Original subtitles

When we got married, I took the merry -go -round. In sickness and in health, I

said I'll do.

For a richer or for a jilted heart.

And you said such an honour and obey me too.

But it wasn't very long before I soon found out. No one who wore the trousers

was you.

Now after all these years of loss, I'm putting you about.

But in sickness and in health, I love you.

It does make me look younger, though.

Take it off, that belongs to Rita.

I always thought hair would suit me.

When I look back...

And I remember back, it did suit me.

It does suit me.

Do you remember when I had hair?

How can't? My memory's not that good, I'm afraid.

When I first met you, I had hair.

Lots of it.

So you say.

I did, I did.

It was very black, it was.

And very shiny.

It's greasy.

You used to think I looked a bit like Clark Gable in them days.

I never did.

Clark Gable was a handsome man.

You didn't say a lot like him, did I? I said a bit like him.

Bigger than the both of us.

I don't... Give her down.

Here.

Look at that. With the glasses. John Lennon. She loves you.

Anyway,

people did say that I looked a bit like Clark Gable in them days when I was

younger.

People used to say a lot of things about you when you was younger.

If I'd had any chance, I'd have listened to them.

I look a lot younger with one of these.

I look 10, 20 years younger, this.

Crack that mirror in a minute and we'll have bad luck.

I could dye the moustache, I suppose.

Looks like it's dead already.

No, it's a giveaway, that. It's a dead giveaway to me, ain't it?

No, I'd look a lot younger man if I wanted it.

I'm worried about Rita.

I wouldn't have girls giving up their seats on buses for me if I had one of

these. She wrote to say she was coming down to see us and I haven't heard a

thing. Well, phone her.

She's not on the phone.

Well, phone her out of it. She only lives around the corner from them. She's

always saying she'll take messages.

In emergency.

Well, it is an emergency.

Where are you going?

I am going over the road. They said we could use their phone.

In emergency.

So what's the emergency?

Don't mind, do you?

Is it the doctor you want?

Is Mrs Darnit poorly?

No, no, no. Just want to phone me daughter, Rita, up in Liverpool.

Liverpool? Yeah.

Well, the missus said you wouldn't mind.

You don't mind, do you?

Of course you don't.

I knew you wouldn't mind.

Now, the missus, she said you wouldn't mind. She said they're very nice people,

them Johnsons.

They won't mind.

Very neighbourly, they are, she said.

Looked like some people around here.

Did you say Liverpool?

I did say if it was emergency. They're phoning Liverpool.

Marvellous, these, aren't they?

Get through to anywhere on these now, can't you? Don't have to go for the

operator, nothing.

Just dial straight through.

Marvellous. Yeah.

It's marvellous. I mean, that's over 250 miles away, that is. It'd take you over

four hours in a train with this straight through.

Unless you've got someone who's deaf on the other end. Come on!

That's his aunt, that is. If she's anything like him, she's thick.

Well, all bloody thick up there in Liverpool, isn't it?

It's the Irish.

He's got all this Irish blood in him.

Come on, come on. Probably searching all over the house for the phone.

Who's this?

Oh, yeah.

It's Mr Garnier, Rita's dad.

Can I talk to Miss Thompson?

Your mum?

Um, yeah, all right.

We'll go and fetch her.

Yeah, all right, sonny. I'll talk to your mum.

Yeah, there's a plan up for the book, innit?

She ain't supposed to have children. She's supposed to be a spinster, mate.

that one.

Catholic, too.

God blimey.

If her priest finds out, she'll be on her knees the rest of her life, she

I want to talk to Rita Rawlings, please.

Rita Rawlings, your nephew's wife.

Yeah, I know she don't live there.

Can you... No, she... Turn it down. I know, I know she... She lives around the

corner. Turn it down.

No, not you. I'm asking them.

I'm asking them to turn the telly down.

No, I know you ain't got that telly on.

It's here. The bloody telly's here.

I told you I want to talk to...

nephew's wife.

I know she don't live there. She lives round the corner with her husband,

doesn't she?

Stupid scut lip.

I told you they were thick up there. Thick as two balls, they are.

I brought indecibelisation in Liverpool out to raise the school leaving age to

35.

No, I've not got the wrong... I have not got the wrong number. No, I haven't.

It's the right number.

Liverpool, 2550.

It's not the wrong, it's the right number.

I've got it written down in front of me.

You've dialled it wrong.

Shh! What?

No, I didn't dial it wrong, did I? I know what I'd dial. I'd dial 051. That

code for Liverpool, right?

