"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 Charterhouse 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"" "Andrew is at Charterhouse and everything implied that we just sailed through, merely manifesting an intention at the age of seven we didn't show the sleepless nights, the pouring over our books sort of, you know all the sweat and toil that got us through to university" "it was presented as if it was just part of some indestructible birth right that we went to all these places and I thought that was unfair, they didn't show us having to do beastly jobs in the holidays" "y'know, to make ends meet and things it didn't give a very real sort of...impression" "The three girls are earning income wise they're far better off than I imagine all three of us are, certainly I am and background wise in terms of qualifications or the means of achieving their ends they probably have just as many options as we do" "Jaqueline how do you think about coloured people?" "Well they're nice, they're just the same as us really but, one thing it's only 'cause their skin's brown and we're white sort of pinkish we are" "Jackie, Lynn and Susan they went to primary school together in the Eastend of London" "Lynn chose to go on to a grammar school and Jackie and Susan to a comprehensive" "There is a danger that you would get married at early twenties and have children quickly and then be stuck at home have you any thoughts on that?" " I don't really think about it much" " No" "I don't think I'd eh.... get married to early" "I'd like to have a full life first and" " I'd like to enjoy myself before I..." " Meet people and...yeah" "Before you can commit yourself to a family" "What would you do if you had lots of money?" "about two pounds" "I would buy myself a nice new made house you know one that's all nice and comfy" "Jackie was married last year and now lives on a new estate in Essex" " It's a nice estate" " Yeah" " Yeah not bad at all" "What are they like the neighbours?" "Have you seen a lot of them or what?" "Well you know, to say hello to more than anything, I mean we borrow things off of her, which is just as well" " That's what neighbours are for isn't it?" " Yeah right!" "Here, It's a similar colour scheme down here moving up stairs isn't it?" "Yeah but this was more by luck than judgement really" " Was it like this when you came?" " No it was all white but you can imagine the state it was in friends had some paint handy so Dad and Mick just used the rollers and in a day it was done two coats, wallop!" "that was it" "Susan is still single" "I work for a travel company they don't deal with the public, they deal with groups and company groups it's sort of incentive, holidays abroad and conferences, that sort of thing which I like because I like foreign places" "and I have to do eh...." "I do quite a bit of typing but a lot of my work is involved in making bookings and dealing with hotels abroad" "I left school and started work... for an Australian bank and I'm still there and I've been there what?" "Three and a half years now" "I've done various jobs within the bank" "I started off as a telephonist-typist which was very interesting actually, you'd be surprised the sort of calls you get" "Then I went on to work the NCR machine which is the actual machine that processes the accounts and counter work dealing with clients money and things like that" "I'm going to work in Woolworths" "Well I'm a school mobile librarian and assistant to the young peoples office" "Which is where we are now and I've been here since August last year" "Lynn is now married but still lives and works in the Eastend" "I visit schools with the van where they've not got position to get into a local library for class visits" "I love working with children do you remember on the last one I wanted to teach?" "Well I didn't get to that and seeing how it is today I'm glad I didn't the job situation for all teachers as it is and I think it takes a lot more patience than I've actually got" "I'm much more at home here" " Have I stamped yours?" " Yes" "I've not stamped yours" "Sleeping Beauty" "I've lost the stamp!" "Do you sleep like a beauty?" "What do you say?" "Thank you" "I definitely make a point in reading all my new books I get in" "It's quite funny, I take loads of books home and people come and say "who are these kids books on the table?"" " "They're mine" - "Oh"" "Then they sort of shut up" "At the moment a career's probably about the furthest thing from my mind and I don't really know what I'm aiming for except to get the house together and that can take years, as fast as you replace one thing something else needs replacing, so ... it could just go on like that, I don't know" "Well admitting that you're not a career girl does it mean that you're therefore looking for a family?" "Oh I don't know, I suppose I am" "But erm.." "every thing's not that cut and dried it's not either career or family or... but is what's in the middle, am I just going to carry on as I am now?" "for?" "and end up .....on the shelf?" "or am I just going to get married?" "could be any day, but" "I suppose Lynn is a career girl in a way isn't she?" "Yeah she's more wrapped up in her job than I think we are and you all three were sat there at seven and she's gone that way and you've gone this way is there?" "can you?" ".... think of any reasons why that should be?" "I think just basic personality, Lynn's always been that little bit different from us" "She's always been more serious as far as studies are concerned" "I didn't feel like going to a grammar school, I just er... you know, comprehensive school it just seemed more friendly" "At that time that is, but now a little bit different" " Grammar school's fantastic" " If you say so!" "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" "This is Susie the product of a private education and wealthy parents" "What do you think about making this program?" "I just think it's ridiculous, I don't see any point in doing it" "Why not?" "What's the point of people going into peoples lives and saying:" ""Why do you like this and why don't you?" I don't see any point in it" "Well I didn't want to do it when I was fourteen" "I know I was very difficult because I was very anti doing it because I was pressurised into doing it by my parents" "and I hated it and I vowed I'd never do it now but here I am" "I'd like to do... short hand typing or something like that" "I left school when I was sixteen, went to Paris went to secretarial college and got a job" "What made you decide to leave school and go to Paris?" "I just wasn't interested in school and just wanted to get away and why did you choose Paris?" "I don't know, it was my parents really" "Did you sort of feel the need to get away?" "and why?" "Well I'd lived in London or Scotland and I knew people who were going out to Paris and so I thought I'd go as well" "Comparing yourselves to Susie who stands at the other end of the social scale do you think you've had the same opportunities as her?" "I've had the opportunities in life that I've wanted" "I'd say I've had more opportunities than Susie" "I'd say I've had more opportunities than her in a different aspect to what she's had them" "But eh, my life, I've been able to do more or less what I wanted to do" "I'm not going to say it on film, what i feel for her" "But I think she's been so conditioned into what she should do and what she shouldn't do" "Yeah but I mean" "The whole thing is you're saying "do we envy anything Susie's had?"" "No" "I mean I don't know" "I don't know what Susie's had, what's Susie had that I haven't had?" "I mean, until I know that I can't honestly say whether I envy her" " She's had money and she's travelled" " I've got money!" "Maybe not enough but I've got it!" "I have been to Honolulu with my father about two years ago for a couple of months" "which I didn't really enjoy there's nothing much out there, there's no meet people my own age out there and I hated it and I was glad to come home" "apart from that I've been to France on holidays" "I'm going to Australia in the summer for about two months otherwise I don't know where I'm going to go and I'd like to go and travel more" "Why?" "Well I don't think there's any point in sitting in your own country" "I'd like to see how people live on the other side of the world" "Tell me about the Australian trip" "Well I'm going in July for about two months with my cousin her elder sister's married out there and we're