Europe Alan Whicker's Journey of a Lifetime


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Morning. Alan Whicker.

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How do you stop a train? Do you go on the line?

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No, perhaps you don't.

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'I'm starting a journey around some of the people and places I've explored in 50 years on television.'

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No?

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Yes!

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Oh, yes!

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Can you imagine doing that on the 8.53 into Victoria?

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Once you've casually stopped a train as majestic as that,

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the rest of your life tends to be... a bit of an anti-climax.

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Morning.

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This is the thickest jungle...

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If it's a place the police have refused to come into, why am I here?

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Today an expedition into the remote territory of a doomed people.

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What about the rich?

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Is there sex after success?

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-Here's some goodies I'm lucky to have.

-That's about a pound on each side you're carrying around.

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What a horrible misshapen person!

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-Isn't it better to be a helpless female?

-Definitely not!

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This is Whicker Island...

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-International superstar Alan Whicker.

-That's reasonable.

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You have had the worst international press of any president I have known.

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I'm told you can get someone killed around here.

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He has cured me!

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We're getting to the exciting bit.

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Whicker's World, 238, take one.

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Living within Whicker's World has been a lot of fun - the excitement, the unexpected characters,

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the occasional glass of champagne. I've had the luckiest of lives,

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but as we raced around the world, there's seldom been time to pause and relish the way we were,

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the wonder in the way we are today.

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So for the next month, with your company, I hope,

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I'm going to rediscover some of this international cavalcade on the journey of a lifetime.

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'I've often looked at the remote and exotic across the world, but sometimes the most revealing stories

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'and unusual people were closer to home. Tonight we start in Venice.'

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There are many dazzling cities in the world, but few hang in the mind like an obsession.

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Anyone who lives in Venice for a few weeks becomes bonded

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to feel forever proprietorial.

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Who are these people messing up my piazza?

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When I first reached this sea city in 1945, the war was ending, the soldiers had gone,

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the tourists had not yet returned.

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Living in Venice was like joining an exclusive club.

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This Piazza San Marco had reverted to its role as an elegant medieval museum

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where one socialised over a Negroni at the Florian or the Quadri,

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nodding to other members as all Venetian life drifted around the tables.

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'Having fought my way up wartime Italy with the 8th and 5th Armies,

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'I reached Venice, to my joy, just in time for the peace.'

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I doubt whether Venice has ever been as lovely or as happy as during that first post-war summer

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when it was an enchantment just to be alive.

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I was seeing out my army service here, of all places,

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and editing the 8th Army newspaper, Union Jack, in the elegant offices of the Gazzetino.

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Even in those days,

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as my requisitioned editorial launch swept some gorgeous contessa across the lagoon for lunch,

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or into an opera box at La Fenice,

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I was aware that life was as good as it was ever going to be, however long I lived.

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'I then lived for several happy months in this small pensione

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'in a piazzetta off St Mark's. It was humble, but well placed.'

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It so happens that Venice has been one of the fulcrums of my life,

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where things change and I set off in some new direction.

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At the end of the war, it was here that I stopped being a soldier

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and became a foreign correspondent.

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Another 10 years and I left Fleet Street and went into television.

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And so back, indirectly, to Venice.

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'It was here that I filmed my first overseas report -

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'a Tonight special with Cliff Michelmore in the chair.'

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A lot of people have visited Venice.

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Not all that number have lived there for months on end.

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One member of the Tonight team has.

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Alan Whicker did live here as a young man.

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Hello. For centuries, Venice may have been casting a theatrical spell over visitors,

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but even if it's part-museum, part-amusement park, part-theatre, there's a lot going on backstage

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that the tourists have no eyes and no time for.

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'Venice is where I was measured for my first peacetime suit and silk shirts.

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'It's where I began to send flowers to deserving signorinas

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'and opened my first account at Harry's, with the late Giuseppe Cipriani watchful behind his bar.

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'It was little known then, until made famous by Ernest Hemingway.'

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Now it's one of the most famous bars in the world.

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And still anonymous.

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Here you'll see anybody who's anybody...plus a few anybodies who are nobody.

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'I devoted a programme to the bar and its owner in 1971.

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'Giuseppe's son Arrigo now presides over the family empire,

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'sometimes even mixes the Bellinis.'

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-You want a Bellini?

-You bet.

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Good health.

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I can remember when I started in television,

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-I always interviewed people and they were sometimes not at all experienced.

-Yes.

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So one had a bottle of wine and we'd have a wine and feel better.

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At the end of it all, I was reeling about and they were perfect!

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I was looking the other day at the Whicker's World with your father.

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He was here in the bar doing exactly what you're doing now, looking very much like you.

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But it's one of the most famous bars in the world and yet no one would ever accuse it of being elegant.

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It all comes from the idea of freedom. We didn't impose the furniture. It's not an imposition.

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If you come when it's empty, it tells you nothing.

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The real furniture are the customers because they feel free.

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In 2001, the Minister of Art declared Harry's Bar a national monument.

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It has to stay the way it is now. Me included. I've got to be here for the next few years!

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'Few cities around the world impose this yearning on those of us drawn back year after year

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'not to do anything in particular when we get here, but just to lounge about

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'and satisfy a longing to be absorbed for a while into a different and a beautiful world.'

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Always lucky and happy,

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yet always too poor and too busy to buy that Venetian apartment I've been looking for all my life.

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I could have picked up a palace on the Grand Canal then

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for the price of a few rooms today.

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So now it's too late

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and my regrets haunt those old grey stones

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and these old grey bones.

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Yet, when I'm in Venice and happy, springtime still sings in me,

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though I'm well aware that, in truth, it's now really the song of autumn or winter.

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Not even nostalgia is as good as it used to be.

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'In 1946, I left the glory that was Venice and made my way back

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'to drab, post-war London.

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'Then, after 10 years in Fleet Street, I went into television.

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'This is my oldest surviving Tonight footage from early 1957.

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'I was snapping at the heels of the bunco boys selling plastic bags in Oxford Street

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'and presenting a smooth front to watchful policemen.'

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Mothproof, dustproof, waterproof. One shilling.

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-How long have you been here?

-Approximately 10 years.

-Do you have trouble with the police?

-No.

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On the whole, I find the police a very nice body of men.

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-Why should the public buy this bag from you?

-They can't buy them from the stores for the same price.

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-Why choose Oxford Street?

-There's a tremendous weight of people there that come every day.

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-Do you pay any income tax?

-No.

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You get chased by the police, diddled by the public they say,

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but, of course, every penny you make in this mark is tax-free.

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Get your polythene bags here! They're only a bob each.

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Mothproof, waterproof, dustproof. I'm not here today, gone tomorrow. Only a bob each.

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Tonight was television's first nightly magazine programme.

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Its fast format of quirky human interest was new to our screens.

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The BBC was still embedded in its Civil Service ethos

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which took broadcasting off the air every night between 6 and 7

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in case viewing parents had trouble getting their children to bed. Can you imagine?

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We were writing the grammar of television so that quaint, hour-long toddlers' truce of 1957

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did not long survive Tonight's arrival.

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Soon viewers were being treated as grown-ups, where the next Tonight was always tomorrow night

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and you could make your own house rules in your own home. Wow!

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-Aren't your feet killing you?

-No.

-Comfortable?

-Yes.

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-You're going faster now!

-Yes.

-You've speeded up a bit!

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-I've got a pacemaker.

-Stop it!

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'Soon we had 7 million, then 10 million viewers. This changed the eating habits of the nation

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'as sales of coffee tables soared.'

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It seemed that arriving home from work in the evening, everyone wanted to settle down to a meal

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'in front of that cheery gang on Tonight, where something was always happening.'

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Well, it's all right for you sitting there, but my feet are killing me. Good night.

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I found it a perfect billet.

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I'd spent several years commanding the 8th Army Film and Photo Unit and knew a bit about photography.

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Then Fleet Street taught me how to write fast. I wasn't good-looking, as you can plainly see,

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but at least I was neat and not noticeably shy.

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Most important of all for Tonight, I enjoyed people.

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This is Meadowview Terrace, a terrace of 10 houses.

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We're looking for number 5.

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It's more difficult than you'd think. That's number one.

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This is number two and this is number eight...

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Number eight?!

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-How long have you been delivering letters here?

-Seven years.

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-Have you worked out these numbers?

-Well, it's a difficult job.

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-I believe you.

-There's 12 houses, numbered 1 to 4 three times,

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three 1s, three 2s, three 3s and three 4s.

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-I'm looking for number 5.

-That's the one next to number 8, which is marked 8.

-Oh.

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But that is... No, the one next door to 8 is marked 3.

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Well, it's number 5 from yon end.

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-And then from this end, it's number 2.

-It's seven from that end.

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It can't be seven from that end.

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I'm sorry about this confusion. It's obviously quite straightforward.

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If number 8 is the third one from here,

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and the sixth one is number 1,

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5 must be the fourth down, er... or possibly the fifth down.

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I'll find it by trial and error. Good night.

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'After several happy years, I found myself growing restive within Tonight's magazine format.'

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This required filmed reports up to 20 minutes long, usually 10,

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so there was little time to develop theme or personality.

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It seemed that I was drawing away from the stop press demands of a fast, topical programme,

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while the producers were preoccupied with feeding the brute nightly.

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In the end, we did a deal. I'd continue under the stick of Tonight

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with the carrot of an occasional series of one-hour specials.

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'The first two curtain raisers we rushed into were devoted to J Paul Getty

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'and Baroness Fiona Thyssen.

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'These were seen in 1963 as television milestones -

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'Getty for content and a revealing profile in depth, and Fiona for style and treatment.

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'In the early '60s, tycoons were not in the habit of inviting readers of glossy magazines into their homes.

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'So our first hour-long programme with Getty at Sutton Place

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'was a revelation.'

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Money is secondary. Nobody makes money unless they run a mint.

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'Paul Getty, then the richest man in the world, was little known.

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'He lived alone in a splendid Tudor mansion in 700 acres of Surrey,

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'which he'd bought for £65,000.

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'I'd met him a few times socially and was invited to his Sunday lunches.

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'It was on one such occasion I thought I detected a faint, but unspoken desire

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'for some public acknowledgement of his remarkable career and achievements.

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'He seemed the least likely prospect for the total exposure of television

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'but when I suggested he might be the subject of my first in-depth programme, he agreed.'

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I'm intelligent, I like to think.

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I know others just as intelligent or more intelligent.

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I'm imaginative, I like to think.

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I have...many friends and acquaintances who are just as imaginative or more imaginative!

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I always wish that I had a better personality,

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that...

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I could entertain people better, was a better conversationalist.

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Always worried I might be a little on the dull side as a companion.

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There are a great many stories, Mr Getty, of your care with money.

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For example, you've installed a pay telephone box here to prevent your guests abusing your hospitality

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by making trunk and toll calls.

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I think right-thinking guests would consider that was

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a...a benefit.

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It's...

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..rather...

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..daunting if you're visiting somewhere and have to put in a long-distance call

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and charge your host with it.

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'For a reclusive man, Getty was surprisingly unconcerned and forthcoming.'

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Millionaires seem to be handicapped in their search for domestic happiness.

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Do you have much aptitude or instinct for family life?

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I like to think I'm average.

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You're not average in as much as you've been married five times, Mr Getty.

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Well...maybe business had something to do with that.

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Certainly your spectacular success as a businessman has only been equalled by your abysmal failure

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-as a husband.

-That's right. I'm the world's worst.

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One of your wives has said you're afraid of showing your feelings.

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You've never been able to open up with men or have an intimate man friend.

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Oh, I think I've had...

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a few...

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..a few good friends.

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Among men.

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One of the closest friends I have, and one of the best friends I had,

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unfortunately...

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..died this morning.

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'I was stricken and wanted to stop the recording, but he continued as though nothing had happened.'

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I think I had a long...

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and close friendship with him.

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She says, "Paul is the most lonely man I know. He wants to meet the other person, but he can't."

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I wouldn't say that I've ever felt particularly lonely. I'm too busy.

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'When the programme was transmitted, there was no doubt the reclusive Getty won the viewers' sympathy.

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'His mournful and hesitant delivery ensured that he was not an easy interview,

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'but viewers did not envy his lifestyle or his wealth. They just felt sorry for him.

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'On one US network, the programme was shown twice in the first week.

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'One reviewer described him as "an essay in gloom".

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'That was something nobody could ever say about my second subject.'

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Once upon a time, and this is a true fairy story,

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there was a beautiful Scots girl who lived contentedly in the country surrounded by horses.

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She might still be there, but one day most of Daddy's money was taken by the big, bad Inland Revenue

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so the horses were sold and the weeping Scots girl went bravely out into the world to work.

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She became a model and the fashionable face of 1952,

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the unattainable creature on haughty magazine covers.

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So beautiful was she that one day a rich baron,

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'Heine Thyssen-Bornemisza no less, came down out of the mountains to claim her as his third bride.

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'And together they set off to the place at the end of the rainbow where rich people go to be happy.

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'I followed her to Switzerland and Italy with the camera running.

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'It was going to be a new style of documentary, with the reporter sharing the action.'

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Oh, non, ca va.

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-Sorry.

-What did you have to set about changing in the Baron?

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As a person, I wouldn't... You mean marry the man today and change his ways tomorrow? No.

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No, I didn't, but I had an awful row the first week we were married

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because he had a telex machine in the room next to our bedroom.

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You can dial a number and type a message to anywhere in the world.

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The New York Stock Exchange prices used to come in at night.

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He'd leap out of bed and rush across and look at it,

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so I had to have it removed. "Either it's the telex or me."

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As a newly-married wife, you're sensitive to those sort of things!

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'Fiona and Baron Heine had been married almost seven years.

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'They had one daughter and Fiona was now seven months pregnant with their second child.'

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-What about the satisfactions of wealth?

-Well, here's some goodies that I'm very lucky to have.

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You must have been pleased to see that, I'd have thought.

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-Well, what woman wouldn't be?

-How many carats is it?

-I think 25.

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These are a pair of yellow diamonds, which I'm very, very fond of.

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-They must be about 25 carats, too.

-I think they're about 25, yes.

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-And this is the necklace that goes with them.

-How many carats is that?

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50.

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-Diamonds, it seems, are even a multi-millionairess's best friend.

-Absolutely!

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-It must be a great comfort to have diamonds by the dozen.

-Comfort against what? For what?

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-The cold, perhaps.

-Yes. They have to be useful for something.

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-Don't tell me you've run out of questions.

-Never. I'm enjoying this so much.

-Yes?

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-Good!

-'After transmission of Model Millionairess,

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'the BBC received no criticism about her unguarded, but endearing display of enviable wealth.

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'Everyone, critics included, adored her. I believe the response might be different

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'in these less generous, more resentful days.'

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How about world events? Do you keep informed of what's happening?

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Not very much, no. As a Swiss wife, we don't have the vote in Switzerland.

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I don't have many opinions about it.

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-Let's go a little fast again.

-All right.

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There's something about a speedboat that makes you want to laugh.

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If you can!

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Alan, how's your drink?

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-He does flirt a little, your husband.

-Yes!

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-And I like to keep an eye on what's going on!

-Why do you believe that the Baron loves you?

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Well, first of all, he's stayed married to me for seven years nearly

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and, secondly, he told me so

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and he said that he loved me because I was very ordinary, which I interpreted as not neurotic,

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so we agreed and it suits us both.

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The best aspect of Whicker's World is that my interviewees often become friends

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and so it was with our model millionairess, Fiona Thyssen. Today she's visiting my home in Jersey.

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'She and the Baron didn't live happily ever after.

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'Heine moved on to other brides, two or three, I believe,

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'but at least I gained a friend for life.'

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You once told me that when we made our film

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in '63...

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-'63.

-..that you went away afterwards and it was the first time you'd thought about your life.

-Yes.

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How did it affect you?

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Well, it was a terrible shock because with that one magic phrase of yours about the cushion of wealth,

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I saw very clearly how it had kept me... I had always seen it as a golden cage,

0:27:060:27:12

but it had absolutely distanced me from reality.

0:27:120:27:17

I was very naive and that naivete stayed with me.

