah, if you're just gonna be like me,
take it easy through your life, okay, great.
If you're gonna be somebody who really wants to go far,
well, you have to push yourself.
If you don't push yourself, you won't go up.
- And did you wanna go far,
push yourself?
- No, I wanna get through life nice and easy.
- Dinner! - Dinner!
- Simon and his family live in a council flat,
in South Hall, London.
- What do you think about rich people?
- Well, not much.
- Tell me about them.
- Well, they think they can do everything,
but without you doin' it as well.
Rich people, they have all different things,
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?
- Well, I'm missing a bike and a fishing rod.
- Are you envious of people
who have a lot of money?
- No, I may have been, but I can't envy them now,
because I've got what I want,
so there's nothing that anybody can give me
that is gonna make me any happier.
I could save for months, and then just one day,
just go out and spend it, and that's that.
I would feel quite happy about it.
I wouldn't worry about gettin' the next penny.
If you don't plan anything, you wouldn't,
you'll never get by anyway.
You could have millions,
and you wouldn't know what you're gonna do with it,
if you just keep spending it.
You have to know what you're spending.
Everybody's gotta get used to knowing coloured people,
and coloured people in turn have gotta get used
to being with white people,
'cause if either side doesn't work properly,
then no side will work properly.
They're just the same as me, aren't they?
- I mean, do you think it's hard
being a black man in English society today?
- That depends what you want, innit?
If you just wanna live in this society,
no it's not hard.
If you wanna fight a society, yes, it would be hard.
- And have you ever wanted to fight it?
- Not really, no, it's no need for it.
I've been to Madame Tussauds, with my mom,
and the planetarium as well.
- Do you want to go abroad?
- Yeah.
I'd like to go to Majorca,
and take a couple of weeks out there from everything.
Relax meself.
I think I might like to sort of go out of this country,
probably just for a holiday, first.
Somewhere, anywhere, and then sort of,
think about settling down somewhere else.
I mean, I could've got a job in some foreign parts,
working for an automation, a packing firm.
But when it came down to it, I didn't wanna move.
I didn't wanna leave.
So I mean, probably got a very narrow view of life,
'cause I don't really like travelling.
- Does that worry you
that you have that narrow view?
- Worry me, you keep asking me if things worry me.
No.
- Does it concern you, then?
- Yeah, that's a different word.
No, not really, it doesn't really concern me.
- And what do you want for the future?
- Watchin' my kids grow up,
and when they've grown up, maybe seeing their children
grow up as well.
- Looking at some of the earlier films,
it would seem that maybe you had a sad childhood,
and you didn't have a dad, and you didn't
have a lot of material things.
- No, I wouldn't really call that a sad life.
It's a different life to somebody with everything,
or thinks they have everything,
but I mean, doesn't matter if you got everything,
all the material things in the world.
I mean, you're not gonna be happy anyway,
because you still want the next thing down the road.
- At the end of their very special day
in London, after their trip to the zoo
and the party, we took our children
to an adventure playground,
where they could do just what they liked.
Those from the children's home set about building a house.
There's Nicholas.
And Tony.
Andrew.
And Bruce.
John.
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.