Despite presenting a Graham Greeneish, hyperbolic England of toughs and toffs, Michael Apted's 1964 documentary 7 Up has proven to be one of the great ideas in television. Perhaps there is something intrusive about filming the same group of people every seven years. But as a serious record, the series, which this week reached its sixth instalment - 42 Up - is an incomparable kind of TV verite. If it doesn't fully answer the nature/nurture debate, it does seem to be tipping the balance in nurture's direction.
Anyway, even if middle-class females and middle England males are somewhat underrepresented (exceptions being the once posh, but now perfectly civilised Suzy, and Yorkshire Dales boy turned physics professor Nick) the test cases have now arrived at middle age. They are almost all, not unexpectedly, stouter, wiser and more reflective. Most of their parents are dead and their own children have become the centres of their lives. And so, naturally, nurture and its baggage are passed down through the generations just as relentlessly as are genes. What's thoroughly striking is just how extraordinarily un-meritocratic English society (Irish too, in many respects) actually is.
The evidence of this series pretty well proves that, in most cases, people's horizons are determined by their environment. At seven, the pathologically confident public school boys, John, Andrew and Charles spoke about their educational and professional futures. Now they are, respectively, a barrister, a solicitor and an editor of science documentaries at Channel 4. John and Charles have dropped-out of Apted's series; a grand irony that, considering how assiduously they applied themselves to staying in the academic and job races.
East End boy Tony, on the other hand, is a London cabbie. He didn't achieve his dream to become a jockey and, at 42, like most of the rest of Apted's group, finds that "it's not easy being married". Mind you, Tony's wife, Debbie, to whom he has been unfaithful, can reasonably say likewise. She does. Tony and his family have moved from the East End to Essex, where their new house has a patio and a fish-pond. We saw the three children eating Italian food - gastronomic egalitarianism being better than no bread at all, I suppose.
After 28 Up found Neil homeless and wandering in the far north of Scotland, he became the star of the series. At seven, he had been the perkiest and cutest of all the kids. So, his worsening plight from university drop-out to squatter to tramp provoked an intense response. If the series is, as is sometimes claimed, essentially docu-soap, then Neil is its epicentre. His update was kept till last this time around and, given the state he was in at 35, many viewers must have feared the worst. Would he even be alive?
Well, yes, not only is Neil alive, but he's back living in London, where he's a Liberal Democrat councillor for the borough of Hackney. So, he didn't go mad then (easy on the Lib Dem jokes!) but his story did show how Apted's series had altered the course of his life. The gentle, intellectual maths teacher, Bruce - a quiet hero of the series - gave shelter to Neil for two months after the 35 Up programme. A final scene this week showed Neil reading a lesson at Bruce's recent wedding.
With the exception of Neil, the hardest lives have been led by the working-class girls, Jackie, Lynn and Sue and the boys from a children's home, Symon and Paul. It is not that these lives have been without happiness and success, but financial and (with the exception of unwell librarian Lynn) educational barriers have repeatedly constrained them. Their lives, it would seem from this series, have been at least as productive as millionaire barrister John's. But wasn't it all horribly predetermined?
Apted sought originally to see how much movement there was between the classes. There's been practically none, even though the toughs and toffs split of 1964 is more embarrassed, less brazen, in its 1998 manifestation. The most sobering aspect of 42 Up was the fact that the future, for perhaps all except the extraordinary Neil, now seems to be about holding on. Where once it was all about hope and potential, it is now about consolidation and trying to see the bigger picture - beyond society and even culture. It would be good to be around to see 49 Up. Splendid television really - literally the series of a lifetime, actually of 14 lifetimes.
Beatlemania was in its heyday when 7 Up was first screened and Paul McCartney, in fact, lived at 20 Forthlin Road, Liverpool, his family's home, until 1964. John Birt, a contemporary of McCartney's and now director general of the BBC, urged Britain's National Trust to buy the property in 1995. They did and so began a restoration job to recreate a 1950s council house look. Birth- place Of The Beatles was hilarious on a number of fronts.
Its homage to popular culture, albeit the apex of popular culture, correctly treated it in the awed tones usually reserved for classical culture. As parody, this had a lovely bite, its satire on snobbery almost Beatle-ish. But there was also the fact that the producer of this short documentary must have been conscious that he was doing a special job for the boss. So there was almost certainly a degree of second-guessing involved. This was, after all, Birt's baby - it might be risky to take the mick too much.