0:27:170:27:22

I didn't seem to grow in the marriage and I was very surprised at the end.

0:27:220:27:27

I remember a last scene where Heine goes off

0:27:270:27:31

and I felt a terrible sadness.

0:27:310:27:33

I didn't realise then what you had seen, that it was the end of my marriage.

0:27:330:27:39

You saw things I wasn't aware of. It helped me see those.

0:27:390:27:43

-Everybody liked you, of course.

-I was very pretty in those days. Irresistible, I was told!

0:27:430:27:49

-It was probably me telling you.

-Probably. I'm sure it was.

0:27:490:27:54

You gave me great confidence because Heine did not give me that.

0:27:540:27:59

-I'd say, "What would you like me to wear?" "Doesn't matter."

-Swapping you for some bouncy Brazilian...

0:27:590:28:06

Well, she was young...and bouncy and lovely long, blonde hair.

0:28:060:28:12

I've often wondered whether I ever did you a disservice

0:28:120:28:16

-in encouraging you to consider more profoundly your marriage.

-Absolutely not. It was clear to you

0:28:160:28:23

that it had built-in limitations and so on and it really did help me to acknowledge the fact

0:28:230:28:31

that I was not in the right marriage, I had not married the right man for me.

0:28:310:28:36

What was the right man for me?

0:28:360:28:38

I never remarried. Heine's a hard act to follow.

0:28:380:28:42

-How difficult was it to walk away from all that?

-I had no difficulty at all.

0:28:420:28:48

I didn't even have a lawyer. I said, "Heine, just give us what you think we need, the kids and I,

0:28:480:28:54

"to live on a comfortable scale as you think fit."

0:28:540:28:59

So what he did, actually, was call up his secretary and say, "What are your wages per month?"

0:28:590:29:05

"2,000 francs." And he turned to me and said, "I'll give you 2,000 francs a month." And that was it.

0:29:050:29:13

'From the elevated world of St Moritz, I returned to England and the fields of high Leicestershire

0:29:130:29:19

'to spend time with the Quorn, the most famous hunt in the world.'

0:29:190:29:24

This is Britain, where those who describe themselves as "fond of animals" hunt them to death

0:29:250:29:31

or spend their lives dominating a very small dog,

0:29:310:29:35

fire brigades are called to rescue kittens from trees, people refuse to eat eggs from battery hens,

0:29:350:29:41

get up petitions for horse troughs and any book about a gull or a duck, however stumbling and inane,

0:29:410:29:49

is an automatic best seller.

0:29:490:29:51

Old age pensioners go hungry, delinquents swing bicycle chains, drunken parents cripple children,

0:29:510:29:58

but we're not really outraged until someone throws stones at a cat,

0:29:580:30:02

then we're off lobbying our MPs.

0:30:020:30:05

And the field sports and blood sports lobbies, the pros and the antis, are powerful and vocal.

0:30:050:30:11

The pros are better organised, the antis get a better press.

0:30:110:30:15

They have emotion on their side. And to be against something is more interesting.

0:30:150:30:22

Catch it!

0:30:240:30:25

Everyone takes sides on fox hunting.

0:30:260:30:29

For centuries, the pursuit of animals for sport, not food,

0:30:290:30:33

has caused bitterness between classes and separated town and country.

0:30:330:30:38

'A local fox hunter had just been killed in a fall

0:30:380:30:42

'and his widow received letters expressing delight at his death.

0:30:420:30:47

HORN BLOWS

0:30:470:30:49

'The BBC could cope honourably with any subject, apart from sex, drugs and blood sports.'

0:30:520:30:59

HIGH-PITCHED CALL

0:30:590:31:01

'During several busy weeks, we filmed everything there was to see in this whole scarlet carnival

0:31:030:31:10

'except a kill. For a responsible programme balance, this needed to be shown.

0:31:100:31:16

'On our last day, as we prepared to eave the Quorn,

0:31:190:31:23

'a fox on a run came straight towards our cameraman with the hounds behind in full cry.

0:31:230:31:30

'In filming so controversial a programme, we could not win,

0:31:360:31:41

'but, strangely enough, we did!'

0:31:410:31:44

The chairman of the League Against Cruel Sports and his antis enjoyed our film, they said,

0:31:440:31:50

and Death In The Morning was the BBC's 1964 entry for television's international Prix d'Italia.

0:31:500:31:56

Splendid. Thank you.

0:31:560:31:58

'Despite all this sweet talk, fox hunting was as divisive as it is today.

0:31:580:32:04

'I have the original Daily Mail cartoon foxes wondering,

0:32:040:32:09

'"Are you pro or anti Whicker?"'

0:32:090:32:13

Fortunately, there was an adequate supply of pros, for we had peak transmission on Saturday nights,

0:32:130:32:20

the first time documentary had been allotted an entertainment slot.

0:32:200:32:25

With the birth of BBC2 in 1964, its controller, David Attenborough, offered me my first series

0:32:290:32:36

of regular hour-long programmes under the banner of Whicker's World.

0:32:360:32:41

The convenient alliteration of the title allowed us to look at anyone, anywhere

0:32:460:32:52

or, indeed, any thing in a personal way

0:32:520:32:56

with someone to carry the can after the transmission for what had been said and done.

0:32:560:33:02

That's a signed documentary and it meant that I could cast my net wide.

0:33:020:33:07

It's show time!

0:33:070:33:10

They're here to be shaped and baked, steamed and creamed.

