Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Class of 62

Marilyn Gaunt went to a secondary modern school in Leeds in the late 50s. Her film "Class Of '62" is about what happened to half a dozen of her fellow pupils. Last night it found them in their sixties in various degrees of contentment. Even the girl who'd apparently had a dream life hadn't had it easy. There were divorces, overbearing parents, unfaithful husbands, ungrateful children, illnesses and in the odd case a sadness so deep that Marilyn Gaunt clearly thought she should pass over it entirely. The fortitude of these women, none of whom could remotely be said to have brought any misfortune on themselves, was amazing, even including the couple who wanted to move to Greece to get away from the nanny state but then came scuttling back as soon as they wanted a bit of nannying. You can watch it here. I kept thinking of that Paul Simon song called "Some Folks Lives Roll Easy" which goes "most folks stumble and fall through no fault of their own". I tried to find it on YouTube but it appears to be the only song that isn't there.

1 comment:

  1. To be fair, the couple who wanted to move to Greece were motivated as much by Greece's laissez-faire attitude to smoking as by its good weather and cheap cost of living. Unsurprising that a couple who would emigrate to smoke more ended up needing NHS treatment...

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