Original subtitles

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

said I'll do.

For richer or for a tilter, I said I'll. And you said such an honour and obey me

too.

But it wasn't very long before I soon found out no one who would have drowned

but you.

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

But in sickness and in health, I love you.

Do you mind if I use that phone? I'm using it!

speaking on it. There's nobody on the other end, is there? Stupid, great, fat,

big cat.

I'm waiting for a phone call from my daughter, if you must know.

That phone's for making calls, not receiving them. That phone is for

calls, too, if somebody rings you. There's no law against that, Mrs.

Nobody's rang you on it. My daughter's going to ring me, isn't she? It's four o

'clock. It's half past four now. I know the time.

My call, if you'll excuse me.

Hello? Hello? Rita?

Eh?

No. I am not going across the road and tell her her sister is ill. What do you

think? I'm a bloody messenger boy.

Bloody cheek. They use this phone like it's their own.

How do I? Somebody called Fred expects me to go charging across the road and

tell somebody that their sister is ill.

It's not the point. While you're going over there and fetching her over here

talking on there to him, I could have lost my party because that phone would

have been engaged, wouldn't it?

There's me calling out.

Hello? Reach up.

Oh, God, it's you again. When are you going to...

You say you're sorry. No!

Talk to me then.

You hung that phone up on me.

I ran out of money. I didn't have any more money to put in. It was cut off.

o 'clock you're supposed to ring me up. I was four gone when you did. Then you

hung up. I didn't hang up.

Half hour I waited in that phone box.

I was phoning from Liverpool. It is a lot of money. I didn't have any more

to put in. It was cut off.

Well, I ain't talking to you. Oh, well, then don't talk to me then.

But before you stop talking to me, ask me in at least.

Come all the way from Liverpool to see you and Mum. Not me. You ain't wake up.

to see me?

You wouldn't put yourself out for me?

You're like a big baby. Why did you think I'd come all the way from

it wasn't to see you?

Well, why did you hang up on me then? I didn't. Oh, don't start all that again.

Can I come in?

Look, are you going to ask me? I've got to stand out here on the doorstep.

You don't have to ask to come in. This is your home, isn't it?

I've got to shut my door to you, my dear.

And I've never hung my phone up on you, neither.

Yeah, so you should be.

Well, all right, if you are sorry.

I am.

Well, don't just stand here.

I was going to meet you off the train, weren't I? But you never told me the

time. No, you're so busy shouting and hanging up the phone on me. Oh, let's

forget it. All right, forget it, yeah. I mean, I could have gone up to that

Euston and waited on every train for you, couldn't I? Well, it's a good job

didn't, because I come on the coach.

I promised myself I'm not talking to you. Oh, well, I wish you'd kept your

promise. Eh? Never mind.

When are you going back?

It's a chance to get my coat off.

Where's Mum?

Having a sleep.

It's all she does nowadays, isn't it?

How is she?

Hanging on.

She might just as well be asleep all the time for all the comfort she is to me

when she's awake.

I do my best. I push her around. There's nothing to do.

Nowhere to push her to, nowhere to push her back from.

She don't want to do nothing. All she wants to do is sit, just sit.

That's all she can do, innit? She could try.

Try what?

I don't know, do I?

It's not easy for me, is it?

Well, it's not easy for her either.

She's senile, isn't she?

She's not senile. She's old, that's all. Well, what is old? That is bloody

senile, innit?

You're old.

I'm not as old as she is.

You're one year younger.

Two, two!

Two!

I've still got all my marbles.

Don't you?

Oh, yeah, you don't have to live with her. Oh, blimey.

That's my own fault. I should have married someone younger.

Someone a lot younger than myself.

Someone who could have lasted me out. Someone who could have looked after me.

Oh, shh, Dad, give her over. What are you talking about, give her over? She

can't hear when she's sitting next to you.

She was a clever one.

She didn't marry someone older than herself, did she? No, she had her head

screwed on then, all right. I was the muggins. I was the one who rushed in,

wasn't I, without weighing up the pros and the cons.

I was the fool, aged, stuffed with love and romance.

All that bloody rubbish.

Didn't stop to consider, I might be better off marrying someone younger than

myself. Will you get out of my chair?

Shouldn't expect gratitude.

Sacrifice yourself for others. Oh, yes, but don't expect gratitude, no.

Sacrifice you? Yes, sacrifice me.

What have you ever sacrificed?

Look, as he is my witness, I'd wipe my feet to the bone providing for you.