just going out to.... see what it's like we're going to not work out there, we're only going for two months" "We just feel if we don't go now we never will" "We've got the opportunity and the time to go now so we're going" "How are you going to pay for it?" "Save up and go" "Do you get depressed by money problems?" "No, why?" "Why should you?" " If you can manage on what you've got" " I refuse to get depressed over money" " It's so easy to but why should you?" " I do, I do" "Why worry about it?" "When I reach the 18th day of the month and my mortgage is due on the 20th and there's nowhere near enough money in there, I get depressed about it obviously" "Suddenly thinking, oh my god what's going to happen, you know" "But it gets there, don't ask me how but you get it" "Do you think you've settled down to young?" "No" "I've married and we do things together, or..." "I go out on my own sometimes with friends from work he does the same, what do you mean by settled down?" "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 and... a couple of months you do think "christ, what have I done?"" " See I've still got my ideals - and I'm being honest about it!" "and my husband thinks the same, at times you think "christ, what have I done?"" " But then if..." " But marriage..." "Marriage means a different thing to me" "I've still got my ideals about marriage, I don't know what it's all about, obviously" "So I've still got pictures of" " Cosy evenings indoors...yeah" " With roses!" "She'd have cosy evenings indoors with the central heating!" "Or lack of it!" " Yeah, I've got a lot to learn about .... getting married" "I mean, your parents split up soon after you were fourteen" "What sort of influence, effect did that have on you?" "Well I was the only child going through their parents splitting up aged 14 at a very vulnerable age and it does touch you up, but..." "You know, you get over it" "There was no point in them staying together for me if it was worse, I mean the rows and... and it's worse so if two people can't live together there's no point in making yourself even for the sake of children" "What is your attitude towards marriage?" "for yourself?" "Well I don't know, I haven't given it a lot of thought as I'm very cynical about it" "But then you get a certain amount of faith restored in it" "I mean I've got friends and their parents are happily married and it does put faith back into you but me myself I'm very cynical about it" "Why?" "Because I think it kills whatever love is it just seems to go wrong" "What do you base that on?" "Well, people I've seen, people around me" "I mean I've got....not a lot of my friends are married a lot of people who are 20,30 all seem to be getting divorced and can't stay together and at the moment I just don't really believe in it" "Why do you think people can't hold marriages together?" "I don't know, I really don't know" "I don't sort of sit down and think "ooh ...analyse marriage"" "It's not something I've had to think about whether I was going to get married and I've got no desire to at the moment, I think twenty is far too young" "What was the wedding like?" "Our wedding?" "a laugh!" "I wanted, white wedding, all trimmings" "My husband would've been satisfied with very little but being as we were going into it as a full thing we went into it" "I had an all white wedding, all white" "We were both in white and my bridesmaid was in white" "It's a funny day actually because I suppose I was up somewhere around the five o'clock mark and I spent all day preparing well all morning I should say and then sitting around for about three hours just waiting for something to happen then when it did happen I don't remember it" "So it was just complete confusion really" " It was a nice day though" " Oh yeah" "It was funny actually, you can imagine some of the comments" "I was pleased I was there, it seemed the right place to be" "I mean I was glad I was at her wedding, I've known her a long while" "Did anything happen?" "Anything funny?" "I can't forget the cake" "It was horrific really, the cake what happened to the wedding cake it was sitting right in between Mick and myself suddenly the columns just completely gave way and it just all fell into one" " It was a nice cake though!" " Yeah it wasn't bad!" "I read the Financial Times" "I read the Observer and the Times" "What do you like about it?" "Well I like..." "I usually look at the headlines then read about them about it" "I like my newspaper because I've got shares in it" " and I know every day what the shares are" " The stuff that misers like you like!" "But on Monday's they don't move up so I don't look at it" "That's one of the troubles with this sort of program, I don't really think that people like us" "Unless we're seven and being rather funny, have very much to say that's... very interesting, because I mean... we don't know very much" "Well we didn't know very much when we were seven" " But we were still quite funny" " We were at least funny!" " Yes!" " Yes!" " In ourselves!" "I agree with John, all we can say is what we think and if that's of interest to people, good luck to them" "Yes and I can't believe it is" "More fool them!" "When I leave this school I'm going to College Court then I would be going to Westminster Boarding School if I pass the exam" "and then we think I'm going to" "Cambridge and Trinity Hall" "John is in his final year at Christchurch Oxford, reading Law" "I do believe parents have a right to educate their children as they think fit" "I think someone who works on an assembly line in a car factory, 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 priorities as... having a smart car or something" "I don't think that's any reason for abolishing public school" "I think an awful lot more people could afford to send their sons to school" "You know, to fee paying school" "But they don't choose to, and that's their choice" "I'm going to Charterhouse and after that, Trinity Hall Cambridge" "Andrew is in his last year at Trinity College Cambridge, reading Law" "I think if people earn their money they should have a right to spend it an education is very important and you can never be sure of leaving your children any worldly goods but at least you can be sure that once you've given them a good education" "that's something that no one can take away" "What about university Charlie?" "I might go to Oxford" "You're reading history at Durham University, you didn't make Oxford" "What are your feelings about that?" "I don't mind at all" "In fact" "I'd say I'm pleased I didn't because it was very much a sort of" "sort of set of Marlborough Prep School" "Marlborough, Oxbridge, conveyor belt you get shoved out at the end and you... 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 they were at school with" "So what attracts you to Oxford?" "Well first of all it's such a beautiful place there's more to it than just studying away at one's books" "I think it's very difficult not to get something out of it there's such a sort of... atmosphere of culture and... and timelessness about the place that I think you do sort of mature an awful lot" "So what is Beagling?" "Beagling is the hunting of the hare with a pack of hounds, done on foot" "I mean a lot of people seem to imagine a days hunting with either fox to hunt or beagles" "unadulterated butchery." "I mean this just isn't true, I think" "I wish people had a more realistic idea of what it's about" "The hounds are over there I think" "I saw them last streaming along that hedge there" " Frustrating isn't it?" " Yes" "I'm reasonably old fashioned about some things but I mean" "I mean people who go on a lot about the permissive society are missing the point if they think the only thing that's wrong is sex" "I think you know, decreasing respect for the family as a unit increasing dishonesty, both in business.... there used to be much more much stronger developed ideas of commercial integrity than seem to be going around nowadays, nowadays people seem to be out for themselves" "I really do think I suppose there is an invasion by the American way of life which I think is a very sad thing" "Is that unstoppable?" "That trend do you think?" "I think it really is unfortunately, yes" "So where does that leave your values?" "Well it leaves them with me and my future children whom I shall implicate them in" "But do you not find yourself isolated?" "That really doesn't matter" "If I believe my principals are right and I'm doing the right