70 Up is the end of the longest documentary ever made

It started with 14 seven year olds in 1964

The final chapter of 70 Up will now bring the project to an end, more than 60 years after it began.

The whole thing started rather differently. In 1964, 7 Up was made as a single programme looking at the British class system through the lives of 14 children. 

All were seven years old, but their family and financial circumstances could hardly have been more different. The idea came from the Jesuit saying, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”

Paul Almond directed the first episode, with a young researcher working alongside him who would later become a major part of the series. Every seven years, the same children were contacted again.

Relationships came and went, careers changed, money became a problem or stopped being one, and illness entered the picture. The audience grew older with them.

Their answers revealed just how different their lives were

For the children involved, the whole experience was still something of a mystery. Jackie later remembered the day the Granada TV crew arrived at her school and admitted, “We didn't really know what we were doing, we had no idea what was happening.”

The programme introduced viewers to a group of children whose personalities were already beginning to show.

Jackie was filmed with two of her friends, Lynn and Sue, as the three girls chatted about school, boys and what they imagined their adult lives might look like. 

Even at seven, Jackie had some idea of what she wanted from marriage. She said she hoped to marry a boy “that's not got a lot of money, but has got some money”.

Neil, full of excitement, could see himself becoming an astronaut or a coach driver when he grew up. Paul was much more concerned about the future prospect of ending up with a wife who would make him eat his greens.

Bruce gave a particularly touching answer when asked about his biggest wish. He said he wanted to see his father, who was living 6,000 miles away in Rhodesia.

Their lives took turns nobody could have predicted

Nobody could have known in 1964 that a film about 14 children would still be on television more than 60 years later. 

The lives of Peter Davies, Symon Basterfield, Paul Kligerman, Tony Walker, Neil Hughes, John Brisby, Andrew Brackfield, Bruce Balden, Jackie Bassett, Suzy Lusk and Sue Davis took the project somewhere its creators could never have planned. 

Neil never became the astronaut he imagined he might be. Bruce’s childhood longing to see his father, who was thousands of miles away in Rhodesia, also gained a very different meaning as audiences continued watching his story unfold.

In the end, 7 Up became less about proving that class determines a person’s life and more about recording what happens when real people are given another seven years to change.

Its influence has lasted too. In 2024, it was named the most influential television programme of the previous 50 years. For the children themselves, however, it all started without any idea of what was coming.

Now, the final instalment will air on ITV this Tuesday, bringing the project to its end after six decades.