0:33:100:33:15

Why do you think that young woman felt the need to have her breasts increased?

0:33:170:33:23

Could you explain who you are?

0:33:230:33:25

I am the master power.

0:33:250:33:28

-Are people unpleasant?

-No, but you get some real head cases.

0:33:280:33:32

Stand with your legs apart. Go back. That's lovely.

0:33:320:33:36

Fashion, like love, is a personal and two-way affair.

0:33:360:33:40

-You can be quite rude, keeping things at a fever pitch...

-Get out or I'm gonna bust you!

0:33:400:33:47

'This was uncharted, though splendid territory.

0:33:490:33:53

'Our problems concerning fox hunting were as nothing compared to the outrage when, in 1967,

0:33:570:34:04

'it was reported that Whicker's World would now examine bullfighting.

0:34:040:34:09

'Hate mail started at once and alarm bells rang when we examined the rituals of the corrida,

0:34:090:34:16

'that sunlit ceremony, rich in the Spanish preoccupation with emotion, courage and death.

0:34:160:34:24

'Like a red rag to a bull, Matador became a time bomb for BBC Television.

0:34:240:34:31

'We'd planned to concentrate upon the most glamorous of the young matadors, El Cordobes,

0:34:310:34:37

'known as The Fifth Beatle. He had turned a classic minuet in the ring into a brawl.'

0:34:370:34:43

CROWD: Ole!

0:34:550:34:57

'It had been the policy of the BBC not to allow bullfighting to be seen in Britain,

0:34:570:35:03

'but we took a deep breath and a deep look.'

0:35:030:35:07

Since Cordobes is more reckless than other matadors, braver than most and less skilled than many,

0:35:130:35:19

he's often, in a short and violent career, suffered for his fame,

0:35:190:35:23

face down in the sand beneath the horns.

0:35:230:35:26

The anger that drives him back towards the animal brings the crowd to its feet.

0:35:510:35:57

While other toreadors play the bull, lead it through a ritual, Cordobes fights it all the way.

0:35:570:36:03

'When whispers reached Westminster, a group of MPs tabled a motion asking the Postmaster General

0:36:030:36:09

'to ban the programme. He refused, but newspapers published hostile editorials

0:36:090:36:14

'and I received a massive mail damning me in advance.

0:36:140:36:18

'Despite this, Matador won an enormous audience and many awards.

0:36:180:36:23

'A significant American magazine summed it up well, I thought.

0:36:230:36:27

'"Honest and pitiless truth."

0:36:270:36:29

'It was the first bullfight to be shown on British television.

0:36:290:36:33

'Filming Britain in the '60s, I was able to witness its social transformation.

0:36:380:36:44

'The post-war generation had few links with the past

0:36:440:36:48

'and at a moment when life seemed to change direction, I talked to three 19-year-old girls

0:36:480:36:54

'about their most intimate hopes for the future.

0:36:540:36:59

'Lady Caroline Percy was a duke's daughter with a castle in Northumberland,

0:37:000:37:06

'Norma Spray had a semi in Nottingham

0:37:060:37:10

'and Nina Lane, the happiest of the lot, worked on a Boots production line. They gave me a bird's eye view

0:37:100:37:17

'of their dreams and attitudes.'

0:37:170:37:19

The best thing is to get a job round the corner.

0:37:190:37:23

But she might expect you to work harder than you're prepared to work.

0:37:230:37:28

Well, I'd either work harder, if I could,

0:37:280:37:32

or...get another job.

0:37:320:37:36

I might go to library college, but that takes two years.

0:37:360:37:40

-I don't know if I'd like two years at college without any money.

-Hm.

0:37:400:37:44

Especially after being at work for some time.

0:37:440:37:48

All girls would rather have clothes at the moment.

0:37:480:37:52

It's the moment that counts. It's now that you meet your husband

0:37:520:37:57

and he'll care for you, so if you get enough clothes now, and pick a husband with enough money,

0:37:570:38:04

you don't need a good job.

0:38:040:38:06

I'd like to be a veterinarian.

0:38:060:38:09

-Come again? A veterinarian?

-A policewoman.

-Policewoman.

0:38:090:38:14

-Or an air hostess.

-A...?

-Air hostess.

-What's that?

0:38:140:38:18

-You know, on an aeroplane.

-Oh, of course, yes, yes.

0:38:180:38:24

-Would you go out with a coloured boy?

-Yes. If I find him interesting and amusing.

-Have you?

0:38:240:38:30

Em...

0:38:310:38:33

Yes.

0:38:340:38:36

No, I definitely wouldn't. I don't like mixing races together.

0:38:360:38:41

Really? Even if he was agreeable and kind and all these other things?

0:38:410:38:46

-No, because I wouldn't be agreeable.

-Wouldn't you?

-No.

0:38:460:38:51

How do you set about competing? What do you do?

0:38:510:38:55

Em...

0:38:550:38:57

You just have to buy as many clothes as possible,

0:38:570:39:01

keep changing your hairstyle, changing your makeup.

0:39:010:39:05

And try generally to look prettier than the other girls.

0:39:050:39:09

If you look absolutely marvellous, who needs a gorgeous character? You need that if you're ugly.

0:39:090:39:15

Do you think that today virginity has much value?

0:39:150:39:20

No.

0:39:200:39:21

It depends, I mean... In certain sections of society less than others.

0:39:210:39:27

-In your section?

-I wouldn't say it had much value.

0:39:270:39:31

No.