thing to bring my children up by them it won't matter to me whether I'm living in the middle-ages mentally" "I shall do what's right" "Well when I was very small my father always used to go ski-ing and he took me with him and we've been ever since really and how old or young were you when you started?" "Oh about five, on tiny little ski's it was quite frightening then what is the appeal of it?" "Well the sort of freedom and going in the snow and the mountains and the feeling of speed and getting away from people if you can" "Do you save up to come ski-ing or...?" "I don't but my father does as he pays for me" "Your parents have been divorced since fourteen" " Since you were fourteen" " That's right, quite recently yes" "Tell me about that and the influence it's had on you" "Well not much influence in fact because it's happened when I'm quite old and I'm away from home a lot anyway it's very sad of course but I don't think it has had a great deal of influence" "if it had happened when I was much younger it would've had much more influence an adverse influence I would've thought" "Did your parents divorce leave any lasting mark on you?" "I don't know, I mean seen the film at fourteen so and that's of our closest time, I would've thought it did but... don't talk about that anyway so..." "Why?" "I think it's unfair on them" "Very few parents I think, bring up their children... with the intention of belittling them or doing as little for them as possible" "I think you have to assume that most parents do as much as they can given the circumstances of the children and obviously things could've been far worse" "Do you think it's changed your attitude to marriage?" "or..." "It just means that because I was faced with that situation I have an attitude which is a positive attitude rather than "well everybody else gets married therefore I shall get married"" "My attitude would be that if one is going to have children if you want to have children then that's a very real reason for getting married but if you get married... it's an agreement to make the thing work for eighteen years" "or however long it is until the children have grown up no there's no point in just sitting it out for eighteen years there's nothing worse than that, it would be better for the parents to get a divorce" "I think people perhaps don't make as much effort as they should have, or should do to make marriages work it's very easy for me to say so as I've never been in the position" "In what way should people make more effort?" "I think people just take too much for granted when they get married or used to, not now perhaps" "I mean, I don't know about you for instance" "I know my mother, she's said that she's spoilt really and she never realised how lucky she'd been until she'd been divorced" "Up to about twelve maybe it's different with other people, but" "I found that you're much more attached to your parents once you come to about thirteen, fourteen" "you're not quite so attached to them" "I think the system of having house captains is rather good because when somebody is naughty the house captain asks him and... and has a talk to him once I had a talk to Grevil, he was in my house" "and" "I asked Sir if he could put him out of my house because he was always getting minuses" "What did Sir say?" "Sir said that he would... we would see about it this term" "Well I think it's a very good system" "Have you had to speak to anyone?" " Just because you are one I suppose?" " No, no I haven't!" " You're not are you?" " But I am!" "Straw, Mac and Nessie got three minuses in a day" "If I work in Law I should like a reasonable amount of success" "I shouldn't like to be on the bread-line which is all to common" "I'd like to be a Solicitor and, also fairly successful" "I only know what I don't want and that's a nuclear family in a semi-detached in Brentford" "Do you three see yourselves... staying in England, living in England, making your careers in England?" "Yes" "Well the trouble is Law is not really very exportable" "From my point of view anyway" "I quite like England 'cause I can't say I really approve very much of the sort people who emigrate" "I mean it's too easy for people who... this is where I would agree with you about people who have had opportunities" "I do think they've got a corresponding duty to sort of put back.... you know, people who have had things going well for them really ought to stay and help the country out when things aren't going very well" "I don't believe in all this pulling one's money out but that's a moral point of view, I do believe people have the right to live where they like and also to move their assets around but on a moral level I do feel very strongly that people shouldn't quit" " Is that why you don't want to leave?" " Yes and also I can't imagine anywhere so nice as England" "Probably stay in England for the reasons that John put forward, I think one has a moral duty" "It sounds terrible but, you know...if..." "It's up to one certainly to make an attempt to put something back in to whatever it is that you're doing in England" "Having used the various facilities that are put out for you by the state" "I think the more you've had out of the country the more privileges you're born with the greater your duty is" "We chose two boys from a children's home in Middlesex" "Paul" "Say you had a wife say you had to eat what they cooked you and say I don't like vegetables, well I don't" "and say she said "you have to eat what you get"" "So I don't like vegetables so say she gives me vegetables then that's it" "Well as far as I know my mother and father got... well they separated originally I think" "they eventually got divorced" "I went to the boarding school for one year then we emigrated to Australia my father got remarried" "and how do you get on with your step-mum?" "pretty well but like I said before I'm just not close enough" "I'm not really close to my father either" "Paul left the children's home when he was eight" "Our other boy stayed until he was thirteen" "Symon" "Was it difficult moving from the home back to live with your mother?" " You're still here after, eight years now?" " Yeah yeah" "Well I find it's comfortable" "See I can get on well with my mother sometimes well that's good because a lot of ... young children can't get on with their parents at all at this time of the year, their life but I get on pretty well with my mum now" "we talk very well with each other but it's.." "sometimes not quite as mother and son sort of more like friends" "What sort of life does your mother have?" "Well it seems hard, I mean she's always been... nervous not all the time, but... she has periods of depression or deep depression or whatever you want to call it that sort of makes me think "well what happened there?"" "What effect has that had on you do you think?" "Well it's made me very sort of protective towards her" "I feel I've got to help her all the time" "They say "Where's your father then?"" "You know when your mums out at work "Where's your father?"" "and I just tell them 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" "Twenty years ago when I was born an illegitimate child, you know that's something that's only whispered about people feel strongly about it in those days but nowadays it's.." "it's not a serious matter the serious point is whether you stay with someone or you leave them" "We took Paul and Symon round the buildings which were once the children's home" "I remember this path but I've never walked on it was out of bounds the only place I saw this was from out the windows and that" " What was that there?" " That?" "That was eh..." "That was hospital juniors, that's where we used to be" " Really?" " Yeah" "I don't like the big boys" "Hitting us and... and the staff is up in the washroom sends the nurse out, "well there's no talking"" ""No I wasn't talking today"" "Then Brown sent me out for nothing" "Remember the tiles?" " No not really" " Yeah I remember them when they were cleaner" " I remember the two offices" " Yeah the doctors and the nurses" "Some things gone" " The seats" " Yeah the seats" "The smell, the smells gone" " Remember Midgely" " Yeah" "He was a real bastard" "I remember one night, I forget what I actually did" "But he made me clean all the shoes in the house there was about fifty pair of shoes and took about two hours or something" "Well I feel like joining in when there's already a fight" "Ah do you remember Froggy Page?" "No" "He was the