I'm Crying Already - 70 Up! "Bows Out"

The Up! series is my obsession. I could not have, being born in 1968, followed this since the beginning, but fortuitously I found it on youtube after 49 Up! was filmed. I looked forward to 56 Up! and 63 Up! since then, and now, a mere 5 days away from the finale: 70 Up!

For the uninitiated, briefly, a British start-up television station made a documentary about 7 year-olds in 1964. Not notable, until someone decided 7 years later to check in on the now 14 year-olds, and so on, every 7 years, until today. The posh children grew up to be ho-hum adults, but the other children have had roller coaster lives. My favorites are/were Neil, Lynn, Paul, Symon and Nick. Unfortunately, I have to use "were" for Lynn and Nick, as they both passed away. Originally designed to showcase the British class system, the series has everything that life doles out to everyone: bright eyed innocence, surly teens, anxious young adults, love, marriage, children, affairs, divorce, single parenthood, illness, homelessness, itineracy, redundancy (unemployment), education and career, immigration, cancel culture, mental health issues, death and on and on. Truly special. 

From upper left across: 1st: Paul, Nick, Lynn 2nd: Andrew, Neil
Symon 3rd: Jackie, Bruce, Sue 4th: Peter, Suzy, and Tony

My favorite moments were when Jackie told off director Michael Apted for his earlier sexism (which, I think was mitigated by the addition of Paul's wife, Sue, and Symon's wife, Vienneta - they are sharp!), Nick looking dreamy back on the farm at 21, the way Apted introduced Jackie's 2 youngest sons, Paul talking about not wanting to eat greens (c'MON, that boy is adorable and he grew into an adorable old man. "No, sir" and "what's university?" - the kid had comedic timing), Lynn and Nick facing their mortality with brave stoicism, Symon stating in 28 Up! that he "had a couple of kids" (um, that would be FIVE) and altruistic Bruce becoming a husband and a father after a long wait. I even loved Suzy's dog, who stole the 7 Plus 7 installment when he caught a rabbit. But, the true drama was Neil. That man had the world living on the edge along with him. He dealt with homelessness and mental illness, but persevered and maintained his eloquence throughout. (When discussing the public toilets he fought for in his ward, he says "I can assure you, no more fierce battle has been fought either on the playing field or indeed on the battlefields of England to save what may appear to be a comparatively insignificant local amenity") His story about the butterfly KILLS ME. The way it is edited to show his young, idealized self unselfconsciously dancing is unadulterated poetry. To realize after decades that you had it right when you were wee is part of the beauty of aging.

Nick's story, too, moved me. As someone who was forced to leave her home and family of her youth, I could relate to him having to leave his boyhood farm to pursue his unfulfilled dream in a foreign land. He, most of all, seemed to understand the power of the series and what it represented to people. In 63 Up!, he spoke of his dire prognosis, and will appear in 70 Up! after his premature death after informing Apted's producer, Claire Lewis, that he'd like to film his coda. And that was the impetus for 70 Up!, even though Apted, too, had passed away before Nick. Nick passed just hours after this interview; he loved and honored this project until the the very end. Like Neil, Nick was thoughtful and deep, and, did I mention, hot?

Lynn was the first to die, and she knew that she suffered a life-threatening condition for the last 2 installments before her death. Always matter-of-fact, her nearly losing her composure, and then telling Apted "You'd better cut it or I'm going to cry" while moving out of frame is hard to witness. She worked in education and helped the most needy. Her big heart was always on display. She never minced words. She was a force of good and made the world a better place.

So, inevitably, we will be focusing on the losses in 70 Up!, but hopefully with a love of life and living that has been central to the series. As Nick said, "It's not an accurate picture of me, but it is an accurate picture of someone", and that universality will have us, I'm certain, crying tears of joy when the curtain falls on the "Bayeux Tapestry" of documentaries.