I'm the one who has to look after, tend to her every need. But I'm the selfish

one, oh, yes.

Oh, I'm sorry, Dad.

You do your best, I know that.

I don't know what she'd do without you. I really don't. I mean, you are a good

husband in your way.

In what way?

Well, you do your best.

Well, I ain't easy.

I know it's not.

I mean, there's some I know.

Some men, they wouldn't do it. No?

No. They'd have her put in a home. They'd stick her away somewhere. I

Not me. You know, I've been in a world of mummy. You know that. It's just that

sometimes, oh, you have to be cruel to be kind. What? You know what I mean? It

could be more cruel to, like, you know, denying her something better.

Somewhere where, you know, where she'd be better looked after. Because, I mean,

you know.

I'm old and, you know, maybe it could be more cruel like keeping her here.

I mean, I'd miss her, but... You're not thinking of putting her in a home? No,

not when I've got breath in my body. I'll push that wheelchair till I drop

before I let them take Mummy away.

It's just that sometimes... No!

..over my dead body.

Michael working yet, Rita?

No, but he's had a promise of a job, though.

Oh, yeah?

Still getting promises of work, is he?

Always getting promises of work when he lived down here, wasn't he?

There's a lot of unemployment in Liverpool, Dad.

I know, that's why he went back up there, wasn't he?

You're not funny.

I'm not trying to be funny, my dear. You're the one making the jokes.

Promise of a job. He doesn't want to work. He never did.

Work is foreign to his nature, isn't it? Eh?

He was unemployed when there was full employment, that one.

I mean, he was one of the leaders of your unemployed, he was.

One of those who helped make it popular, he was.

Couldn't wait to get back up to Liverpool, could he?

And to the security of full unemployment.

Bloody proletarian paradise up there, isn't it, eh?

Well, you know, I ain't... Oh, you're unemployed.

And they put them in five -star hotels, I hear. And if the room service ain't

apt to scratch, they move them on somewhere better.

I haven't come all the way from Liverpool to hear you go on.

Ignore him.

Mark has done any better.

No worse.

They've found out what it is, though. Oh?

Senile dementia.

Oh.

Senile dementia, has she?

Not surprised.

Irish, isn't she?

What's being Irish got to do with it?

Senile dementia is failing of the brain, my dear. That's what being Irish has

got to do with it.

I mean, anything to do with weakening your brain and your Irish is prone to

isn't it?

Your Irish ain't got much of a brain to start with, has it?

In the first place, I mean, your Irish is... Not noted for their brains, are

they? They're more noted for their ignorance than their brains.

You don't change, do you? I mean, look, it stands to reason, if your brain is

weak to start with, I mean, if your brain... If your brain is a

small, delicate, puny little thing, ailing from the moment you was born,

hardly a glimmer of life in it, well, I mean, what can you expect? At least a

bit of normal wear and tear and pa -boom!

Same with all your Celts, innit? It's like an old banger compared to a Rolls

Royce, innit? What is?

Them and us. You see, your Celt, your Celt is old primitive strain, innit, eh?

He's not as highly evolved as what we are. He's an endangered species, almost.

He's an eagle.

I mean, might even have become extinct if it wasn't for us, the English,

protecting them and allowing them rights and things.

Do you know what you are?

Afternoon, buona, ladies.

Anyway, she'll be pleased, shouldn't you? Hey, washing up is woman's work,

it, Marigold?

Thank you, Buona.

You're so chauvinistic.

You must be Rita.

This is my daughter.

Well, you take after your mother, I can see that.

I can't see nothing of your father in you, which is fortunate for you.

Mind you, only your lovely, gorgeous mother knows the real truth, eh?

But if she says it was him, we're just going to have to take her word for it.

But how he... Shut up!

But how he could have anything to do with the creation of something as lovely

and as beautiful as you, I'll never know.

You see, I'm a romantic. I prefer to think that he was cock -holded.

Naughty? Who was the handsome milkman?

Still. It's his own fault. I've got no sympathy for him. Beauty should never

marry the beast. It's tempting for you.

Get out of your bloody work. Why, yes, boss.

I was working.

I was working. I was working.

Dark is all work on Mississippi.

Dark is all work while you wipe my...

on her because she's a woman. But she's better than any man.

Oh, I wouldn't say that, dear. Shut up, you.

She is the leader of a spiff government.

She shuffles her pack faster than any bloody card shop she does.

She's always fogging off everything decent we got. Anything that makes

she sells it to her friends. It's like petticoat laying up there in your houses

of Parliament some days.

