No Hiding Place Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?

# Oh, what happened to you? Whatever happened to me?

# What became of the people we used to be?

# Tomorrow's almost over Today went by so fast

# Is the only thing to look forward to the past? #

Hello, Garry. All right? Hi, Dallas.

-How's things, Bob?

-Oh, fine!

My God!

-This place hasn't half changed.

-Everything has.

But it was just a barber's.

Nobody's said "barber" since the "Tony Curtis".

-Having it cut?

-Just washed and blow-dried.

-Girls!

-Yes, girls. They work here.

-I've never had girls in a barber's.

-I doubt anyone has.

-Garry, this is Terry. Can you fit him in?

-Sure.

-He needs...um...

Yes, he does, doesn't he?

-I've been in the army.

-Could you bring him into the 1970s?

Let's see. I don't know. I'll try. I'll get you washed in a minute.

Great, ta.

-Why do I want me hair washed?

-What?

I don't want it washed. I only washed it Tuesday week.

You have to have it washed and blow-dried.

You didn't in the old days. It was two bob a cut and none of this shampoo nonsense.

I suppose you preferred it with its cracked walls and flypaper and hair everywhere.

I suppose you preferred Tommy Mossop "Terror of the Tongs", with his clippers and hair oil

and his "Nudge, nudge, anything else you require?"

Tommy knew the horses. Gave me a good few tips.

Not on hygiene! He never had his fag out of his mouth or ash out of your scalp.

You sat there knee-deep in dandruff.

-Do you want a manicure today, Bob?

-God preserve us!

Not today, thanks Garry.

At least you knew where you were with Tommy.

-What?

-Well...

Well, what?

I wouldn't like to be blow-dried by them.

They're all poofs, are they?

-Sshh!

-Collier's Law! And designers and window-dressers?!

-It's a well-known fact.

-Anyone who puts queer people down

and is aggressively masculine only masks their own latent tendencies.

-Want me to hit you?

-See how aggressive you're being?

-What do you expect me to do when someone says that?

-Hit them with your handbag!

-Who do you fancy to win the game?

-England.

-Hard team, Bulgaria - and out there.

-It's on the box tonight.

-We know.

I don't know how we'll get through the day without learning the score.

You'll never make it. There's the evening paper, TV news...

-We'll make it.

-They're hard lads. No walkover.

-Fancy a draw, meself.

-What does he know?

Quite a lot. He had a trial for Burnley once.

Him? Never!

-Still plays. Sunday League, like. So does Garry and Denny.

-Really?

You shouldn't jump to... I'll tell you something.

Garry used to do the hair of half Newcastle United Football Club.

Bob Moncur, Malcolm MacDonald - he uses the same conditioner as me.

And do you think he's soft? Well?

Ever seen a homosexual striker?

You next, Bob, and your friend.

Relax, man. She's not going to pull your teeth out.

Other way.

-Do you want beer, egg or herbal tonic?

-Nothing to drink, thanks.

They're shampoos, you fool!

-Is your scalp dry or greasy?

-I don't know, do I?

-What's your normal shampoo?

-Carbolic and wire wool.

Belt up.

Take more care. The ends are breaking.

I've been in the forces. There wasn't a backwash in the jungle.

Heaven preserve us! Here we go.

-Mornin' lads.

-Hello.

-It's Flint.

-Hello, Bob.

-Hello, Flint.

-Good God! Collier? What are you doing here?

-What are you doing here?

-Always come here.

They do French polishing an' all?

-I like it this way.

-Hmm! One forward, the other two brushed back.

-Who's his scriptwriter(?)

-The beer shampoo's gone to his head.

-Won't be long.

Who's going to win? Haven't you heard?

What? The news.

-Don't tell us!

-We want to watch it!

-You'll never last. I'll put you out of your misery.

-No!

Two-nil!

I'll hammer Flint. I'll kill him.

It's typical. I was once queueing to see Psycho. He came out and told me the ending.

Typical! Two pints of special, love.

-Is it raining out?

-No, why?

-Ask a silly question.

-I wonder who scored.

-It depends if it was them or us.

-It must be them.

-The home team. Two nil, he said.

-People don't say nil-two.

You say we won two-nil or we lost two-nil.

He's still ruined it for tonight. Whoever scores first, we'll know.

It starts at 10.20 and we've lasted till five to one.

-Hang on.

-What?

-The kickoff's at one o'clock.

-Yeah.

-Our time.

-They're just kicking off. Flint was having us on.

-What a rotten thing to do.

-Where is Bulgaria?

-What?

It's your Eastern bloc, isn't it?

It's...if you're going from Greece towards Russia, it's second on your left.

-Oh, aye.

-Balkans.

-Pardon?

-It's your Balkans.

They've had awful flooding. Thousands homeless.

Gives us the advantage! Heavy pitch.

What a terrible thing to say. What an inhuman attitude.

They can cope. They're used to that sort of thing. Catastrophe's a way of life.

-What a ridiculous remark.

-Well, them countries...

Them places, like Persia, Bulgaria, the Middle East, they're all unstable.

If it's not floods, it's earthquakes or typhoons.

That's why the people are unstable. They're always hysterical, wanting a war or a new government.

Is that seriously your theory of national character?

Certainly. It's true.

Take Britain. We don't get earthquakes or tidal waves, do we?

We get bitter northeasterlies but we don't have to flee south.

That's why the British character is so stable, so dogged and relaxed.

-Calm under crises.

-According to you, we don't get any crises.

We don't!

But if we did we'd be calm under them.

I'm learning a lot about you. I could go round the world and you'd have a pat response.

I've travelled. I've seen the world.

What do you think of Koreans, then?

Not to be trusted. Cruel, like all Orientals.

A third of the world's population dismissed in a phrase. Russians?

-Sinister.

-Egyptians?

-Cowardly.

You didn't save that for Italians?

-Greasy, but less than the French.

-Germans?

-Arrogant.

-Spaniards?

-Lazy.

Danes?

Pornographic.

-That's about everyone. Americans?

-Flash.

-So it's down to the British.

I haven't got time for the Irish or Welsh. Scots are worse than Koreans.

And you never could stand southerners.

I don't like anyone much, outside this town.

A lot of families on our street I can't stand.

I don't even like them next door.

So, from the Pacific, through the wastes of Manchuria, to 127 Inkerman Terrace,

you can't abide anyone.

How did you ever marry a German?

The failure of my marriage proves my point. Them and us don't mix.

England should take heed of the failure of my entry into Europe.

God didn't make us an island by accident.

So the British are calm in a crisis, the rest of the world is unstable,

and all hairdressers are fairies.

-Except Tommy Mossop.

-Oh, except Tommy Mossop.

Hello, lads. Not raining, is it? Heard the latest score, then?

-Shove off, Flint!

-Only a joke! Only a joke!

You could have screwed up our day.

You'll never last. You've got to hear somehow before ten tonight.

-We'll manage if we avoid you.

-I bet you can't.

I bet we can.

Fiver.

-Fiver each!

-Fiver each!

-You're on!

-Right!

-Right, till 10.20.

-Right!

-Right!

-Right!

You know it's on radio, live, now?

We won't listen to the radio. Gloria won't put it on.

-Not if you don't want.

-We're OK.

-'We now take you over to Sofia where England...'

-Aagghh!

-Aagghh!

Pint please, Gloria.

-Hello.

-Hello, pet.

-Is it raining? I must get my washing in.

No, it isn't! Everybody keeps asking us that. Switch this off.

-Were we followed?

-No. I've experience of that.

What's got into you? You're like two fugitives.

-We're in grave danger.

-Desperate.

-You haven't been stealing hubcaps?

-The TV's on in there.

-Switch it off.

-n a

-It's the test card for the baby. She likes it.

-Turn the sound down.

Turn the radio back on. I was listening to it.

Good God! One day without Johnnie Walker won't do anybody any harm.

There's nobody in the house?

Just my lover.

-You haven't got a lover, have you?

-She's always been permissive.

-Not permissive, just romantic.

-Who is he?

He's this beautiful, lithe, six-foot-seven West Indian limbo dancer.

Limbo dancer?! How low can you get?

About... AUDIENCE LAUGHTER

-About two foot six on a good night!

-Mmm.

Isn't he conspicuous on the estate?

What do the neighbours say when he comes in the gate...or under it?

They say, "Lucky Audrey!"

-You haven't really got a lover?

-Course not! How have I got time, with two kids?

I'd melt into a passionate embrace and a grubby head would appear asking for a treacle butty.

Anyway, what are you doing here?

There's a match on and we've bet £10 we won't hear the score before it's on the telly.

We'll be no bother. You can get on with hoovering the baby.

-I've got no food in.

-Audrey, pet, we can't eat - too much pre-match tension.

Your lover's getting restless.

If you hear any funny noises don't worry,

he's only lowering his pole.

-Well, the game'll be nearly over. Injury time.

-Aye.

-There'll be a lot of injuries with them Bulgarians.

-So Bulgarians are all vicious?

-Especially on a heavy pitch.

-Dear me!

It was a heavy pitch - thick mud, a sliding tackle - ruined my chances.

-What chances?

-Of a professional football career.

-Are you serious?

I'll never forget the day...

sleet slanting down from an overcast sky, the crunch of our bodies colliding,

a stab of pain above the left knee, the crowd baying for a penalty.

The crowd? ..Both of them?

-Pardon?

-It sounds like you made soccer history -

"Match of the Century".

It was only our Scout troupe against Byker Boys Brigade behind the Regal car park.

-Left its mark on me for life.

-There was only our Scoutmaster and an old lady walking her Airedale.

Was it the Airedale baying? There are no trees on that waste ground.

If I hadn't had that injury, if I could have stayed at school another year,

gone to training, not night school,

and not sacrificed my talent to bring a wage into that house...

Your conditions! If I'd stayed at school...

If my father was Prince Rainier... If Germany had won the war...

If Enoch Powell was a seven-foot West Indian limbo dancer...

I might be President of the Board of Trade or one of Pan's People.

-I'm just...

-PHONE RINGS

-Don't answer it.

-It is my house.

-Don't!

-It's a trick.

-It could be for me.

It could be me mam or me husband or Littlewoods or even an obscene phone call.

Hello? Just hang on a minute. It's Brian Flint,

for you.

-We should be all right in here.

-Not the place people would think of.

I've got to see the vicar about the wedding anyway.

It's safe, it's dry and it's Flint-proof.

It's like the olden days, sanctuary.

-Eh?

-You claimed sanctuary in the middle ages.

You could steal a sheep or behead someone...or rape a Saxon maiden,

and if you hid in a church the law couldn't touch you.

If the church was in a place like this there'd be no room for the congregation.

I expect they got used to it.

-Have you got any cards?

-You can't play cards! Not in a house of God.

Seems a fairly harmless pastime to me compared with sheep-stealing and Saxon-raping.

-It's still not right. Battleships?

-We've nothing to write with.

We used to play that in the choir, during the sermon.

-Typical of you, being in the choir.

-Boy soprano.

I'd lead in Brother James's Air. I liked it, and you got to see what went on backstage.

Your mother wanted you to go into the Church.

-No, never.

-Aye, she did.

-She didn't.

She wanted me to be a Black and White Minstrel.

-Hallelujah!

-If I'd stuck at it, there might've been a big future in my voice.

Did you see me in the Mikado?

The Home and Colonial Operatic Society still talk of my Nanki Poo.

You never got kicked in the throat. It was worse for me with my ligaments.

I didn't mind not being a singer.

I wanted to be a rubber planter.

Mam wanted me to be a doctor, like Richard Chamberlain.

We've achieved nothing for no-one, ourselves or our parents.

-Too late now.

-Couldn't do it anyway, not please everyone.

A Black and White rubber planter and a midfield brain surgeon!

-What time do you make it?

-Ten past four.

The game'll be over. The ground'll be empty. The crowd will have left in their thousands.

Back to their collective farms. Plodging through Balkan mud in their wellies.

Yep. The team'll be in the hotel. Kebabs, victory champagne and a singsong.

Or drowning the memory of defeat in state-owned Brown Ale.

-Six hours to go.

-I can't stay here.

Not for six hours. Sanctuary or no sanctuary.

It'll be getting dark soon.

It'll be all creepy.

We'll wait till dark and go round the back to my new house,

through the allotments and sidings.

I spy with my little eye something beginning with F.

-Font.

-How did you get that, you jammy Arab!

-I know how your mind works.

-Oh? Well, see if you can get this one.

I spy...with my little eye... something beginning with SGW.

-Stained-glass window.

-Well, any fool could have got that.

Right, right...

-I spy...with my little eye... something beginning with B.

-What?

-B.

Sorry, I thought you said P. Bible.

-Wrong.

-You hesitated. It is bible.

-No, it isn't.

-It isn't.

-If it isn't, what is it?

-Pardon.

-You heard! Quickly!

Well, if you're giving up! It's not bible. If...

-Cheat!

-Who is? I'm not.

-Cheat!

It's belfry.

Oh, I didn't know it was "I spy with my little x-ray eye".

-Eh?

-The belfry is right up on top of the roof. Nobody can see the belfry from here.

Am I playing with Superman and his x-ray vision?

I didn't know it was on the roof. I thought it was that little room.

-The vestry?

-What chance have I got against an ex-choirboy?

-I spy with my little...

-I'm sick of that game.

What time is it?

At the third stroke it will be four twelve and thirty seconds.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

And here in Monaco, in the Eurovision Song Contest, it's Britain's entry,

former choirboy, Bobby Ferris, singing,

"Boom Bang-A-Bang Crash Bang Wallop Up Your Puppet on a String".

That's not what they do. That's ballroom dancing or ice skating.

I hate ice skating. They've got a nerve putting it on a sports programme.

Bulgaria's never won the Eurovision Song Contest.

Mind you, they've never been in it.

Only Yugoslavia from the East has, but they've never been placed.