tailor" " I remember him" " Tailor?" "Yeah he was here for thirty-seven years or something bent over backwards or bent over forwards or something" " The golf course" " Yeah" "Used to think about running away over that when you'd get scared" "That's where the headmaster's son used to shoot the squirrel's off the trees isn't it - yeah" "Do you remember the boy that in the senior part where my brother was, he he was sleeping one time and he went out the second story window" "Oh the sleep walker, Weaver, Robert Weaver" " We all had to pray for him" " Yeah" " Everybody said he had a steel plate in his head" " Yeah" "How have you got on with Symon?" "after you haven't seen him for fourteen years" "Well I didn't recognise him at all" "I think we got along really well, I don't know what he'd say to that but" "I found him very likeable" "He's just the sort of person who if I could I'd like to do something for them" "Because I feel I've got, no offence to him, but I feel I've got more than him" "It's just that it seems to me that things have fallen into line now for me" "Every thing's started to come good, I've started to enjoy life and I've started to think "well I'm not a no hoper"" "Because I think that's what I've always thought about myself" "I know I didn't have any confidence in myself despite what I said when I was fourteen" "I've always lacked confidence" "I still do to a certain extent but nothing nothing like I did say when I was fourteen" "The job I'm in, I mean, brick laying" "I mean I enjoy it, it interests me and I'm very content at work" "in June last year I was made a junior partner though that was through circumstances but I look at it this way" "I'm not great with my life but if I wasn't good enough and my boss didn't think I was good enough he would've never made me a junior partner as for the job you know, you build a house" "then you turn around and look at it and say "well I did that"" "it's better than having a whole row of figures it's substance you know, there's something there" "Symon works in the freezer room of a meat company near his home in Middlesex" "My job's running away from me" "You do jobs which I suppose are fairly routine and dull" " Yeah" " What keeps you going during them?" "Oh it's definitely the people there" "You work up a kind of team spirit there, y'know what I mean" "You can ..... think about all the work you've got to do in the morning and you just don't want to go but once you get there just sort of generally...." "I was going to say messing around there, I won't say that the managers might see it sort of joking about they make you feel you want to get the work done" "Go out and get some just ask for them and we always say when we come out of the chiller we don't want to go back in but when we get back in we get on with it" "So are you a good time keeper?" "Ah it depends" "Usually I try to get to work early but I have periods of where I just say "sod it"" "if I get there I get there" "I think the hardest thing is to get up in the morning for me it takes a great deal out of me now" "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" "But eh..." "It's never really sort of worried me" "I suppose it should but it just hasn't and how do you see the future as far as work goes?" "Well I know I can't stay at Walls forever, I mean it's just not me" "I couldn't stay there for that long, my mind would go dead" "But eh..." "I think if I really wanted to I could learn a trade, even now" "Y'know if I really felt that I ought to get out and do something different" "I could learn a trade if I wanted to and what would you like to be doing say in seven years?" "Well I couldn't really say I haven't thought one year ahead yet" "I think I'm still sort of young in my head" "I don't really sort of take things seriously" "All I want out of life is to be happy and when I say happy I want to be happily married as well because I can't say I don't want to get married because I think I do but I want to be happily married y'know" "therefore I want to make sure I think" "How would you define happiness?" "What is it?" "Basically to me it's the will to live" "I mean, me I literally love life, I love people" "I mean I think before I didn't" "I mean, when I was fourteen I said" "I've forgotten what the question was but I said something about I want to be alone and when I said that I know even now I meant that if someone had dropped me out in the Sahara Desert" "I probably would've been happy more or less if you get the point" "Whereas I'm not like that now, I'd sooner be around people" "I don't like doing things by myself and happiness to me is a love for life and a love for people" "I think I admire people with great determination y'know like people who just come up from nothing they build up their life from absolutely nothing" "I could say Muhammad Ali because he absolutely came from nothing" "I mean you can't agree with everything he says but his word goes down now he's the biggest thing in sport he's one of the biggest things in life" "I mean people like him" "What when you look at yourself do you think your weaknesses and strengths are?" "I think my main weakness is I don't really take a grip of life" "I don't really look..." "I always look deeply into it but it just seems to be ... just a sort of hobby with me, I look at everything and I criticise it and I work everything out but after that I just sort of leave it" "I find it hard to express emotion most of the time although I'm getting on top of that more happy now?" "just the simple things to say to Susan, y'know "I love you" or something like that" "I mean I can tell you about it but" "I really haven't been able to say it freely to Susan" "I suppose that's a weakness" "Do you have a dream?" "A dream?" "not...." "Not so much a dream but I know if I ever wanted to get on I could do it" "I mean I always feel that I've got something inside me that would make me move" "But eh..." "I think what it is really is I'm just waiting for an excuse to use it" "Y'know at the moment I feel ok just getting on with my life just sort of keeping up but I know if I really wanted to I could get on" "It'll only take a little spark with me to do it" "Is it important to fight?" "Yes" "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 aswell?" "Get on with your work in front" "Tony!" "Don't turn round again" "I want to be a jockey when I grow up yeah I want to be a jockey when I grow up" "Tony left his Eastend secondary modern school at fifteen and became an apprentice at Tommy Gosling's racing stables in Epsom" "This is a photo finish of when I rode at Newberry" "I'm the one with the white cap" "I was beaten a length and a half for third and had a photo finish so I took it out the box and kept it as a souvenir" "Have you any other pictures of you as a jockey?" "Yeah I've got a lot of them" "Show me that one" "That one when I was at Windsor that was my last ride on the old horse, Sharrod Heath that was he was a lovely old horse, I'll never forget him" "How many rides did you have?" "Only three" "Why was that?" "Well obviously if I was good enough I would've had more that was the first day I ever put myself in jockey silks that was my first ride ever" "How did it feel like?" "It feel like there's no words that can explain how it felt that one was when I was going to the parade ring" "They're not very good my brother, I mean he's not no good at taking photos" "He's no Lord Snowdon" "But describe the feeling, go on" "Describe, well...." "I mean I.." "Frankie Durr right, he was told to look after me so I went in there I said "I don't know my first ride"" "and he said "alright don't worry, your boss has told me to look after you"" "and so" "I was changing into my silks and I felt good y'know, I could see all the faces that I think and when I look at the newspaper I think, Jeff Lewis, Frankie Durr and..." "I thought to myself all of a sudden I'm in the same room getting changed" "Then I walked in the parade room the parade ring and eh... and all my family's there and they're all going "Go on Tone!"" "and the boss came over and he said you've got to do this to the horse, you hold him back, you go half pace keep your hands down, keep him in the rails and I'm going "yeah yeah" like, nod" "and all of a sudden when he said "Jockeys please mount"" "and the bell went "Ding ding"" "and my heart just sunk because I thought to myself" "Here I was yesterday a sort of nobody and here I am today, I'm king like" "I felt king for one