It's there getting back what it needs. it cost them to get her in, don't you

worry. Oh, blimey. They're all spits. Not one eating boy in a cabinet because

they won't serve under her. And you can't expect it.

A decent poor up -eating boy, he ain't going to serve under a grocer's

He jumped up nobody from Grantham.

A woman whose father was delivering groceries to their back door. Oh,

they can see through her.

They know her sort, don't you worry.

Probably lived among spivs all her life.

Blew up in a black market during the war, probably. With her father, who was

corner shopkeeper. And we all know about corner shopkeepers. God blimey.

All of them bloody crooks, aren't they?

Rob you blind.

I mean, look at them during the war.

They always had something under the counter, didn't they? If anyone had a

bob, what were the odds to spend?

Oh, it's the truth.

Half their trade was under the counter in them days. Same as bloody Maggie

Thatcher. She's flogging off half the country, isn't she, under the counter?

You wasn't above stealing things out the docks when you was there.

Dockers perks, my dear. Dockers perks.

Anything I brought out of docks was in lieu of wages. It wasn't stealing. It

expected of you. A blind eye was turned to it.

Well, it wasn't honest.

It wasn't stealing, was it?

Well, it looked very much like it. And if you'd have got caught, you'd have had

to colour felt. Shut up, you.

Look, all right.

I may not be perfect.

us as saints, are we?

Well, I'll tell you one thing.

I wouldn't have the bloody cheek to set myself up as a Prime Minister and leader

of the Tory party coming over back round like she does.

God's true, she's ruined the Tory party. She has people, her and people like

her. I mean, all the decent men have run away from her. They won't even stay in

the Tory party. I mean, how do you think, how do you think Her Majesty the

feels, eh? Having a mix with her.

And invite her on to Buckingham Palace.

Somebody with her ways. A bloody grocer's daughter.

Yeah, well, I bet she don't drink her tea out of a saucer like you do.

Look, mind, move your foot. Go away!

How come either dirt seems to gather wherever you sit?

He drops crumbs all over the floor. It's worse than a child.

The trouble with you is you've not been properly horse trained.

Even Harrods has to knock on her back door.

That's right.

And Harrods ain't a corner shop, and even they don't get invited up for tea

the Queen.

fair, is it? Well, she should have to go down all them stairs.

Oh, it is on a corner.

Bloody big corner, though, isn't it?

Marks and Spencer.

That's right, and them millionaire shopkeepers, they are.

Prince Charles married a Spencer.

Diana, she's a Spencer.

That's a different sort of Spencer, don't you? Oh!

Bob Spencer, wasn't it?

Dinah's father, he's old.

And Lord Sainsbury, he sold groceries.

And Earl Grey, he sold tea. So he might.

It was decent tea, wasn't it? Like your Brookbonds, that's only fit for monkeys,

that is.

I went past Buckingham Palace the other day and it did look dirty to me.

It is marvellous. They come out of their mud huts, they've only been here a few

weeks.

Only out of bloody trees, some of them.

to criticising Her Majesty.

I bet her house is the bloodiest I've cleaned in New York this Sambo. Oh, Dad!

It's a man!

You welcome them over here. You show them hospitality.

You extend the end of friendship to them. You give them jobs on your buses

your trains. And let us empty your bedpans and your hospitals and we are

grateful. Well, show a bit of gratitude then.

You're not worth the money the council pays. You look at this place like a tip.

I know. If only you weren't so scruffy.

You only got this job because you're ethnic minority.

I only got this job because nobody else would do it.

Look, you're bloody lucky to be working, you are. If it wasn't for people like

her, lame and infirm. I'm not lame.

Providing you with work, you're lucky. You're in a new industry, aren't you,

Health and welfare services. Don't do that to me!

Industry. Patients don't get nothing out, but you're doing all right, ain't

eh? Yeah, the more illness, the more sickness there is, the more the doctors

can't cure, the more customers you get, ain't you, eh? The worse off we are, the

better off you are.

No! No, you can't do that,

Dad! Hey!

Shut up! Shut up, all of you!

I don't know how you put up with him all these years, Dad. I couldn't do it.

Shut up!

Come on, I've lost me Fred now, haven't I?

I don't know what I was talking about.

That's nothing new.

You was talking about how much you admire Margaret Thatcher. The head

Not admired, not admired. There's nothing to admire about her, is there?

That bloody soppy grammar school twit, Ted Heath, let her in, won't it? I like

Teddy. You would!