I'm calling from London, aren't I? I'd dial 051 -2550.

You what?

You're 2560?

Oh, no, you're not.

2560 if I don't want 2560.

I know what I bloody dialed.

Well, there's something wrong with your phone then, isn't there?

I'm sure I should get it reported off, Harvey. Well, it's not my fault, is it,

if you was in bed?

Well, I can't see into your house, can I? How did I know you was in bed? I

didn't want to talk to you in the first place.

Anyway, you got to bed early, didn't you? It's only eight o 'clock.

I didn't know you was ill, did I?

Don't sound out to me.

Stupid scarce git.

Wrong number, she says. Wrong number. Look.

I've got the bloody thing written down here. She meant you dialed it wrong.

Now, come on, Mrs. Dove. Miss, really.

I mean, I know how to dial a number, don't I?

I wouldn't do that, would I? Dial it wrong. Here, Fred, you'd better come and

check up on me.

Dial it wrong.

Make sure I put my finger in the right hole. Come on.

Five, one, two, five.

Oh, I... Oh, dial it wrong. Blimey.

Didn't go to university.

I can't dial a phone, can I? Hello?

Oh, Miss Thompson?

All right, Miss... Look, I want to talk to Rita. Rita Rawlings.

Yeah, it's her dad, Mr Garnet.

Yeah, but, I mean, can you nip round there?

Well, it won't take you a minute, will it?

Well, it's about her mum.

Yeah.

Well, take an umbrella.

Well, ain't you got a raincoat?

Where you been living all summer, then?

Thank you.

She's going round to fetch her.

Wrong number. It's the right number, isn't it?

Relations,

I don't know.

Supposed to be relations. Well, in -laws.

Mowding, because it's raining and I've asked her to pop round the corner. You

can turn the telly up now, if you like.

Oh, no, no, it's Des O 'Connor. Turn it over to the other side.

That's a nice fruit bowl.

Them apples look very nice.

Would you like an apple?

I'd soon have a banana.

Them apples do look very nice, though.

Here.

There is a big box of chocolates, isn't it?

Mr. Garnett?

Oh, thanks very much.

Oh, they look lovely. Hold the mat up.

Make sure we get the right amount. The one with the squiggle, like the name

Nessa Coffee Cream. I like them.

Right.

Wrong.

Excuse me, will she be long?

What?

them it's all like liquidy oh so will she be long oh oh that i forgot all

her no no no shouldn't think so johnny cup only cut the streets away

that's liverpool that is you know that costs a lot of money not anymore it

no no phone a friend make someone happy it's like i'm

telling you what is that busby wasn't it and what's her name that irene

Take off all them funny voices.

Handle. No.

No, write a letter.

Don't make a phone call.

That's the other way around, isn't it?

Don't write a letter. Make a phone call. Well, it costs a lot cheaper now,

doesn't it?

Don't have to get through the operator, you see.

Anyway, operators are no bloody use. They'll always get any wrong numbers,

wouldn't they?

You're right. There's someone talking on there.

Trying to get through to us.

Hello?

Ria!

Yes, you're dead.

Mum, no, she's all right. Right as rain.

Yeah.

Got wet, did you?

It's not raining here. First time in months.

Hold on, darling. I'll go and get her for you. Hold on.

Well, I'll just go and get the missus.

It's my daughter, Rita.

We'll talk to you if you like.

I won't be a jiff.

Where's he gone?

He's gone to fetch his wife.

Mr. Daffron's connected up to Liverpool.

She might hear you. I don't care. Is he playing for this call?

I don't know. Ask him. I'm going to put it back.

Oh, no. No, don't do that. Yeah, I'm going to put it back. No, don't.

She's signed something.

Well, answer it then. No, you answer it. No, you answer it. Now, go and answer

it!

Hello?

Rita?

Oh, I know that's all right. It's not all right, Tara. It's not all right. Go

tell her it's not all right. No, Tara, it's not all right.

Oh, no, of course we don't mind.

to repay you for this, you know.

Buy a drink or something, you know. Only, I don't like to offer you money,

know, because some people take that as an insult.

I think, I think a good neighbour should be appreciated, you know what I mean?

Look at her, enjoying herself

there.

Talking away.

Loving it.

to see these.

Rabbit,

rabbit, rabbit.

Very nice of you.

Ah, she's all right.

She could be worse, eh?

She's got stamina.

She's after her.

long run, that is better than beauty. Any old day of the week.

But, listen, she's cost me money, you know that.