day, well for ten minutes" "Do you regret not making it?" "Well I would've given my right arm at the time to become a jockey" "But now... well I wasn't good enough, it's as easy as that" "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 the game wouldn't bother and what do you think you would do then?" "Learn taxi's" "Taxi driver" "I will be a cab driver right, how can I fail?" "I got one brother taxi driver pulling me and the other brother pushing me so I got to make it" "I will be a cab driver and I know I will and I'm going to prove every person who thinks I can't be a cab driver wrong and I'm going to get that badge and put it right in their face" "just to tell them how wrong they can be and how under estimated I am" "Doing the taxi knowledge means Tony going out on his motorbike every day and learning the hundreds of routes round the streets of London" "Well I can just get up, go on my bike, do two runs, come home call them over then boom, I've done my days work then I go out here and earn my money" "Hackney Wick it's my sort of living" "I can say until the time I am a cab driver" "But mean my freedom's here and that is the main thing what I want" "Tony spends his spare time at Hackney Wick Greyhound Stadium placing bets for the punters" "Fifty-five to twenty Boris" "Five to one Cooladine" "Four and a half fifty's, four and a half fifty's" "Poor-Sunshine fourteen to one" "Take it, take it!" "If your father gambles you always looked upon how he gambles" "I tried my luck and see what he does and I took it from there, it's sort of in you some people drink and they can't get out of drinking, some people smoke and can't stop smoking" "well I think I'm firmly on the ground as a gambler" "I know you can't win gambling, putting money on the dogs and horses, I know that" "But when you put other peoples money on you can't lose" "What do they call you here?" "I reckon a pest, or something like that 'cause I'm always running and doing everything that I shouldn't be doing" "I thought I was going to get barred one day 'cause I used to..." "Well I don't mean to make a nuisance of myself" "I mean if the other patrons of the place they don't want to see a little boy nipping between their feet running, putting a bet on for a person" "You understand?" "they think "cor what's he doing is he mad?"" "I mean I walk up there I order the teas" "There could be eight people in front of me, I just go..." "Can I have a tea please, tea please, five times tea please tea please and they've got to serve me before them to get rid of me, do you understand?" "So that's how you've got to do it" "Just keep on and on and on and they go" ""oh driving me mad, here you are, get rid of him" it's as easy as that" "That's the way to get on in life, just be a noise, annoyed annoyance all the time to a person and they go "oh he's driving me mad, get him away from me and more or less they give you the first option" "sort of find that" "You're very short, has that had much trouble?" "Well a bird said to me the other day" "She said "ain't you small"" "So I said "but you're ugly at least I can grow"" "What can they say to that?" "they can't say nothing can they?" "to a thing like that, or... or example..." "She said to me "Ain't you small" so I looked at her tits and she was only about a thirty" "I said "But you're not too big either so we're both in the same way"" " Have you got a girlfriend?" " No" "Would you like to have a girlfriend?" "No" "Do you understand "The Four F's?"" "Find the, feed them, forget them for the other F I'll let you use your own discrimination" "I mean... this one" "I tried to do the three F's but I couldn't forget her" "I'd done the three F's but I couldn't forget her" "It sounds silly but that's the only way I can put it" "Tell me about the family, are you fairly closely knit?" "Well I love them all" "There's not one I don't love more than the other, other than my mum obviously but your mum is the root of the tree, you love your mum best" "So what do you like about living in the Eastend?" "It's very sort of real, there's nothing false only the police!" "I'm firmly placed and there's no way I can see getting out, I wouldn't want to get out really" "It's very hard to make it in the Eastend because the roots are firmly stuck in the ground and you've got to have a big hard pull to get them out" "So are there many villains in the Eastend?" "There has been in the time I suppose the originals were the Kray twins" "We're in Vallance Rd now, as it goes they used to live here in a house they used to call Fort Vallance 'cause it was that hard to get into I expect" "Do you have much to do with villains?" "I can't say I have much to do, I wouldn't say I'm a villain myself" "I don't go thieving and don't do anybody any harm fighting wise" "I'm trying to say that" "Wherever you go there's villains and whether you mix with them or not it's up to you" "Does it worry you the possibility of becoming one of them?" "How can I become a villain?" "If it's not in there, it's not born in there you won't become one" "Don't you think you're going to regret not having an education?" "Where does that come into it?" "it doesn't come into it in my mind?" "Education is just a thing to say "my son is higher than him"" "or "my son had a better background than him"" "I mean" "I'm as good or even better than most of them people especially on this program" "I mean" "On one of the trailers you'll think oh the Eastend boy and he ain't got a no good education but all of a sudden the Eastend boy's got a car and a motorbike and he goes to Spain every year" "and whatever and have I worked for it?" "No I'm here putting bets on and you think "how does he do it?"" "and there's a boy, who's he?" "and whatever he's studying to be a professor, he's making up things" "They're mainly education, there's no education in this world" "Just one big rat race and you've got to kill your man next to you to get in front of him" "What do you think about trade unions and things like that?" "I don't under know I don't" "I don't know enough to know about them if you understand me" "I mean" "I'm not a politician so let them worry about what's coming for the next day all I understand is dogs, prices, girls, knowledge, roads, streets, squares and mum and dad and love that's all I understand that's all I want to understand" "Here you are" "Come on three chase it" "Come on boy" "Go on three inside" "Come on three?" "He's checking everywhere...." "Well going to Africa and try and teach people who are not civilised to be more or less good" "No I don't want to be a missionary because I just can't talk about it to people" "Y'know, I am interested in it myself but I wouldn't be very good at it at all and I wouldn't enjoy it" "Why wouldn't you be good at it" "Well I'm just not very good at... at standing up in front of people and making a speech or anything like that" "I'd like to keep it private, y'know" "Is it possible you might ever think of going to the church?" "It is possible, I've never said no definitely" "But I wouldn't be doing it after I go to university" "I mean it's just possible in ten years time I suppose" "What would draw you to the church?" "I don't know, it wouldn't be dissatisfaction with whatever I'm doing at the moment" "In a way" "If whatever I was doing I was doing very successfully then that would be a better reason for going into the church really or at least if I did go into the church it would meant I was giving something up" "But" "I think the wrong reasons are if you are dissatisfied with what you're doing in the general sense of doing a job badly or a failure in some sort of way" "Bruce is in his final year at University College Oxford, reading mathematics and by Eisenstien you can show that this is irreducible then you do a transformation on this ?" "x = to T+2 which you find is T cubed plus 17 squared plus 14 T plus 7 and you observe that seven which is a prime divides the co-efficient of T squared" "T and the constant, not T cubed and seven squared doesn't divide the constant term so by Eisenstien this is irreducible so therefore two cross, two by seven is of degree three and that length isn't constructable" "from the quarry of our original theorem so therefore the septagon's not constructable" "Well that's a nice way of doing it, particularly using Eisenstien down here his test is very popular, he was an interesting mathematician" "What sort of job are you going to try for?" "Well there was one job, I'd like to