The Up Series

In 1963 World in Action made a film about these seven year old children

they talked about their homes, their schools and what they wanted to be

they were filmed again when they were fourteen

we've brought them all together to watch the films

because this year they are twenty-one

what are they doing now?

How have they changed?

What sort of people are they?

Stop it at once!

Give me a child until he is seven

and I will give you the man.

When I leave the school I'm going to..

Colet Court

and then I will be going to Rossminster Boarding School

if I pass the exam

and then we think I'm going to

Cambridge and Trinity Hall.

Well...

before I'm old and that, enough to get a job

I'll just walk around and see what I can find

I want to be a jockey when I grow up yeah.

When I leave school

I'm going to The Dragon School, I might

and after I might go to Charter house Marlborough.

What about university Charlie?

I might go to Oxford.

What does university mean?

Well...

Well I don't think I need to go to university

'cause I'm not going to be a teacher

I don't think you have to go to university

if you want to be an astronaut.

When I leave this school

I'm down for Heathfield and Fairfield Manor

and then maybe I may want to go to university

but I don't know which one yet

I will buy myself a nice new made house, you know.

One that's all nice and comfy

I'm going to work in Woolworths.

Well, going to Africa

and try and teach people who are not civilised

to be, more or less good.

When I grow up I'd like to

find out all about the moon and all that.

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 mean if we accept this

then it...

Okay I think it's probably good entertainment

I don't think we've changed that much

I think we talk, no I don't mean looks

I mean the way we talk I don't think we've changed that much.

Well you never lose an Eastend accent do you

I tell you what, as it goes you've definitely changed.

- You think so yeah? - In facial.

You haven't changed a bit have you?

Don't you think so? I thought I'd got bigger.

You might be about an inch bigger yeah.

- An inch? - I know it's unbelievable.

That's something I did notice, the way our teeth have changed.

Teeth?

Yes.

Mine were out like that and I had them shoved back - Well I noticed the ears actually.

Have you not noticed that a lot of people... your ears have been made real fun about them.

They've got they're conclusions settled already.

They must

met here today and we've seen the films

and we feel as if we know everybody who is in the films now

has broken any class barriers that could previously existed

and therefore the film itself has

possibly defeated its own object.

They do lead me on a bit don't they - That's what I mean

and they hype the program up too much.

Yeah

and make that you're good and I'm bad.

Or - Well Vice-versa I think.

- No don't be silly. - No I really do, especially the "7" one.

People tend to read significance into it that I don't think exists.

One of my friends for instance, had me pointed out to him as...

being destined to run the farm

and being educationally pretty inept, this is obvious from the film.

At seven Nicholas was at a one room village school in the Yorkshire Dales.

Do you have a girlfriend?

I don't want to answer that

I don't want answer those kind of questions.

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

When I was doing the other one somebody said

"what do you think about girls?" and I said "I don't answer questions like that"

is that the reason you're asking it?

Yeah - thought so.

The best answer would be

to say that I don't answer questions like that but I mean..

You know it was what I said when I was seven

and it's still the most sensible but I mean, what about them?

Well you seemed at fourteen

very shy of the whole

sexual life, has that changed?

I've tried to make a change yes

a very definite conscious effort not to be shy

to be more outgoing

and this is actually something I can put a point to in my own past

and think yes I did make my mind up here, here and here

that I was going to try and change this, this and this

"this" being basically my confidence

and my

my sort of approach to

well this is to people in general.

When I grow up I'd like to

find out all about the moon and all that.

I mean

I'm not

when I said that I was interested in physics and chemistry well I'm not going to do that here.

You might be able to get... somebody to ex...

will you explain this to me again

Nicholas is now in his 2nd year at Oxford University.

Well I'm trying to be a physicist

to fill in the detail of

whenever you meet somebody at university that

the standard question is,

where are you and what are you doing?

And my answer is I'm at Merton College and I'm doing Physics

so it doesn't move up and down and just rotates.

OK - Then you put it in.

We'll give it a whirl.

So what career are you going to pursue?

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

I would like if I can to do research.

Are there any disadvantages in coming from a small place like this

and preparing yourself for Oxford?

Well it's a rather different background

to go any where, Oxford perhaps especially

it is a rather more firm foundation I would've thought

as to your

character? I don't? Perhaps character

than being brought up in the city.

It's a fixed reference point in a sense

that sort of earthy life and death cycle that you get

living on a farm

so when something dies it rots and feeds back into the earth

sometimes it's helpful

in a city where things that some people are very concerned about seem quite irrelevant.

Is there a new strength of your father as a farmer

that you think he's trying to teach you.

Well you get a certain sort of calmness in some situations

take things as they come you become resigned to things

if the dog's chasing animals in the wrong direction then you just have to put up with it

if it won't do as it's told you become resigned to these things

I suppose yes that's one possibility

come on

come on lad

I suppose of all the seven year olds

the original ones, you are the big success.

I am not inclined to accept that.

Why? You wouldn't agree with that?

Well what have I achieved?

I'm not really prepared to accept that I've done anything very special yet.

I'd like to think that... I mean I'm hoping that I might do at some stage

but I don't really think I've done anything that you can call a great success.

It would seem really ridiculous to any of my friends who watch this if I said.

"Christ aren't I a great success, look at me."

Well what? You know, what success?

I can't think of it in those terms

I haven't done anything that can be called success

nothing out of the ordinary really.

Singing Waltzing Matilda in Latin

at an exclusive pre-preparatory school in London

Charles

Andrew

and John

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, so do I think so.

The poor people would come rushing in and the man in charge of the school would...

Would you think there's any truth in the ideas behind the program that

certain people have more options than others and this is undesirable?

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

the fact is that the three of us know that there's a whole range of things we can do.

But the mere knowledge creates an option in itself, so I think we do have more options

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 of them, 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.

If people behave responsibly I think it's very good

they're the sort of stability and structure in society.

We've been taught to expect more

it's not that because we've been to private schools

we're not better qualified necessarily.

No - Yes I agree with that.

It's a matter of expectations.

Yes I must say, all this talk about opportunities

something I did slightly object to in the program was

we were shown at the age of seven

outlining the academic career that most of us did in fact pursue

each sentence ended up "John is at Westminster"