49 Up Page #9

We were all landed in it,

and most of us, have,

whatever reason,

chosen to go through with it.

I'm not an outgoing,

confident person.

I like my privacy.

I don't like however

many million people

picking over my life.

And is that what they do,

do you think?

I should think for a couple of minutes,

yes, and then it's yesterday's news.

And people seem to read into

what they think we all think,

which I find very hurtful, really,

'cause most of them come up

with things that they think,

which is nothing like

what's going through my head.

Oh, so she might be all right.

What's the point of people sort

of going into people's lives

and saying, "Why do you like

this?" and, "Why don't you?"

I just don't see

any point in it.

So have you had enough

of being in the film?

I mean, who knows

in seven years what -

Whether it'll be done again -

But this is me

saying hopefully I'll reach

my half-century next year,

and I shall bow out.

When I grow up,

I'd like to find out

all about the moon and all that.

Nick, a farmer's son,

grew up in the Yorkshire Dales.

I said I was interested

in physics and chemistry.

Well, I'm not going

to do that here.

At 14, he was away

at boarding school

and at 21, reading

physics at Oxford.

(Michael) So what career

are you going to pursue?

(Nick) It depends whether I'll be good

enough to do what I want to really do.

I would like, if I

can, to do research.

By 28, he had moved to America

and was doing research

into nuclear fusion

at the university of Wisconsin.

The fusion reaction

gives off energy

and produces the power that would

be turned into electrical energy

and sent out to the consumer.

(Michael) How hot is it in there?

In there, it's about

10 million degrees.

At 35, he was an

associate professor,

And at 42, a full professor.

And I've spent the last year and

a half writing a couple of books.

My ambition as a scientist is to

be more famous for doing science

than for being in this film,

but unfortunately,

Michael, it's not gonna happen.

Over the years, Nick's

research hit trouble,

and by 49, he's had to abandon it,

because the containers needed to store

the hot gasses couldn't be developed.

(Michael) Was there a moment when you

realized that all you'd been doing

wasn't going to work out?

I think it was more gradual.

I didn't want to admit

it for quite a while.

I mean, I really believed in it.

It was a huge let-down.

So the area that I'm looking

at is this times this.

I don't know why I've a

compulsion to teach, really.

It was always there in me. I wanted

to do it. I thought I'd be good at it.

When I go into a classroom

full of undergraduates,

I try and explain to them why

they might want to try and do it.

That's my little attempt to

open a little door for them.

So I'm hoping that you

remember me being very stupid

and going, "Ow, there's

arrows coming out of here."

Can we do that?

Any chance of that?

They can get information

from a book.

I have to keep them awake and make

the information a bit more interesting

than a book.

I'm doomed to do this

over and over and over.

OK, well, I didn't even

know it was happening,

so it was interesting...

Nobody's ever said that I

was a typical engineer.

The undergraduates

tell jokes about engineers,

and the only one

I can repeat to you

is, "How you can tell if

an engineer is an extrovert?"

And the answer is, "He looks at

your shoes when he's talking to you."

Even though he's clearly

a megastar, it's like...

Somebody came up

with a theory recently

that a lot of scientists

and mathematicians

are just borderline autistic.

I could easily be borderline

autistic, you know.

I don't quite get how other people

feel about things sometimes, you know.

(Michael) Do you

have a girlfriend?

I don't want to answer that.

I don't answer those

kind of questions.

I thought that one would

come up because when I was...

When I was doing the other one,

and somebody said,

"What do you think about girls?"

And I said, "I don't answer

questions like that."

Is that the reason

you're asking it?

I thought so. Um...

The best answer would be to say

that I don't answer

questions like that,

but, I mean, it was what

I said when I was seven,

and it's still the most

sensible. What about them?

Nick was only 17

when I first met him.

If he'd been somebody who had had fixed

ideas of a woman's role in marriage

that meant dinner on the table

at six every evening...

Ah, didn't I tell you about that?

His wife Jackie also

taught at the university,

and they had a son Adam.

Six years ago, they divorced.

Well, it was incredibly hard.

What I concluded,

and I have talked to other people

about this who've gone through it,

I'm not sure if they feel

it as strongly as I did,

but it was like a death.

Anything could happen.

We could easily drift apart.

There are so many

pressures on people.

If your spouse died, you

could look back and think,

"Well, it was wonderful

while it lasted,"

But in a divorce,

you can't look back and say,

"These are all happy memories."

It wasn't my decision.

She went to England.

Her father was ill.

By the time she'd landed,

he had died,

and when she came back,

it was like a different

person came back.

Was I responsible?

I could have been braver

about some things,

but if I'd been braver,

it might have ended sooner.

You can talk to me

by myself outside,

but I'll just meet you

by the garage, ok?

All right, bye.

It's enormously hard

to deal with.

The worst part of it was seeing

how it would affect my son.

(Michael) How old was he?

Ten.

When he was first told,

he was terribly, terribly upset,

and then he just

pulled himself together

and didn't want to talk

about it anymore.

He's made the most of it -

I mean, the best of it.

Made the best that

he can of it, I guess.

Take it easy, Adam.

Main thing is not to crash.

Really? You don't want

me to crash right now?

(Michael) How does

he deal with it now?

He doesn't talk to me

about it very much at all.

He's a private person.

It's very, very hard for me

to be spending a large part of

my time with him not around.

Hi, Graham. What you doing?

I had to go to a graduation.

One of my students

was getting his Ph.D.,

and he insisted

I go there with him,

and I looked around, and the

person behind me was Chris...

Hey, Graham.

...who is my new wife.

Are you ok?

(Michael) Did you

fall in love quickly?

Immediately.

Except that you decided that if I

couldn't find you, I'd failed the test.

I decided it was

his work to find me.

We did shake hands

at the end of graduation,

stood up and said who we were,

but he immediately forgot.

He couldn't remember who I was.

"I know who she is,

so I don't have to worry

about this anymore."

So I forgot. I do -

that's very me.

She came down to the

student union to meet me,

And, you know, I barely

knew what she looked like.

I looked at her...

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