Documentary that followed group of Brits for 70 years finally ends

Having first aired back in 1974, the Up series comes to an end this month with 70 Up: The Final Chapter.

It’s been described by some as the ‘greatest documentary series of all time’ and has impressively followed the lives of 14 people from different backgrounds across the UK since the age of seven.

As well as the original director, Michael Apted, some participants have passed away since filming began, and others have stepped back in parts. But much of the original line-up feature in this final chapter and it’s fair to say that when they were seven years old, most of them didn’t think it would go on to be a ‘lifetime’s work’.

Two of them, Jackie and Tony, admit to LADbible that their parents probably didn’t really have a clue back in the 70s when they agreed to sign them up that they'd be filming every seven years until now.

Tony was the 'cheeky chappy' of the bunch. (ITV)

"No one in a million years thought it was going to be a lifetime's work"

Known for being the ‘cheeky chappy’ from the East End, London cabbie Tony says his parents agreed to him doing the series because they ‘got £10’.

Nowadays, that could be worth roughly £20 – ‘in them days, a fortune’.

“I’d never seen anybody at that time with £10,” he explains, “I think my family needed the money.”

But Tony says that at the time, he reckons none of the cast really knew ‘anything about what it meant or what future it was going to hold for us’.

“No one in a million years thought it was going to be a lifetime's work for any production company or the cast in general and least of all, the parents,” he continues, with nothing like it to compare it to at the time.

Jackie says she's glad to have videos of her younger years to show her grandchildren. (ITV)

Each series, the documentary catches up with each participant, asking them questions about their lives and plans for the future, including archival footage of the previous episodes. So, at 70, there is a whole bank of clips from throughout their lives to look back on, showing the various trajectories of their different lives.

It's an impressive watch and hard to imagine it would have ever thought to go on for so long and so successfully.

And Jackie echoes Tony's point, as she has ‘no idea’ why her parents agreed to her being filmed back in the 70s: “I didn’t even know they had agreed to be honest, but they must have done.”

But she certainly doesn’t regret doing it and despite her disagreements with Apted over the years, she ‘loves the programme’.

“He's like an uncle in the family you love but sometimes you really don't want to be near,” she jokes of the late director.

Much of the cast agree that 70 is a good place to leave the documentary, as they enjoy their ‘second childhoods’ and later years.

Advice to their younger selves

Jackie and Tony have pretty much grown up on screen, with the cameras showing up every seven years to document their lives.

We’ve seen Tony go from aspiring jockey to trying acting and becoming a London cab driver.

And we’ve watched Jackie but-heads with Apted about the differences in the questions he would ask the young women on the show compared to the young men.

Now enjoying her retirement years as her ‘second childhood’ in Norfolk, if Jackie was to speak to her seven-year-old self she’d tell herself to ‘button down a bit, be more tolerant and education’.

“I don’t think I pushed myself hard enough,” she explains. “I wish perhaps I’d gone further.”

While she doesn’t quite know what that would’ve looked like, she now pushes her grandchildren more to seek higher education as she reckons she could’ve improved her own qualifications to go ‘into a career rather than just work’.

“But you know, hindsight’s a wonderful thing,” she adds.

Having been quite a character of the Up documentaries over the years, Tony says he’s still ‘got the same happy-go-lucky nature’.

“I’m still a cheeky chappy,” he says. “And that's my philosophy in life. Don't let them get you down. Get up tomorrow and go for your dream. Always positive thinking.”

But he would tell his younger self to ‘mind your language’.

An emotional watch, 70 Up starts Tuesday 15th September at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.