For more than six decades, Jackie Bassett and Sue Davis have allowed cameras into their lives.

They were children when viewers first met them in 7 Up! in 1964.

Since then, the two women have returned to the documentary series roughly every seven years, allowing audiences to watch them grow from schoolgirls into adults, mothers and eventually women in their seventies.

Now, as 70 Up brings the extraordinary project toward its final chapter, Jackie and Sue are looking back at the experience — including one detail from the original cast that has become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Only four girls were selected, compared with 10 boys.

More than 60 years later, the women have reflected on what that imbalance might have said about British society at the time.

Four Girls Among Fourteen Children

When the original documentary was filmed, the participants were selected to represent different social backgrounds across Britain.

There were 14 children in total.

But the gender balance was striking.

Ten were boys.

Only four were girls.

At the time, the imbalance may not have seemed particularly remarkable to viewers. Britain in the 1960s was still a society in which expectations surrounding boys and girls were often sharply different.

But six decades later, Jackie and Sue can look back at that decision from a very different perspective.

Their lives have unfolded across an era of enormous social change.

The world they entered as children is almost unrecognizable compared with the Britain they live in today.

Jackie and Sue Became Part of Television History

The original 7 Up! was intended to explore class and social opportunity.

Its premise was simple but ambitious: follow children from different backgrounds and return to them every seven years.

The filmmakers wanted to see whether a person’s future could be predicted by their childhood circumstances.

Instead, the series became something far more personal.

Viewers became familiar with the participants’ personalities, families, careers and relationships.

Jackie and Sue were no longer simply subjects in a social experiment.

They became people whose lives audiences had followed for generations.

Every seven years brought another snapshot.

Another interview.

Another chapter.

And another reminder that time was passing for everyone — including the viewers watching at home.

What the Gender Imbalance Reveals

Looking back, the four-to-ten split provides an unexpected window into the era in which the programme began.

The girls selected for the original cast grew up during a period when expectations for women were changing rapidly.

They witnessed major transformations in education, employment, marriage, motherhood and women’s independence.

But they also experienced the limitations of the society they were born into.

For Jackie and Sue, the question is therefore not simply why there were fewer girls in the original programme.

It is also what their lives tell us about the opportunities available to girls in Britain during the 1960s.

The answer cannot be reduced to one explanation.

The casting process reflected the decisions of the filmmakers and the social environment in which the documentary was created.

But the final group nonetheless provides an unusual record of gender and class during one of the most transformative periods in modern British history.

Six Decades of Change

When Jackie and Sue first appeared on television, Britain was a very different country.

The internet did not exist.

Mobile phones were unimaginable.

Television itself was still relatively new for many households.

Women faced expectations about marriage, family and work that were very different from those of younger generations today.

Over the following six decades, society changed dramatically.

Women entered professions in increasing numbers.

Educational opportunities expanded.

Attitudes toward marriage and family changed.

Technology transformed everyday life.

And the expectations placed on women gradually shifted.

Jackie and Sue experienced those changes personally rather than simply observing them.

Their lives became a record of social transformation.

Growing Older in Front of Millions

There is another unusual element to the Up series.

Most people grow older privately.

Their childhood photographs may be kept in family albums, but their adult lives are rarely documented by the same camera crew every seven years.

Jackie and Sue have experienced something completely different.

Their childhoods were filmed.

Their teenage years were filmed.

Their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixties were filmed.

Every return forced them to look at who they had become since the previous interview.

That process could be uncomfortable.

It could also be revealing.

The participants were repeatedly confronted with the passage of time.

Why the Final Appearance Feels Different

At 70, Jackie and Sue are approaching the end of a journey that began when they were children.

The knowledge that this could be their final appearance gives the new programme an emotional quality that earlier instalments did not have.

There is no expectation that another seven-year cycle will follow.

The cameras are finally preparing to leave.

For someone who has spent more than 60 years participating in the series, that must represent a profound change.

The filmmakers have been a recurring presence for most of their lives.

Their departure therefore means saying goodbye not simply to a television programme, but to a ritual that has been repeated throughout adulthood.

“Relief” Alongside the Emotion

The ending is not necessarily entirely sad.

For Jackie and Sue, there is also a sense of relief.

Being part of Up has meant repeatedly revisiting deeply personal experiences.

Relationships, family problems, disappointments, successes, illness and aging have all become part of a public record.

The participants have had to share parts of themselves that most people would normally keep private.

After six decades, walking away from that responsibility can understandably bring mixed feelings.

There can be sadness at saying goodbye.

There can also be freedom in knowing there will be no next interview.

No need to explain where life has gone.

No expectation to open the door again seven years later.

The Final Interview Is About More Than Aging

The significance of 70 Up is not simply that the participants have reached another milestone.

It is that the documentary itself has become a historical record.

The programme began as an attempt to understand class and opportunity.

Over time, it inadvertently documented changing attitudes toward almost everything.

Marriage.

Parenthood.

Education.

Work.

Gender.

Religion.

Technology.

Health.

And aging.

Jackie and Sue’s stories therefore belong to both themselves and the wider history of Britain.

Their experiences cannot represent every woman of their generation, but they offer a rare first-person record of what it was like to live through those decades.

What Viewers Have Learned From Them

The enduring power of the Up series has never been that it successfully predicted the future.

Life repeatedly proved too complicated for that.

Instead, its value has been showing how unpredictable people can be.

Children grow up.

Plans change.

Relationships end.

Careers take unexpected directions.

Families evolve.

People become different from the person they once imagined they would be.

Jackie and Sue have demonstrated that reality better than almost any television experiment could have.

Their lives were not predetermined by the circumstances in which they were filmed as children.

They changed.

They adapted.

And they continued moving forward.

A Goodbye More Than 60 Years in the Making

Now the cameras are preparing to leave.

For Jackie and Sue, there is the sadness of knowing that a remarkable chapter is ending.

But there is also the knowledge that they have already given audiences something extraordinary.

They allowed strangers to witness more than 60 years of their lives.

They showed what it meant to grow older during a period of unprecedented social change.

And, perhaps most importantly, they demonstrated that a person cannot be fully understood through a single moment in time.

The four girls chosen in 1964 became women living in a completely different Britain.

Jackie and Sue were among them.

They watched the world change.

They changed with it.

And now, at 70, they are preparing to say goodbye.

After six decades, perhaps the most emotional part is not that the cameras are finally leaving.

It is realizing just how long they stayed.

Source:
The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/sep/07/seminal-series-ends-six-decades-70-up