0:39:310:39:33

Most chaps would prefer to sleep around, but when it comes to marriage, they prefer a virgin.

0:39:330:39:41

Or a near virgin. They don't want to marry a girl who's slept with all their friends.

0:39:410:39:46

-What's a near virgin?

-Well, somebody who...

0:39:460:39:50

..has just been to bed with people she thought she was in love with and thought she would marry.

0:39:500:39:56

Isn't that what all girls do?

0:39:560:39:59

No. If you sleep around you don't.

0:39:590:40:02

Of your girlfriends, girls you know and work with,

0:40:020:40:06

how many do you think, of your age, are still virgins?

0:40:060:40:10

I don't think any of them are. I don't think anybody is.

0:40:100:40:14

At 14 they know practically everything. I don't think anybody is.

0:40:140:40:20

We don't really talk about things like this. I've never met anybody

0:40:200:40:25

who I can say... You wouldn't go and say, "Do you sleep with your boyfriend?"

0:40:250:40:31

-How do you hope you'll spend the rest of your life?

-Live comfortably, get married, have some children.

0:40:320:40:39

That's all.

0:40:390:40:41

-Live here?

-No, not to live here.

-To live somewhere else?

-Somewhere else, yes.

0:40:410:40:46

'Caroline married a Spanish count, divorced and returned to England with two daughters.

0:40:460:40:53

'Norma is married and lives in Bournemouth.

0:40:530:40:57

'Nina also married, but sadly died of breast cancer in 2001.

0:40:590:41:06

'She still worked on her factory production line.'

0:41:060:41:09

We're about to see a programme on divorce

0:41:090:41:14

as it affects a merry-go-round of people in the public eye who are subject to unusual stresses.

0:41:140:41:20

Divorce is not a happy subject.

0:41:200:41:22

It can be, as you'll see, a time of great distress. Tomorrow, the House of Commons will...

0:41:220:41:30

40 years ago, when our investigation into the stresses of divorce was filmed,

0:41:310:41:37

80,000 divorcees were thrown back into the marriage market every year.

0:41:370:41:42

In those days, divorce lawyers could be quite cruel and so hostile to divorce by consent

0:41:420:41:48

that they seemed to demand a spectacle of cruelty in public

0:41:480:41:52

before two people could legally bury a dead marriage.

0:41:520:41:56

Then, as now, in every parting someone is selfish.

0:41:560:42:00

In every wretched divorce, there's one who goes eagerly towards remarriage, perhaps,

0:42:000:42:06

and a sort of happiness, one who is left behind alone.

0:42:060:42:12

I spoke to Robin Douglas Home after he'd gone through

0:42:120:42:16

the awful rigmarole then required to obtain a divorce, posing for compromising photos with someone

0:42:160:42:24

who was not his wife.

0:42:240:42:26

She didn't want a period of separation, trial separation.

0:42:260:42:31

She wanted her divorce.

0:42:310:42:34

So I agreed to give her the grounds.

0:42:340:42:37

That is a very expensive and thoroughly unsavoury business

0:42:380:42:43

involving expensive and thoroughly unsavoury girls

0:42:430:42:47

in expensive and thoroughly unsavoury hotels! It cost me a bloody packet!

0:42:470:42:52

Eventually, we all ended up, two girls, me and two private detectives and a lawyer in an office,

0:42:520:42:59

listening to each other giving affidavits. The thing was completely crazy.

0:42:590:43:05

Anyway, this apparently, despite the fact it was good for two divorces, was not accepted

0:43:050:43:12

as sufficient evidence of adultery.

0:43:120:43:14

When I received the petition for cruelty, I can only describe one's feelings to you

0:43:140:43:21

as if a small bomb had gone off inside your head

0:43:210:43:26

because, em, five years of one's life...

0:43:260:43:31

say, 70% of which were very happy,

0:43:320:43:35

reduced to a great wad of foolscap,

0:43:360:43:40

typed out by leering little clerks in solicitors' offices.

0:43:400:43:45

Your letters from the moment you'd met,

0:43:450:43:49

typed out. Your letters to your mother. Her letters to her mother.

0:43:490:43:55

Her mother's letters to me.

0:43:550:43:57

It was all right, you felt, to be regarded as an adulterer,

0:44:080:44:13

but you couldn't bear to be regarded as cruel.

0:44:130:44:17

I couldn't bear her to...to...

0:44:180:44:21

..put a...

0:44:230:44:25

..a kind of tombstone on this marriage

0:44:250:44:30

reading in the way that that petition read.

0:44:300:44:34

Of course a lot of men, once they have married, have established a sort of pattern

0:44:420:44:49

and marry soon after again.

0:44:500:44:53

Have you thought of... of marrying again?

0:44:530:44:57

I've thought about it.

0:44:570:44:59

And come to the absolutely inescapable conclusion that it would be...

0:44:590:45:05

..a final mark of insanity.

0:45:060:45:10

Because...

0:45:140:45:15

..if you've failed once, you're going to fail a second time.

0:45:160:45:20

Secondly, I just don't want to be...

0:45:200:45:23

..destroyed...

0:45:250:45:27

..again.

0:45:280:45:30

'It was probably the first time viewers had seen upper-class tears on television.

0:45:300:45:36

'We were not prepared for heartfelt emotion from an old school tie.

0:45:360:45:42

'Our programme, we were told, had helped the Divorce Reform Bill through Parliament,

0:45:430:45:48

'but, to my great sorrow, it did little for poor Robin,

0:45:480:45:52

'who, after a failed love affair with a princess, finally despaired and took his own life.'