She has a matter of pocket over her. I mean, if she'd have gone the same time

her sister Maud went, I mean, I'd have been a winner with the insurance that

I've got on her, see?

Yeah, I'd have been laughing.

Well, not laughing, you know. No, no.

I mean, that's the gamble you're taking.

I have paid out more on her now than...

I wish I'd had a few bob on that sister of hers, that bloody Maud.

I couldn't bloody stand her.

Hell, she was.

Well, I mean, I get on with most people, don't I?

Yes,

I bloody do.

We had nothing in common, me and her sister Maud. Well, I tell a lie, we had

thing in common. I hated her and she hated me.

She hated you much more than you hated her. With course.

No, I...

I knew her sister.

Went to school with her.

Show you her knickers for a bite of your toffee apple.

In her funeral, her sister... I don't think I've ever sat for anything what

me more pleasure.

I thought it was the happiest man there, me or her husband.

Oh, it was her husband, it must have been. Do you know what he'd done?

Her old man, her wallet, he'd bought her the biggest bloody tombstone you've

ever seen in your life. Must have weighed a ton.

He said to me after, the elf, he said, do you know what I've bought her that?

Right.

He said, because comes a day of judgment, he says, comes a day of

we're all up there enjoying ourselves.

I hope it's going to take a month's bloody years to shift that thing.

Buying time, that's what I'm doing, Alfie said. Buying time, hoping, praying

I'll have a little while up there in eternity.

Without her up there, that bloody will ruin it, because I'll tell you

Alfie said. And he had tears in his eyes, honest.

Alfie said, Evan is almost a... us poor people's got to hope for, he said, but

if she do succeed in shifting that every piece of granite, that expensive piece

of monumental masonry, what I've waited her down with, and gives it up there to

her, and it won't be having no more.

She'll ruin it.

So she's ruined it, two up, two down, that's so tall, it pisses me off.

I'm sure God's going to put up with it. I mean, he may be a Christian now, but

if he's got any kind of class at all, he ain't going to put up with bloody mould

up there.

I'll tell you something else, Alfie said. If he's prepared to put up with

ain't. I'm sodden off to any other place.

I wish you would.

The best funeral we had was down our street, was when old Mrs Fairclough at

number 13 went.

Well, she couldn't grumble. She had a good run.

95? Yeah, she was. Had her share of the old age pension before she went for his

son. She did.

It's an amazing coincidence because I see her down the cemetery just a month

before she went herself.

Burying her eldest daughter, she was.

Yeah, Wendy.

That's right. I went up behind her. I had a little joke with her because she

liked jokes.

I went up behind her at the graveside and I said, Here, Mrs F. I said, It's

hardly worth you going home again, is it?

She laughed.

She bloody did.

Send off, though.

Went off in the rolls.

That's right.

Of course, she'd have prepared the horses, because she never liked cars.

Yeah, well, I mean, it was grand in them days, wasn't it, Els?

All them horses, four to a carriage.

Black they was, Belgians. That's right, with them things sticking out the top of

their heads.

Ears. Not ears!

Not ears!

Not ears!

That's right.

Everyone lining the streets.

Caps off.

Lines drawn.

And they never started the office trotting until there was at least three

streets away.

Not like it now.

Now they can't wait.

They just rush you off now.

They can go through red lights.

You know, if the corpse... Deceased.

Oh, you're deceased.

at a favourite pub, they'd pull up right outside and all go in and drink it out.

That's right.

That wouldn't happen today.

No. No, them traffic wardens would give you a parking ticket.

I never have any trouble with parking tickets from traffic wardens. Why not?

I've got a car.

Shut up and drink your beer.

Nugent's raised it very nicely.

Tea afterwards, everything.

Marvellous hand to take, old Nugent. What's funny, when you look back, he

had one jaw back, old Nugent.

Do you remember, he used to have a blooming great dew drop hanging off his

He used to get longer and longer.

Scared the living daylights out of you, that did. Especially when he was slicing

a bowl down for the tea.

It was said when it comes to a funeral, you've got a long way to beat old

Nugent.

She laid in the house for a week before they screwed her down.

And old Nugent, he made her look lovely.

He did, old Mrs Faircloth.

He put her teeth in everything.

Best I've ever seen her.

Lied here, Arthur, in a lovely oak coffin, French polished beyond.

Glass handles.

See your face in them.

Little bit of blue velvet.

Lying through her.

What a wonderful way to go.

See, they'd agreed it all beforehand, before she snuffed it. You could do that

in them days.

Your funeral club.

That's right.

Yeah, well, you could plan them yourself, you see.

Tell them how you wanted it.

Oh, yeah, I mean, they used to say to them, do you want to be burnt or buried?

Could burn, it's cheaper.

Yeah, well, all the land values have gone up, you see.

It's more profitable building houses than it is graves.

I mean, houses create wealth.

People are always buying and selling and moving in and out.

Don't do that with graves.

No movement of graves.

It's a dead business.

We had a plot from our mother.

Yes? Yeah.

It was smart, clean and decent when we first come.

When we buried my father in it. Yeah.

You should see it now.

We had to bury my mother in it a few weeks ago.

Oh, you should see it now.

Disgusting, it is.

I think it was pigs buried there.

Oh, I upset yourself. No, you're good.

Cremation's best, that's what I say. Yeah.

At least you get your own jar.

Yeah.

You're on your own.

I'm Catholic.

Yeah. And we don't have cremation. We're not allowed it, see?

No. Well, if you're a Catholic, you've got to go up to heaven as you was down

here, all in one piece, like.

Well, you can't have transplants then, not if you're Catholic.

Well, I don't know.

No, I mean, not if you've got to go up there in one piece, you know.

As you was down here. I mean, you go up there with borrowed bits of someone

else's. Whoa.

Ain't you, is it?

Well, I mean, as long as he can see it's you, as

long as he can see it's you, if you've lived a life of grace and

purity, like you, grace and purity, according to his teachings down here,

I mean, when you go to heaven, to get your reward, like, well, you want to be

recognised, don't you?

Oh, you're right.

She is right. Well, now, as long as he's able to see that it's you, you see,

as long as he can see that it's you, well, I mean, you don't want to get what

you've earned be given to somebody else, do you, like? No, that is right.

That's right, Millie. What about pacemakers, then, Alfred? Would they

What do you mean? Like, that's part of yourself, Alfred, isn't it?

Well, no, I mean...

I think, no, they'd take them out before they bury you, wouldn't they?

They would, or before they barbecue you. I mean, it's like... But a car, you

see, I mean, when you're going to scrap a car, well, they'd take all the good

bits out, any bits that are still working, and bung them into something

You ain't got a pace, mate, have you? No, no, no, but they're talking about

giving the missus one. Are they? Yeah.

Well, listen, before you lay out any money on that, you let them give her a

trial run with it, you know? Yeah, right.

I mean, you know, they'll go up and down a few hills.

They'll put her out jogging, you know?

Why don't you go see some of the undertakers?

Undertakers? Yeah, see if you can get a good second -hand one, you know?

We'll get it reconditioned, MOT, but I mean...

You've got to start paying out top prices, not her age.

Well, we're going to get it on the national elf. What, free?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, we'll bung it into her, then.

Get a few more years out of her, eh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, she still gets

around the house, does she? You know, cooking, scrubbing, a bit of that. Oh,

yeah, yeah, she's all right, elf. You know, but she's slow, elf, slow.

Very, very slow.

We'll bung the place, mate, when we speed her up a bit, won't we?

Yeah, yeah, I'll do that. Yeah.

Bill there.

He won't be going up to heaven all in one piece.

Why's that?

Oh, he's a leg short down here, so he'll be a leg short up there.

No, no, no, no.

That'll be up there waiting for him. Oh, that'll be kept in storage for him.

Oh, yes, indeed.

If you're a good man down here, with a reserve plate up there.

Anything that arrives in heaven before you is labelled and stored to be

collected on arrival.

You don't go through eternity on a stump.

No, no, no, no. No, when he arrives at the pearly gates, he'll have all his

particulars. Where he comes from, what address, what house, what street, what

town, who his family are, and where they're living up there in eternity,

etc.

Directions on how to find him, aye.

Travel news on how to get there. And train times and travel vouchers if

necessary. Aye, yes.

Aye, and a ticket to collect his old leg.

Brand new and reconditioned and in perfect working order.

Oh, you'll be back on your own two feet then.

Phil, how did you get on with that wooden leg of yours? I mean, did you get

old rent -a -kill on a national elf?

It's tin half.

It's alloy, not wood.

I wished it was wood.

Last winter, with all that cold and fuel as short as it was, I wished it was

wood. It would have been on the farm any night if it was wood. You wouldn't. I

would. You wouldn't.

That is a bad thing.

Charge your stranger. Charge all your fucking strangers.

Charge all your strangers. I don't want to go to the phone. That's what I'm

saying. Have a press sign in the window.

You may telephone from here. That's what I'm saying. I'll run it for you. Hold

on, I've got to have a drink.