Anyway, the National Trust brought in serious tradesmen. There wasn't a cowboy in sight, never mind on site. There was Graham Storey, paper conservator; James Finlay, historic paint consultant; Arthur Robson, painter and decorator; Pat Hassell, head gardener. They were like men from another era - Sergeant Pepper album sleeve people. They had to rid the house of a previous owner's uPVC windows, new kitchen and artexed (streaky plaster) walls. But this could be no rushed job. There was a rumour that McCartney lyrics might exist on an early layer of paint.
So, the craftsmen used small scalpels, excavating for this pop music artefact with as much care as an Egyptologist opening Tutenkhamun's sarcophagus. They never found it. But they pressed on for authenticity anyway, restoring the walls with period wallpaper and "corporation cream" paint. Some artefacts were too precious to be left in place however. The original McCartney loo chain was removed for safe keeping. The job of custodian (£9,760 sterling a year), advertised in The Big Issue, attracted hundreds of hopefuls. "It's like winning the Lottery," said the successful candidate.
Julian Gibbs was the National Trust man overseeing the restoration. More accustomed to choosing 17th-century colours than 1950s fake stone and Chinese print wallpapers, he still dedicated himself to achieving authenticity. It was perhaps a little strange then that the programme concluded with lyrics from In My Life. "There are places, I remember . . . " sounded apt for the subject - but weren't those words written by John Lennon?
A place still remembered by the descendants of many Connemara emigrants to America is Graceville, Minnesota. Back in the 1880s, a Bishop John Ireland sought to establish a Catholic plantation there. There had been a famine in 1879 Ireland and whites were busy massacring native Americans during the previous decade or so. The bishop, quite a wheeler-dealer by most accounts, saw an opening for a financial killing and for the Catholic church to extend beyond the inner cities of east coast America.
The Connemara native speakers - not the bishop's ideal farmers - ended up being abandoned to a furiously cold Minnesotan winter. The bishop, it appears, required them to stay on the land for at least six months in order that he could retain title. It was, in all, a tale of barbarism, greed and finally, fortitude. Directed by Bob Quinn, its research was impressive although the treatment of the native Americans was ultimately understated by being confined to the top of the documentary.
Anyway, Graceville showed that TnaG continues to produce worthwhile programmes. Of course, it had essentially a Connemara Gaeltacht appeal. But at least it wasn't History Lite, such as the Disney Corporation's The Long Journey Home, currently showing on RTE 1 on Friday nights. Though epic in sweep and with splendid production values, Disney, typically, has castrated the Irish story to produce feelgood history for an American audience. TnaG cannot compete with Hollywood production standards but it can trounce big corporations for authenticity. In fact, it must.
Brendan Kennelly gave an elaborate Huggy Bear greeting, sealed with a kiss, to John B. Keane at the start of What's The Secret? - John B At 70. The secret, John B. said, is "contentment" adding, however, that "You have to invest in horror and abandon and delight and joy before you can have even a fragment of it." Well, that sounded both fair enough and wise enough and if there's ever a 70 Up (only four programmes to go, mind) it might make an engaging discussion topic for those of Apted's gang still breathing.
John B. mused about such familiar preoccupations of his as Kerry and Kerryness, 1950s emigration, the GAA, bullying priests, Listowel people and Listowel dogs. His trademark comic euphemisms sounded as lyrical as ever and yet, it is clear that he represents a tradition and a kind of literacy which is passing away. In a world where bluntness and coarseness have gained so much ground, euphemism, sadly, becomes enfeebled. Still, John B., despite his cancer, hasn't changed: he remains cute enough to deride sophistication but has always been sophisticated enough to understand the value of populism.
Tribute evenings of this sort are unusual on RTE. Generally, Gay Byrne and The Late Late Show do the major tribute gigs. Still, mixing old John B. interviews (performances, really) with the recent Kennelly conversation made quite pleasant TV. It was sad in the long run though. Tired out, John B. at 70 had to seek rest. When Kennelly repeated the hugging, it was hard not to think that we were witnessing the end of an era.
Finally, Ever Ancient, Ever New. The opener of eight programmes with a gospel theme spoke to people who have been dealt exceedingly cruel blows. Joan and Leo Vickers lost their 16-year-old daughter, Sarah, when she was knocked down in 1992; Margaret Maher is a sister of Father Joe Walsh, murdered by the late Brendan O'Donnell; Noreen Hill's husband, Ronnie, has been comatose since the Enniskillen bombing of 1987.
Could these people forgive or, in gospel-speak "turn the other cheek"? Some can and some cannot. But it was an uncomfortable programme to watch. You could only admire the courage of the people who took part while feeling intrusive at watching them recall their horrors. If the purpose was to demonstrate the frailty of life, that was fair enough. But if the answer expected was to trust in God, whatever befalls you, we were beyond even nature/nurture arguments. Some do, some don't; some can, some can't - and it's unknowable in advance.