56 Up Page #3

---

known as Shane-o,

and he is 3 this week.

He's the joker out of

the lot of them.

If he does something

and you laugh,

he'll laugh with you,

and he loves a joke.

And then there's little Troy

that's 12 weeks old.

I look back at my grandmother

and I've taken some wonderful

lessons from her.

Grandma made us all feel that we

were her special number one,

but I think that's the secret

to being a grandparent is to

make every child feel that they

have someone that they

can relax with,

be themselves with.

Grandparents now have a really

huge part to play

in their parents' lives because

the pressure's on them

to work so much,

and grandparents fill that hole

of mum not being home every day.

I've already made them, so there

they are for the kiddies.

And your Rich likes

fairy bread.

Get some spoilers

and snakes in there.

Happy birthday,

dear Shannon

Happy birthday to you

Not you!

It's a real struggle

for them, financially.

But at the same time, like all

young kids, there's areas

we look at and go,

"We didn't have that. "

I've got 23 threepenny pieces,

and I don't know how many

ha'penny pieces I've got now.

Look, there's a whole

stack of duckies over there.

None of our kids have got

credit cards.

They don't live

a credit life, yet.

They try and pay as they go,

which is what we've

always thought,

and that's kept our head

above water, just.

We always thought if we were

unemployed or out of work,

if you own your house,

you've got a huge buffer.

And Robert's

of the same belief.

In their 20s,

Paul and Sue sold up,

bought an old van, and traveled

across Australia.

We were close together,

because we really got

to know each other and relied

on each other so much.

One of the most important

things we ever did

with our children,

we spent time with them,

and particularly when

you've got holidays.

You know, go camping with them.

Well, we went over

to visit Katie,

because she was working up in the top

end of Yorkshire on a community farm.

We were missing her.

We just didn't want

to tell her that.

Well, they miss you

when you're away.

Do you miss them?

I didn't miss them, like,

God, I wanna be around them,

but I thought about them a lot

and appreciated them a lot,

which is probably good.

So are the three of you

getting on well?

Yeah, most of the time.

As long as we're not

in the car.

Getting lost.

We're atrocious

in the car.

But other than that,

we're good.

It is good.

When we were in London,

we went to Greenwich.

It was built as a maritime

retirement village, almost,

for the sailors from

the Napoleonic Wars,

so that was all

really interesting

because we work in

retirement villages.

These buildings here were built

before Australia was even

discovered.

So that's pretty amazing.

Katie was in awe of it

because

in her degree,

she did art history,

so she just loved it.

What does "university" mean?

Are you going to try and point

your grandchildren into education?

You want them to have

a good education

no matter what they do.

Better

than you had, maybe?

But that's my fault,

really.

I mean, I just didn't

work hard enough, I guess.

You hope the school systems

have changed

to encourage kids to go on,

because one thing

you can't take away from people

is an education.

I mean, the one thing

my daughter's taught me

is that it doesn't

matter what you do,

there's room for all of us,

even to the point

if you don't work, you're still

teaching us something.

You're teaching

other people to care.

How are you dealing

with getting old?

I don't think

you really notice it.

You still think

you're the same.

Maybe when you try

to do something

physically too quickly

and pull a muscle,

that just reminds you

that you're getting older.

Are you fearful of

the future of disability

or unable to do things?

You hope that you're

going to be

one of the fortunate ones

and not get ill in any way.

- Hello, Ken.

- Hello, Paul.

Maybe where I work

may have helped that recently

because people just tend to

get on with their lives

no matter what.

And then that's the one

with the palace.

You got a nice shot

of the bin, there.

That one's good.

You're getting better.

Shut up.

Do you measure your life

in terms of success

and failure in any sense?

I don't really.

I suppose the success is that

we're sitting here together

and that we haven't had

tragedy happen to us.

It's just about getting on

with life

and then enjoy

our grandchildren,

our children, and our friends,

you know.

Yeah. Our goals

of life have never...

And then work

just gets in the way.

Well, we pretend we've

got swords

and we make the noise

of the swords fighting,

and then once we get stabbed,

we go, "aaaah!"

Neil grew up in

a Liverpool suburb

and had dreams

of going to Oxford

but didn't get in.

Instead, he went

to Aberdeen University,

but dropped out

after the first term.

At 21, Neil was working

on a building site

and living in a squat.

I would like to be somebody in

a position of importance,

and I've always thought it,

but I don't think I'm

the right sort of person

to carry the responsibility

for whatever it is...

I always thought,

well, I'd love to be possibly

in politics

or something like this.

At 28,

we found Neil homeless,

wandering around

the west coast of Scotland.

If the money runs out,

then for a few days,

there's nowhere to go to

and that's all you can do.

I simply have to find

the warmest shed I can find.

At 35, he was living

in a Council estate

on the most northerly part

of Britain,

the Shetland Islands.

And what would you like

to be doing, say in seven years?

I can think of all kinds

of things I'd like to be doing.

The real question is, what am I

likely to be doing?

What are you likely

to be doing?

That's a horrible question.

Um...

I tend to think the most likely

answer is that

I'll be wandering homeless

around the streets of London.

Can I just point out some of

the considerable disadvantages?

First of all...

At 42, Neil had moved

to London

and was a Liberal Democrat

on Hackney Council.

While I was in Shetland,

I felt very strongly

that I should become

involved in politics.

Simply because I felt

I was not achieving anything

in the ways I really wanted to.

By 49, Neil had left London.

Moved to Cumbria

in the northwest of England,

and was a Liberal Democrat

member

of his local district council.

It was a committee decision,

a majority decision.

His own group on

the Establishment Committee

agreed with the decision.

Councilor Hughes?

The Councilor Cook has

reconsidered his opinion

he ventured at that meeting.

Here we are in the center

of the ward I represent

on the council.

These are

our public toilets.

I can assure you that no more

fierce battle has been fought,

either on the playing fields

or indeed

on the battlefields

of England, to save

what might appear to be

a comparatively

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes