Most of us don’t remember what we were like when we were 7 and are keen to forget what we were like when we were 14. For 13 young people, including Alexandra, Asif and Orala, ignorance might be bliss, but it’s also not an option: every 7 years, since they were 7 years old, a BBC crew has turned up to film their lives in a millennial version of the iconic 1964 programme 7 Up. Now they have all turned 21, offering a fascinating insight into what it’s like to be growing up in Britain today — and the pitfalls of exposing your life on national television.
“You have to go into these things with an open mind,” says Alexandra, who grew up in north London and is now a student at King’s College London. “We all have much more to us than is shown on the television. They only film for three days of your life, so they’re not going to get every aspect of you, but it is an amazing opportunity to have a record of your life.”
A recent survey by Deloitte of 7,800 so-called millennials — people born around the turn of the century — found them to be serious and socially responsible and keen to participate in public life. They wanted to work for organisations that cared for the environment and took positive steps to creating a better society; 70 per cent of them expected to work independently at some point in their lives, 63 per cent donated to charity and 43 per cent were active in volunteering. Another survey, by the Pew Research Center, found that this generation was less drawn to traditional political and religious institutions, preferring to connect via social media with a personalised network of friends, colleagues and affinity groups. And a report in January by UBS Wealth Management found that, scarred by the 2008 financial crisis, adults aged 21-36 are the most fiscally conservative since the Great Depression.
The counterpoint to this image of a generation of worthy savers is nailed forcefully by a satirical video on YouTube entitled Millennials in the Workplace Training Video. This discusses the problems of employing people who think the day starts at 10.30am, who expect to be given extravagant praise for the smallest actions and who are, as Jack MacKenzie, a generational trend analyst, put it recently in The New York Times, possessed of “a level of optimism that most people think is almost silly”. It’s a view backed up by Paul Harvey, associate professor of management at the University of New Hampshire, who found that millennials have “unrealistic expectations and a strong resistance towards accepting negative feedback” at work.
Orala is one of the children picked age six to star in 7 Up 2000. She lives in Hackney with her mother, an immigrant from Nigeria, her stepfather and her sisters. “The programme makers came to my school and asked us questions like ‘What does love mean to you?’,” she remembers. “I think they chose me because, when they asked if I would choose family or money, I said family.”
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At 7 and 14 the programme showed Orala’s close family relationships, the importance of her faith and her precocious determination to do a degree in either science or maths. At one point her biological father arrives to live with the family, to everyone’s apparent happiness. At 21, she puts the record straight. “He was a terrible dad,” she says frankly. “I didn’t want people, seven years on, to have that smiling, happy image that was shown in 14. I don’t think it’s anything to sugar-coat. I had my mum, then I had my faith. I never felt the absence of a father figure. God was my father and provides everything you need. I believe that God is orchestrating things so that I have a great life.”
Recently graduated from Reading University with a degree in biomedical science, Orala is now trying to decide what she wants to do with her life. Still family-oriented and religious, she points out that those are only aspects of her life: she’s interested in healthy eating, composing and performing music, and blogs about everything from hair to sewing. She cringes now at the footage of her when she was 14. “It’s so embarrassing: how I spoke, what I was wearing. And why was my hair like that?” So being on a programme like this is like your past coming back to haunt you? “Yes, but in front of everybody.”
She cheerfully admits that she has no idea what she’ll be doing when the programme-makers return when she’s 28, “but whatever I’m doing, I’ll be in charge of it. I’ve always known that I want to work for myself.”
Alexandra is the only child of affluent London parents and a Scarlett Johansson lookalike. She thinks the BBC picked her because when they asked what she wanted to do when she grew up, she replied: “Drive a submarine.” (The family had just come back from a holiday in Mauritius where they’d been on a submarine.) At 21, filmed on her year abroad in Paris as part of her degree in French and English literature, she appears confident that the world is her oyster.
“It’s interesting how, as you get older, you auto-censor yourself a lot more,” she says. “I was more guarded this time than when I was 14 and perhaps as a result I come across as being slightly cold. I was surprised by how brutal and determined I came across. I was conscious that I didn’t want to share details of my life with whoever’s watching and tended to steer away from personal relationships.”
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More ambivalent than Asif and Orala about being on the programme, she is unsure whether she will continue to invite the cameras in years to come if she gets married and has children, but is glad to have a record of her life so far. “Watching it makes you realise how quickly time flies. Even when I was 14 I was aware of trying to come across a certain way. I thought the human, softer side to me didn’t come across, partly because of the way I handled myself when I was being interviewed, partly because of the footage they chose.”
Now entering her last year at university, she’s self-possessed, focused and by her own admission very determined. “I don’t really know what I want to do with my life, but I know I want to believe in whatever I do. As your degree comes to an end there is mounting pressure and you’re aware you have to grab life by the horns and take control. That’s a bit nerve-racking.”
Born and raised in Glasgow, Asif thinks his appeal to the programme-makers can be summed up in two words: young, Asian. More confident now than he was at 14, he’s about to embark on an MA in creative media practice at the University of West Scotland and hopes ultimately to work for a mental health charity. He admits that in earlier instalments he was putting on a front. “I was a confused teen and I was trying to fit in with friends that I wasn’t necessarily happy with. I was thinking about what other people would think and not about what would make me happy. When I was 14 I stuck with one group of Asian friends. Now since uni there’s a lot more diversity and that’s helped me integrate and embrace all cultures and religions and the way other people live in Britain.”
Like Alexandra and Orala, Asif meets the other people featured in the programme once every seven years, when they have a communal screening of the latest instalment. Does he have anything in common with them apart from their age? “They have a lot more freedom in their lives. They’re able to do stuff without asking their parents. It’s a respect thing: even though I’m an adult I still think it’s best to ask my parents. That’s the culture I come from.”
It is also a culture steeped in religion, which at 14 was a big part of Asif’s life. The eldest boy of a Pakistani Muslim family, he says his family were happy with how he came across at 14; he’s not sure what they’ll make of him at 21. “Is religion still a big part of my life? It is and it isn’t. I used to think I had to pray five times a day. My parents would probably like me to.”
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He admits with slight embarrassment that the whole family will probably gather round the TV when the programme is broadcast and watch it together. It could be an unsettling experience for them all. “I’ll be someone else’s entertainment for two minutes,” he says, thoughtfully. “But this is my life.”
21 Up New Generation is on BBC1 tonight and tomorrow at 10.35pm