0:45:520:45:59

In 1968, after 10 years with the BBC,

0:46:000:46:04

I was invited to join a consortium bidding for ITV's new Yorkshire franchise.

0:46:040:46:10

At that stage, I believe I was the only member of our group with any television experience at all.

0:46:100:46:17

But this imbalance apparently became an asset, since the most popular consortium was weighed down

0:46:170:46:24

by so many famous names that ITV decided that all chiefs and no Indians would lead to dispute.

0:46:240:46:32

So in the final selection by ITV, Yorkshire won,

0:46:320:46:36

but suffered an all-out strike of technicians on its first night of transmission.

0:46:360:46:42

Upon their return to work, I struck television gold in Halifax

0:46:420:46:48

with Percy Shaw, the cat's eyes man.

0:46:480:46:50

He took me for a run in his Phantom Rolls

0:47:020:47:06

and then a supper of beer and crisps and asked me more questions than I asked him.

0:47:060:47:12

How will you feel when you are about 18 months off 80?

0:47:120:47:18

-I don't think I'll make it, you know.

-Don't you?

-I don't think so.

0:47:180:47:22

-I'm working too hard.

-Get away!

0:47:220:47:25

Get away. Look at them hands - nice and soft and clean.

0:47:250:47:29

-Have they ever been mucky?

-Er, yes. I did six years in the Army.

0:47:290:47:34

Let's have a feel.

0:47:340:47:37

You have no roughness.

0:47:370:47:39

-No.

-Look at mine - rough.

0:47:390:47:43

I'm glad I've had to rough it. Glad I've had to rough it.

0:47:430:47:48

In the days when he was roughing it, Percy followed the tram lines down this hillside from Rose Linda's pub.

0:47:480:47:55

But when they were taken up, he had the idea that changed his life.

0:47:550:48:00

He was struck by lighting and devised a reflecting glass stud to guide his way home,

0:48:000:48:05

giving motorists their monotonous bump-bump.

0:48:050:48:10

Bachelor Percy roughed it when poor and, in his own way, still roughed it when very rich indeed,

0:48:100:48:16

still in his house next to the works where he'd been living in exactly the style he preferred.

0:48:160:48:22

Every night was party time for Percy. In his stark sitting room, the invited sat before 4 TV sets,

0:48:220:48:28

which performed silently all day every day.

0:48:280:48:32

Should Percy spot something that interested him, which wasn't often, he might turn up the sound.

0:48:320:48:38

Why four television sets? Why not six?

0:48:380:48:42

I'd have six if there were six stations.

0:48:420:48:46

But there aren't four stations! There's only three.

0:48:460:48:50

-There's BBC in black and white and BBC in colour.

-Ah, I see.

0:48:500:48:55

-Which programmes do you like the best?

-Wrestling.

0:48:550:49:00

-It'll be on tomorrow night, I hope.

-And you turn the sound up for the musicals?

0:49:000:49:06

I turn the sound up for musicals. Good music, yeah.

0:49:060:49:10

-What about my programme?

-I turned it up last night, first time. Sorry.

0:49:100:49:15

-I see. So I've been here and you haven't heard a word.

-Yes.

0:49:180:49:22

Haven't you thought, a man with all your money, that you could make yourself a bit more comfortable?

0:49:220:49:28

The place is a bit bare, isn't it? It's a bit spartan.

0:49:280:49:33

If you've health, you have comfort in everything.

0:49:330:49:36

But even though you've got your health, what about a curtain on the window? Or a carpet?

0:49:360:49:42

Oh, dear.

0:49:420:49:44

Well, you can see out and when you have curtains you can't see out.

0:49:440:49:50

What would you say was the happiest period of your life?

0:49:500:49:55

When I went to London on a Golden Sovereign.

0:49:560:50:00

We stopped at Biggleswade going.

0:50:010:50:04

I dare tell you,

0:50:080:50:10

we had tea,

0:50:100:50:12

a musical evening,

0:50:130:50:16

a woman to sleep with...

0:50:180:50:20

..bed and breakfast, five course for bed and breakfast,

0:50:210:50:25

then she turned us out in t'orchard to fill us pockets with fruit. One shilling.

0:50:250:50:31

-That wants beating, doesn't it?

-What was the fruit like?

-Lovely!

0:50:310:50:35

There was apples and pears and plums. So we filled us pockets.

0:50:360:50:42

You've been poor and you've been rich. Which is better?

0:50:420:50:47

Well, being rich, I forget what I have.

0:50:480:50:52

-It gets buried and I don't know I have it.

-'Sitting with him I wondered why, with all his money,

0:50:520:50:58

-'he had no one there to take care of him.'

-They'd want to be my boss and I want freedom.

0:50:580:51:05

-Yes.

-They'd want to interfere.

0:51:050:51:07

No, freedom, freedom and health is two valuable things.

0:51:100:51:15

The freedom to do what?

0:51:150:51:18

Oh, anything I want.

0:51:190:51:21

Please myself.

0:51:220:51:24

But it seems the things you want are quite regular. You want the same things every day.

0:51:240:51:30

Er...yes.

0:51:300:51:32

Now. But previous we used to have changes.

0:51:320:51:36

Fresh women, as far as that's concerned.

0:51:360:51:40

-What's the supply like today?

-What on?

0:51:400:51:44

-Fresh women.

-Oh, we're wearing out.

0:51:440:51:48

'Percy went his own way with great satisfaction.