No,

see, what I was saying, see, before Margaret... That fact you're always

her. Your Tory Prime Minister, he comes from a good family, didn't he? Someone

of your Queen's own class.

Someone of your Queen's own circle.

Someone she can mix with and feel at ease with. Someone who went to eat in an

arrow. Someone...

Who's brought up to be Prime Minister, same as she was brought up to be Queen.

Someone born to rule.

Someone with her own money, someone with her own fortune.

Someone with enough money so they don't have to fiddle. They don't have to rob

the rest of us. Someone who can afford to be honest.

Someone who's born to money and who knows a bit about spending it. Someone

Harold Macmillan.

Superman! Yes, Supermax!

He'd come out of retirement to try and put her right. He stood up in the House

of Lords, didn't he? He tried to toll -fetch her. He said, look, he said, if

ain't got the money, bloody well, borrow it, he said.

Join a loan club? Yes, in a manner of speaking. I mean, simple economics.

I mean, if you ain't got it, do what the Americans do. Borrow it.

See a tallyman?

Yes. Yes, in a manner of speaking. Look, in 1939, see, when we wanted to have

that war with Hitler, I mean, Churchill didn't say, we can't have that war with

Hitler because we can't afford it, did he? No.

He didn't say, we can't have this war with Hitler not until we've saved up for

it, did he?

No. What he done?

What Churchill done?

He put it on a slate, like what they used to in her father's shop. Yes, in a

manner of speaking, he did.

We had that war with Hitler on the never -never. I mean...

Nobody has cash wars nowadays. Nobody can afford that, can they?

Of course they can't, unless they're cheap six -day wars like your Jews have.

But they can have them. I'm laughing. They could have that, couldn't they?

was only fighting Arabs, wasn't they?

I'll tell you something.

By the time they got their discount for cash and flogged the TV rights, I bet

they made a small fortune out of that.

Flogged the TV rights? Of course they sold the TV rights. They're shrewd.

They're very clever businessmen, them Jews.

Once they see how much your Mamadar Lee got out of all these TV fights and how

much your F .A. make out of selling football to your TV, well, it stands to

reason, my dear, never mind bloody laughing, it stands to reason you've got

nice little war, six days of blood and thunder action with a nice result at the

end of it. Well, of course you're going to make sure that you've got your TV

rights. I mean, who do you think's got the rights to the Falklands War, eh?

You Jews? No!

Never mind love, not you Jews. Us, I hope. And why do you think it was that

Americans saw that war before we did?

Because they were shown it first. No!

They paid more for the first showing, that's why.

That's what this country needs, my dear. There's a few Jews in the government.

We've got a few Jews in the government. I'm not talking about schmucks. I'm

talking about creditors.

Not that cartoon, Leon Britton. Looks like Maury the Fishmonger, that one.

What are Jews I'm talking about? Jews like your Lord Grade, your Weinstein,

Lord Bernard Delafonte and Charlie Forty.

Charlie Forty's not a Jew. Well, he looks like a bloody Jew. Anyway,

He knows how to make money. Let them have a go at running the country before

it's too late. Better still, better still, let some of your Pakistanis have

go. Get a few Patels into the government. Let them have a go making a

for us. I'll bet they're running Margaret Thatcher's father's corner shop

bloody sight better than he did.

Or your Japanese.

Yeah! Let's hire a Japanese government to run things for us just till we go on

our feet.

or everything.

What's all that for?

I think they look nice. Make the table look more attractive.

Look, a bloody sight more attractive had a decent meal on it, wouldn't it?

Well, it will have. I'm going home tomorrow, so Winston's throwing a

dinner for me, and it's sweet.

He's not cooking one of those bloody curries again, is he?

We've bought you a present.

There you are.

Lord Kitchener, your country needs you.

Well,

your country don't need you, you bloody liar -bat -puff -duck.

Better than nothing. Two bottles.

Oh. Wicked men.

Hello, darling, eh?

Yeah. Hello, darling.

How's it been? Never mind.

Hey,

thought you was going up the pub. Yeah, well, me.

Rita's farewell party, innit, eh?

Me.

God, blimey.

Jungle juice all right, ain't it, eh?

Churlish, wouldn't it, eh?

Go out to the pub in the middle of a farewell party. No, no.

Christ.

Don't want to upset her, eh?

My little girl.

I won't be upset.

No, it's all right. I don't mind staying.

I think she fancies me in this.

Sanders of the River. Yes.

Are you cool? Are you cool? Are you cool? Are you cute?

Yeah.