70 Up: Curtain Falls on a Captivating Documentary Series – BBC News
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We’ve followed their lives for six decades – now the stars of 7 Up are bowing out.
Image source: ITV
By George Wright
Published 13 minutes ago
Six decades have passed since Jackie Bassett first appeared on TV aged seven, skipping down the road with her little sister. It was 1964 and she had been selected by teachers at her east London primary school to appear in a documentary called 7 Up.
The show interviewed 14 seven-year-olds from vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds. Inspired by the Jesuit saying: "Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man", it was intended as a one-off – a snapshot of Britain’s class system and how it shapes us from a young age.
"They only picked me because I never stopped talking," Jackie told the BBC, with an infectious giggle that hasn’t changed since childhood.
Little did she know then, but Jackie was being filmed for a show that would go on to be the longest-running documentary series ever made. In 2024, it was voted the most influential TV show of the past 50 years.
Now the curtain is falling, with the final instalment – 70 Up – airing on ITV this Tuesday.
Image source: ITV
"We didn’t really know what we were doing, we had no idea what was happening," Jackie said of the day the Granada TV crew turned up at her school.
In the first episode, Jackie appeared alongside her friends, Lynn and Sue, as they were asked questions about boys at school and their hopes for the future. Jackie said she would like to marry a boy "that’s not got a lot of money, but has got some money."
The nation was also introduced to the likes of wide-eyed Neil, who explained his plans to become either an astronaut or a coach driver; anxious Paul, who ruminated on the idea of one day marrying a woman who made him eat his greens; and pensive Bruce, who said his "heart’s desire is to see my daddy who is 6,000 miles away" in Rhodesia.
Image source: ITV
The first episode was directed by Canadian Paul Almond, with the help of a young researcher named Michael Apted, who was involved in selecting the children. Apted then decided to follow up on the children seven years later.
"The material was dreadful – as teenagers, they wouldn’t say anything," he later said of the second episode, 7 Plus Seven. "Yet we started to realise the power of the idea; despite the film not being very good, everyone was interested in it."
Apted went on to become a big name in Hollywood, directing blockbusters including James Bond’s The World Is Not Enough, but he always returned to the show and said it was his most significant achievement.
Every seven years, millions would tune in for updates on the cast’s lives. Neil’s dreamy outlook on the world as a child descended into battles with depression, isolation, and homelessness, only to turn up as a Liberal Democrat councillor at 42 and then a lay preacher seven years later.
Jackie initially said she did not want children, but by 42 Up, she was an adoring mother to three boys.