That's hardly surprising, is it?

That's another generalisation, is it? Yugoslavs are tone-deaf.

-Odd or even, right?

-Right.

-Ten new pence. Odd or even?

-Odd... Rats.

-Thank you. Ten new pence.

-Double or quits?

-You're on. Odd or even?

-Odd!

-God Almighty!

-I THOUGHT it was your car. What are you doing here?

You can't touch us. It's sanctuary.

The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Fiver! Each!

The Gospel according to Sir Alf.

# And low eleven men and one substitute did go forth to do battle

# Even before the host of Bulgarian multitude

-# And there was much booing and... #

-What are you doing here?

-Auditioning, were you?

-No.

-Why are you holding the collection plate?

-Oh, this? We thought we'd like to make a contribution.

-Oh, I see.

For the church restoration fund. Disabled ex-choirboys.

Well, that's very generous of you.

-I look forward to seeing you in church next Sunday.

-Yes, Vicar.

-Don't move your head.

-Pardon?

There's a TV dealer's on your left with about a dozen sets on.

It's OK. It's only the Magic Roundabout.

"We interrupt this programme for an announcement, and pillocks to Zebedee."

Where shall I drive to?

-Just keep going.

-I don't fancy driving out into the country.

No hiding place.

-You realise this is a one-way street.

-So what?

-We can't turn round.

-Why should I want to?

-Because we'll pass that one-legged news vendor with his placard.

It won't give the score it'll say "Match Result" or "England Latest".

What if it says "England Victory" or "England Flop",

or "Ramsey Men Shaken By Bulgars".

-Ten minutes to go.

-What a day! It's been endless.

-The longest day.

It's like this being on the run.

Still, if we hadn't been on the run we'd never have got to the Women's Institute

and we might never have learnt flower-arrangement.

-It's bound to come in handy.

-I bet we saved a life by giving blood.

True. Some victim of multiple motorway madness saved by a pint of Collier's '73.

-Did it hurt?

-Of course not.

So the heat made you faint?

I've had nothing to eat, have I? We didn't dare enter a populated cafe.

-No light's showing through, is it?

-No. You couldn't tell we're here.

-We can switch on.

-No! We might get the ITN news.

The headlines, then bang! The football results.

-Right. Five minutes.

-Take the phone off the hook.

-Right.

-It's a wonder he hasn't sent a telegram. If he does, leave it.

Oh, I'd have to open a telegram.

Not if there's ten quid on it.

-What if Thelma'd had an accident?

-They'd ring.

-The phone's off the hook.

-They'd have it on the news, SOS.

-We've got the set off.

-Settle down!

-I'm sorry. Pre-match nerves, I expect.

-We're almost there.

I expected him to give us more of a run for his money.

-It's been easy.

-There was a dodgy moment.

-In church?

In the hospital I glimpsed the Evening Chronicle.

-Why didn't you say?

-I didn't want to upset you.

-Why upset me now?

I've been upset on my own for four hours. I won't say anything.

You can't say that and not tell me. I've got to know.

It wasn't the score. It said "England F..."

-Pardon?

-"England F..."

-England, then the first letter of the second word - F.

-Oh, my God!

Well, that's it. It's obvious. "England Flop".

-Not necessarily.

-Or "England Fail" or "Fiasco".

Get a grip, man. You're falling to pieces.

It could be anything. It could be "England Fight Back".

-Oh, aye!

-"After Setback".

"Fight Back After Setback". Yes.

"England Forge Ahead" or even "Five".

Or "England Fade". Why did you have to tell me?

Shut your face, man, will you?

Coo-eee!

-How did you get in?

-Someone left the front door open.

-You idiot. You left the door open.

-Turn up for the book today, lads.

Just shut it! You've won, just don't spoil the match.

-You mean you still don't know?

-No.

-No.

-Here's your money.

-Here it is. Lend us a fiver, kid.

-If that's the way you want it.

-It is. Now, go on and leave us in peace.

-I feel I sh...

-Just shove off!

It's a living!

You legless twit!

-Why didn't you invite the one-legged news vendor round too.

-Oh, shut up! Shut up!

Pipe down.

We've still got the match to enjoy. Let's salvage something.

We still don't know what it was England F'd.

-"England Find Their Touch."

-"Fail to Save Ferris A Fiver." ..A tenner!

You'll get your money!

Now, European Figure Skating.

YOU WHAT?!

This replaces the England-Bulgaria soccer match which was postponed

because of a waterlogged pitch.

"England Flooded Out."

# Oh, what happened to you?

# Whatever happened to me?

# What became of the people we used to be?

# Oh, what happened to you?

# Whatever happened to me?

# What became of the people we used to be? #

Subtitles by Intelfax for BBC