make maps really and it's nice sort of outdoor life you go to..." "I mean you travel around and eh... but there are very few jobs like that going" "I'm sort of qualified, a general maths or science degree would do or geography degree" "But eh..." "I think I've probably missed it this time round and eh....but that's only.... perhaps I won't like making maps, it's something that I think I would do" "Millbrook probably had a great influence on me in a way" "I mean I was absolutely shocked rigid when I went to my prep school and found people who thought of doing things wrong" "I never really upset anyone or questioned authority or misbehaved in any of my two later schools which may seem an ideal thing but it's probably healthy to question why you have to do certain things which I never did" "Bruce was a border at this pre-preparatory school from the age of five" "Squad left foot in one place squad breathe in" "Well it is mainly this lack of responsibility for doing jobs given to me people will say "why haven't you done this?" "Look you've upset us"" "I was secretary of bridge society, chess society, cricket society" "Scottish dancing society and I didn't do anything for any of them, they were all very angry and I spent last summer term in total seclusion" "I saw maybe half a dozen people all term in my room, darting across courts people would say "I saw Balden today" and they'd say "No?" "really?"" "it was awful really" "My hearts desire is to see my daddy who is six thousand miles away" "Y'know I've been getting on well with my step-father and I like seeing my father occasionally and he does come over from Rhodesia" "What effect has the fact that you've seen very little of your father had on you?" "Nothing really, I only ...something I regret that..." "I didn't really get to know him better at all" "We've written and we're both very bad writers, I'm probably worse than him and eh... that's something I regret is not having a just a regular correspondence" "because I think he's an interesting man actually and eh... he probably regrets it as well" "What do you think about your own upbringing?" "what have been the strongest influences on that?" "Probably to not let down my mother really because she's worked awfully hard to get me through school and" "I haven't let her down yet" "then.." "as far as...eh ...not having... my mothers divorce" "I don't think that really has the effect that people imagine it to have" "I mean I always have got on well with my stepfather and with my half-sister, so in that sense I've had a family life" "I'd help people if I had a chance" "Y'know by say giving a little bit of money to charity or sponsoring things or things like that" "Well I took nine months off between school and university" "and there I taught at a school and worked in the Banbury sewage works two months" "What sort of school was it?" "Well I never like admitting this but it was a handicapped school" "I mean it seems to present me as wanting to do these things" "I suppose in a way I do, and" "I do get some satisfaction from doing it, but...." "I could so easily have done something else it was just almost an accident that I ended up at the spastic school and eh..." "I'm glad I did it because I enjoyed it not for its...." "I suppose slightly charitable nature of the work, but the people I met, work, it was quite good" "Why are you frightened of presenting this image of yourself" "It's..." "It's possibly because I" "I don't know, I never want to feel to proud really" "I mean it's dangerous for a start and it's so easy and" "it doesn't work in a way because I can try and pretend to be humble that's being proud in just the same sort of way" "I find it a very difficult thing to avoid, pride" "Tell me, are you interested in politics at all?" "Not as much as I was" "I am about the only socialist in my village and I go into the pub" "and sort of expect to stand up and defend all socialist policies sort of, this is the village socialist no, village idiot, sorry" "you agree with all this immigration so I stand up and defend it and it's awfully hard work though I think I'm going to give that up" "So where do you stand politically now then?" "I'm still socialist but not as energetically as I was I suppose" "What do you think about the way England's being run at the moment?" "Well..." "I'm glad the socialist's are in power because" "This illusive thing called freedom is sort of rearing its head and the conservatives are pushing it forward and I thought this argument was smashed at the early years of this century but it seems to be coming back and it really is exceptionally dangerous because" "the more you try and defend freedom you allow everybody to do exactly what they like within limits then the less you have" "I mean there's no freedom in living in a slum" "It's alright you can say the chap can do whatever he wants he can get a better job or anything but that's just not the case the more you defend freedom the less you have it" "Well my girlfriend is in Africa and I don't think I'll have another chance of seeing her again" "Have you got any girlfriends?" "No, not yet" "I'm sure it will come, but not yet" "What is your attitude to sex?" "Well it's not quite, normal attitude to anti-sex" "I mean I as it were burnt my fingers a little" "I don't feel as though I'm missing anything now" "I don't feel a need for it and I'm quite happy at not feeling a need for it really" "I mean I do think a lot of people think too much about it" "What happened when you burnt your fingers?" "I'd rather not talk about it really well no in fact I don't really mean that" "I don't mean I don't want to talk about it it's just I'd need quite a long time to think about it really" "Why?" "Well in the end I decided the eh... the effect, the pleasure, or... just didn't seem worth it really didn't seem worth..." "See I think there's two different sorts there's casual sex then there's sex in love and marriage and" "casual seks is not..." "I don't think it's quite as widespread as people believed because" "if both the people treat it as casual sex then I think it's alright but" "if you're sort of looking for" "I don't know this may seem awfully silly but if you're looking for casual sex but don't want to treat it as such then it doesn't seem to be worth the lies, I don't know the... the sort of effort" " Is this what happened to you?" " I suppose in a way yes" "Have you been in love?" "No, no and eh..." "I think I'll probably have to wait for that really" "Play international wrestling" "Yeah that's only at summertime though" "Yeah summer we can go on the grass" "Neil went to a comprehensive school in Liverpool got four A-levels then walked out of Aberdeen university after one term and is now doing casual labour in London" "I came to London I think because I wanted to start a new life really" "I'd left the university in Aberdeen in the end of nineteen seventy-five and I became conscious of the fact that I was drifting around which I suppose I'm still doing here but at least I took the decision to move myself" "and I think possibly there's more challenge in London than there ever could be in Aberdeen" "Peter, Neil's school friend from Liverpool is now in his last year at London university, reading history" "It was obviously a big step it was exciting more than anything, I mean that sounds corny but it was" "Do you remember the day you left Liverpool?" "Yeah very well" "It was pouring down with rain, I remember that just had the traditional send of from the train station, my mum and dad were there a couple of mates turned up at the last minute, from the school to see me" " Catch a girl and kiss a girl" " Yeah and what happens then?" " Well the girls are all screaming" " Yeah and then we catch them we kiss them" "We're interested in contrast with you and Neil were you aware of differences in home background at the time?" "Oh sure yeah, I mean both Neil's parents are teachers as you know that's got to be a hell of a difference for a start" "I mean, I'm not knocking them for a minute, they're very nice people but eh... there's obviously going to be some sort of academic type atmosphere in the house" "which I did notice one or two times but I think Neil whether by design or just by the situation he was in was obviously going to be under more pressure" "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 here" "I wouldn't squat in a place which I knew to be owned by somebody else" "I wouldn't, certainly because I knew if