0:51:500:51:54

'His was a most distinctive lifestyle.

0:51:540:51:58

'Soon after that brush with unadulterated Yorkshire,

0:52:010:52:05

'I drove 150 miles south to Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire

0:52:050:52:11

'to join a group whose trust in God was perpetual - the enclosed order of Poor Clares.'

0:52:110:52:17

Behind their monastery walls, these women had not seen the outside world nor spoken to a man

0:52:170:52:23

for 20, 30, 50 years.

0:52:230:52:25

After 75 years in this enclosure, one had never seen a motor car, a cinema, let alone television,

0:52:260:52:33

though she had looked up to watch aircraft.

0:52:330:52:37

These hushed and holy ladies live with disciplined thoughts and downcast eyes, but they loosen up.

0:52:460:52:54

-Kick it! Kick it! Try again.

-I'm not as good at this as you are!

0:52:550:53:01

'Four times a week, the Mother Abbess permitted 40 minutes of do as you please recreation

0:53:020:53:09

'when they could speak.

0:53:090:53:12

'And they did speak, especially Sister Gertrude.' What made you choose a silent order?

0:53:150:53:21

Oh, I wanted...

0:53:210:53:23

Because I never stop talking, do I?!

0:53:230:53:27

Oh, I love to talk!

0:53:280:53:30

I love to talk.

0:53:300:53:33

People outside, Sister Gertrude, often believe that women become nuns after an unhappy love affair.

0:53:330:53:40

Oh, no, I'm afraid they don't.

0:53:410:53:44

Naturally, being a girl, you get temptations.

0:53:440:53:47

I went for a walk with a girlfriend and she wanted a boy, to get married.

0:53:470:53:52

I had to walk on. I wouldn't have been faithful to Our Lord if I went with a boy.

0:53:520:53:59

You can't play with fire. You can't do two things.

0:53:590:54:03

What about you, Sister Veronica? Did you play with fire?

0:54:030:54:07

Well, I did a bit, really. I didn't always want to be a nun. That came as quite a shock to me.

0:54:070:54:14

Their order was founded some 800 years ago to pray for the world outside,

0:54:140:54:19

for the millions with no time or inclination to pray for themselves.

0:54:190:54:24

A novice must live a life of prayer for six years before taking perpetual vows.

0:54:240:54:30

'Sister Margaret Mary was on the brink.

0:54:300:54:35

'Her parents had come to hear her decision, to learn if they had lost her forever.'

0:54:350:54:41

-How you doing since we saw you last?

-Not too bad.

-'This enclosed order

0:54:410:54:46

'now puts only a symbolic barrier between sisters and family visitors

0:54:460:54:51

-'who sit in a parlour behind a token grille.' May I interrupt you?

-Yes.

0:54:510:54:57

Sister, what do you think your parents will feel if you decide to take your perpetual vows?

0:54:570:55:03

I know this was a difficult thing for them when I came here and it must still be difficult.

0:55:030:55:09

Over four or five years, you do get gradually accustomed to it.

0:55:090:55:14

Now you're going to say goodbye to your mother and father and turn away and go back.

0:55:140:55:20

-Is there no tugging at the heartstrings?

-No.

0:55:200:55:24

I know I'll see them again.

0:55:240:55:27

-Three times a year.

-Hm.

0:55:270:55:30

-Or maybe more if the situation arises.

-But that's enough, is it?

0:55:300:55:35

-It would have to be.

-It has to be, yes.

-If they say only three times, three times it will have to be.

0:55:370:55:43

Is that all right, Mrs Sutton?

0:55:430:55:45

Yes.

0:55:470:55:49

You see, it's hard for them. I do understand that and I do sympathise, really.

0:55:490:55:55

And I appreciate very much all my parents have done for me.

0:55:550:56:00

For them I know it is hard,

0:56:000:56:03

but I'm in love with this life and for me it isn't because of that.

0:56:030:56:08

'Mr and Mrs Sutton could already sense she would take her vows.'

0:56:080:56:13

We filmed this agonised scene more than a quarter of a century ago

0:56:130:56:17

but I've never forgotten poor Mrs Sutton's stricken look

0:56:170:56:21

as she realised she had lost her daughter.

0:56:210:56:25

When we left the enchanting Poor Clares to their holy lives,

0:56:380:56:42

we wanted to leave them some token of our visit. This was not easy

0:56:420:56:47

because with their vows of poverty any gift would instantly have been passed on to the poor.

0:56:470:56:54

'Then we remembered that they'd told us of their garden produce, that much of it went stale.

0:56:540:57:00

'So we bought them the biggest deep freeze we could find'

0:57:000:57:04

and as we drove away forever a gaggle of excited nuns came out to manhandle it to their kitchen.

0:57:040:57:12

They sent me an illuminated blessing

0:57:120:57:16

from Saint Clare.

0:57:160:57:19

Patroness of television.

0:57:190:57:21

She still seems to be taking good care of me.

0:57:230:57:28

'Next time, my Journey Of A Lifetime takes us to California.

0:57:480:57:52

'Not just a pretty place, but a sensational state that can surprise...'

0:57:540:58:01

-Do you sometimes go with more than one man?

-Sometimes.

0:58:010:58:04

-'..delight...'

-Relax. Relax. Big breaths.

0:58:040:58:10

'..and sometimes kill.'

0:58:100:58:12

Bang! I shot him right between the eyes!

0:58:120:58:15

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2009

0:58:260:58:30

Email [email protected]

0:58:310:58:33

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