Tick tock, time doesn't stop

I just watched '49 Up'. If you've never heard of it, it's a programme that filmed a group of children in 1964 when they were 7 ('7 Up') and has returned to film them every 7 years since. It's a great idea for a programme, based on 'show me the boy at seven and I will show you the man'. They took children of different social backgrounds and looked at where their lives have gone. I remember the last one was on the week I turned 18 which I thought was profound, you know leaving childhood and all that!

It really does make me wonder about life. All the things you thought that you were going to do, and what you wanted to be, and how a lot of times they just don't work out how you planned.

Some of the interviewees get really bolshy when they are asked some questions. I suppose it might be quite intrusive, having a camera crew turn up on your doorstep every 7 years to ask you about your life over the last 7 years. Everybody has something that they're not proud of and to have to reveal that must be quite hard. It kind of supports my theory of why people don't like birthdays, because they haven't done the things that they thought they would have done by that age. But it is an amazing record of your life. The Guardian have an article about it, talking about the social history of Britain that it shows. It's here - you should read it.

And as sad as it is to say, I think the saying is true. But I wonder what it would be like now. It's no surprise that the children who were privately educated at 7 and learning Latin and what-not went to to university and became QCs and did well for themselves. Neither is it surprising that the ones who lived in care had much more of struggle. But society was different and think the division of the classes is less clear cut now. I vote for a new set of children to be followed, 7 Up:the 21st Century's children (although maybe you'd have to wait til 2007 for that!)

One man talked in the programme about how as long as you've got your family, you've got everything. I think that's true too. Really, as long as you've got family around you there's not much else you need. But I'd like to include friends in that bracket too!