I had a place of my own and found somebody squatting in it I'd be disgusted" "But this place was empty and I was simply offered a place to live here and was very grateful for it and I think in questions of squatting a bit of humanity is more important that vain rules about who can live where" "In contrast, Peter lives in a flat in North London sharing with three other students there have been three guys living here originally and one of them left to get engaged, virtually married and the flat was meant for four in the first place" "so Dave and Trev asked Ian and I if we'd like to move in because we did 'cause we'd been searching for a flat for some months so we jumped at the opportunity really" "I've got my own room, I can cook whenever I like" "I haven't got a landlady to tell me what time to come in" "I've got my own front door key and to tell the truth it's a lot better than a lot of the accommodation I've had over the last eighteen months or so it could be a bit warmer, it's a bit chilly" "but eh... it's perfectly satisfactory for the time being" "These are obvious restrictions, y'know not able to cook for yourself you've got to think for yourself a lot more but it's eh... certainly not as exhausting or wearing as I thought it would be" "I mean, y'know... coming up myself is a challenge of some sort we're going to have to split two sausages into three now" "Well once Caroline Tetford said she loved me and I'm going to marry her when I grow up" "I hate her, she's always getting bad tempered and cross with me" " Does she?" " Yeah" "She says "Neil Hughes, move your desk forward"" "and when I put it back she says "Neil Hughes put your chair forward"" "and she just gets into a girly mood with me like that" "Tell me about the period in your life when you went to university and what happened" "It was a very short period" "I was only at university... well I was only taking university seriously for a matter of 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" "Well this is my final year so I'm not in college that much" "I don't have to be so what I'm expected to do is to be ... laying out revision timetables at home and.." "working like a slave which I'm not at the moment, but I will be soon" "I did make an application to Oxford but I didn't get in and eh well I think that's in the past now and that's..." "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 being as people had encouraged me because I knew famous people having been to Oxford" "I'd read memoirs written by famous people things such as Brideshead's Revisited which was a great favourite" "but these I suppose are well they were dreams which I had while I was at school and" "I have to just get over the fact that I didn't get into Oxford probably because I didn't approach the thing in the right way" "Are you bitter about it?" "I was very bitter at the time maybe I still am but I try to get over it" "I think once I can get myself going I can work solid, yeah but it's the motive which is very hard to acquire when you're in the flat most of the time" "it's hard to sort of look ahead to next June and think of those exams but I dare say I'll do it, get the average type degree and..." "I'm not worried" "Is it a problem to you motivating yourself generally?" "Yeah it can be" "I can look back on the day and think "how I wasted that"" "although I must've enjoyed it at the time" "What sort of influence did your parents have on you?" "Well they made me believe in god from the start which I certainly wouldn't or I don't know even now whether I believe in god or not" "I've thought an awful lot about it actually and" "I still don't know but still this was the absolutely certain one if one was to survive in the world one had to believe in god this was something which was taught to me" "always think of other people first before yourself to a ridiculous neurotic degree which I think affected me" "What do you mean by that?" "Well this I suppose is basic christianity it's sort of... if somebody slaps you on one cheek let them do it on the other almost literally taken which gave me a few shocks when I tried to put it into practise" " In what way?" " I don't think to be honest to go back to that question I don't think" "I was really taught any sort of policy of living at all by my parents this was probably their biggest mistake that I was just left to fend for myself in a world which they seemed completely oblivious of and I found 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" "Were they ambitious for you?" "Yeah but along set lines which they had planned" "I think they have often said to me that they they had seen me even from when I was very young in a certain type of career and possibly they'd never even thought that anything else was vaguely possible they probably imagined I would be" "maybe a university lecturer or a bank manager or something like this some kind of indoor work which involved writing and reading and this sort of thing because they didn't take account of the other side of my personality" "but" "I wonder how many parents really think of their children as individual human beings" "What are your feelings about them now?" "Your parents" "I'm glad they're there because if I ever become homeless again" "I will be able to go back and live with them they wouldn't object to this" "I'm capable of getting on with my parents perfectly well" "If they are willing to let me live as another adult in their house and appreciate that I'm living my own way of life and that I am living there because I can't think of anything else to do with myself" "What do they think of what you're doing now?" "They accept it, I think now they do accept that I'm the person I am they see this as simply my attempting to add more experience to my life which satisfies me" "Are they worried about you?" "Probably yes" "but no more worried now than they were when I first left for university that was probably the time at which they were most worried" "and we have in fact managed to discuss a lot of personal things which I felt at one time I'd never be able to discuss" "and therefore, as I say it is possible for me to live for a few weeks even a month or so at home without there being to much friction" "So are you under pressure to get a job to think of what you're going to do when you leave in June" "Yeah I suspect I am from my parents, they keep dropping hints which is only fair I can understand their feelings obviously I've got to get a job" "I don't want to laze around on the dole for months and months you'd go mad" "I just can't see what I'll be doing in nine, ten months time though" "Does that depress you or does that excite you?" "No it certainly doesn't depress me perhaps it does excite me in a way yes" "something will turn up, something of that nature y'know but obviously you've got to think realistically about doing something" "I mean I might be living in cloud cuckoo land y'know my mum and dad might say "no son"" ""you don't get a job you like"" "I'd like to think I could" "Well, we pretend we've got swords we make the noises of the swords fighting and when somebody stabs us we go "Arrrrrgghhh!"" "What goes through your mind when you saw those two films when you were at seven, bright and perky?" "I find it hard to believe that I was ever like that but there's the evidence" "I wonder why I was like that" "I wonder what it was inside me that made me like that and I can see even at fourteen and I was beginning to get more subdued and I was putting a lot more thought into what I was saying too a ridiculous degree" "and probably when I was seven I just....." "I don't know" "I lived in a wonderful world where everything was sensation dumb" "I could be happy like this I could be miserable the next minute and I didn't have to plan for the future" "I didn't have to worry about having friends and all this money because everything was so mapped out for me" "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 because I think maybe this is something that was wrong in my upbringing" "I didn't have enough obstacles to get over, to toughen myself up against" "I was unprepared for things as they were but looking back now I couldn't think of what might have been done and I certainly wouldn't start writing educational theory about this because I know how personal a thing it is" "and it probably wouldn't work in anybody else's case" "Would you like to be seven again?" "No because I'd know that I had to be twenty-one again" "I moved up to a comprehensive school" "I found it much bigger of course" "I found it hard to settle into at first but now I've been here a few years I know my way around" "I think it's a very good idea to have competition otherwise you might start to relax and not try hard enough" "Yes at that age I was very conscious of having to struggle because I suppose of what parents and teachers were saying they were saying they said "you've got a brain you must put all your effort into school work"" "well what else could they have said?" "I would've probably been just as angry, looking back if they'd never encouraged my intellectual efforts at all" "When I get married I don't want to have any children because they are always doing naughty things and making the whole house untidy" "Do you have any great ambition, any dream?" "I suppose I... yes well..." "I would like to be someone in a position of importance and I've always thought this but I don't think I'm the right sort of person to carry the responsibility for whatever it is" "I've always thought well I'd love to be possibly even love to be in politics" "Something like this but eh..." "I suppose that I'd probably find just as tedious as all the other jobs I've done so..." "What do you want out of life?" "The satisfaction of knowing that I've left some sort of imprint rather than just lived out my life" "I don't know.... it's going to sound like an epitaph I've left in memory of some people y'know" "not that this guy worked, made a fair bit of money, good house, died" "I'd like to have done something but... then again it must be a drop in the ocean I suppose" "I mean who is going to remember me in a hundred years time?" "So is it that important, how you live out your life?" "but I would like to think I'm going to do something with it something positive" "Do you and Peter have the same values?" "I think we both value happiness and stability" "I think most people do" "But you've kicked against the stability that's.." "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 mid-air the whole of my life" "It's only one more" "What do they think about each other?" "and how would they act together?" "to find out we invited them all to one big party and joined in" "#If I say that I love you# #and you know it's true# #if you said that you'd leave me# #what would I do?" "#" "#I'll let you back if you let me#" "#I'll change your mind......#" "Yes but they were a bit too tough for my liking so they hit me right in the back and I've still got a pain there" "The posh ones, "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!"" "they're nuts you just have to touch them" "Well some of them were rather dirty" " What do you think about them?" " I played with them quite naturally" "I think they were rather nice really" "What do you think about rich people?" "Well... not much" "Tell me about them" "Well they think they can do everything without you doing it as well and they think just because they're rich they have to have people to do all their work" "What would you do if you had lots of money, about two pounds?" "Me?" "I would help the poor" "What for?" "The poor, if you don't help them they die soon wouldn't they and every time we have a harvest festival we send food to them and once these two.....no" "Susan and Janet Simpson went round giving it out with Mr Floyd" " I don't think much of the accents" " Neither do I" "Neither do I it won't prevent me liking them" "Don't you ever think to yourself " "Jump out of that suit, come to the Eastend throw the books in the corner and do what you have to do" " I'd certainly throw the books in the corner" " Do you understand what I'm trying to say?" "Yeah" " What are you going to do in life?" " I've really no idea" "The idea of just living somewhere and working for a living is just horrifying really" "I mean, being a student is very easy" "I just postponed the decision by going to university" "I wouldn't say being a student's easy, that's why I left school" " It was too hard" " Really" "Who is to say what a seven year old child is?" "I don't think there's anyway you can do it so a seven year old child could seem to be one thing and you could always argue that the end product was produced by what he actually was rather than what he seemed to be" " you'd normally use the total...." " Not a bookmaker but a...." " I'm always frightened they'd clear off" " What?" "I'm always frightened they'd clear off if they had a bad afternoon" "No they're not like that, they can always get hold of money" "What fears do you have for the future?" "Well certainly the idea of, as I was saying before getting into a job and simply getting stuck in it and that's it without knowing why you're doing it but I would think now that this is the time where I would think about something like that" "and make sure it doesn't happen" "I really don't see how one's life can be a failure in that.... if I became a journalist and got sacked at thirty probably because I had grown out of it or I had changed so I was no longer suitable" "therefore I'd find something else which I enjoyed and which my talents were suited to" "No I have never suffered at all never been driven to despair or tears or...." "I don't know, have any of the others?" "My strength is being able to keep going really and my weakness is not being able to take any positive course of action" "I suppose I tend to behave in the fashion of the people that I'm with in some circumstances I think that can be quite a weakness sometimes sometimes wish I didn't occasionally look at myself and think "christ you're a bloody fool, what are you doing now?"" "and that sometimes disturbs me" "We had a teacher at school that his favourite ploy was...." ""All you girls want to do is walk out, get married, have babies and push a pram down the road with a cigarette hanging out the side of your mouth"" "god if there was ever a sentence I'd resent it would be that one - yeah" "There's only one ambition really I want a baby son if I see my baby son that'll be my ambition fulfilled no one knows that, only you now!" "Well to me it is a dream to be totally happy" "I mean, I don't think you can expect that but..." "What happens if you don't make that?" "If you don't ever find it?" "How will you cope?" "I don't know, it would be hard to say the human minds very strong and it can be very weak and so you could crack up from it and you could just live your life out from day to day and you could get over it I think" "well not get over it but you'd sort of cope with it I think but what I'd do I just don't know" "I mean I want to be happy and my dreams are all for happiness but basically that's what I want out of life" "I always leave something inside me, I always leave a bit behind" "I always hold back a bit with everything I do" "just to sort of....something to fall back on" "I've always got something else to look on if anything goes wrong anywhere" "What is that something you hold back?" "I think it's a part of my heart" "What do you want most out of life?" "To be happy and get on with life you don't want to just sit back and let it always pass" "you could be run over by a bus tomorrow so you've got to make the most of it while you've got it" "Simply to be able to wake up in the morning and feel that this day was going to be worthwhile" "which is what I don't feel at the moment" "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 a children's home set about building a house" "The houses in Australia, the average sort of living there will do me fine" "I mean it's terrific" "I often say I'm saving to settle down with Yvonne and then I think to myself "nah I might buy a car instead"" "There's Nicholas" "You have to run fast to stay where you are to go forward you have to run very fast indeed, or whatever the quote is" "so I'll probably feel I'm actually achieving nothing and Tony" "I don't want to change because if I change it proves the other Tony Walker was all fake" "Andrew" "After I've qualified as a Solicitor I'll have to rethink" "I don't know at all what will happen after that and Bruce" "It all springs from..... loving god and christ I suppose you try and do that as best as possible and that leads your actions in life" "John" "I'd quite like to go into politics but that's easier said than done" "Susie" "When you're a child you always think how nice it would be to be grown up and independent and things but there are times when I wish I was three again" "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"