Original subtitles

Now, my old darling, they've laid her down to rest, and now I'm missing her

all we are.

But they don't give a monkey's down at the age of death, and they call it I'll

be pension for a star.

No, it won't be very long before I'm tired, but I'll probably starve to

that's what I'll do.

But richer or poorer, I'm bloody poor, that's a fact, just cos in sickness and

in health, boss, that I'll do.

Oh,

this palaver.

Just to get a drink.

And a smoke.

Oh, no bloody economies.

Save! You've got to save every penny.

I want my wedding day to be happy day. Happy day won't be happy day for me.

Won't be happy life for long. Not if this is anything to go by.

I could give up my pleasures to waste money on our bloody silly wedding.

All this sacrifice, and what am I getting out of it, eh?

All right.

Got two pensions together, I suppose.

Better looked after as far as food goes.

Bit of cleaning, bit of washing, but that's all, though.

I mean, is this the sort of price I've got to pay for having to sneak a drink,

sneak a smoke?

Like hell.

Well, better not let her find out about this, Bob.

Otherwise, that'll be my independence up the spout.

I'm a ghost.

What is?

Well, this time next month we'll be married. Mm.

In four weeks' time, on this day, at this hour, we'll be man and wife and

have been married for seven hours.

If it lasts that long.

What?

I said, yes, it's exciting.

Aren't you looking forward to it? Yeah, I can't wait.

You don't look very excited.

I am.

do, jump on down on the spot or something.

You could look more pleased.

I am, but why bloody Saturday?

I mean, get married any old day of the week, but no, you have to go and pick

Saturday when it's football.

I mean, four weeks a day when we're getting married, West Ham will be just

playing at home.

I think you love West Ham more than you love me.

I love Millwall more than I love West Ham.

I'm not going to let you spoil it. All right, have your happy day. No

one's saying you shouldn't have your happy day.

I'm going to. I've set my mind on it, don't you worry. All right, all right,

have it, have it. No one's saying you can't have it. I'll go without, I'll be

miserable. Anything, anything, so long as you're happy.

I'm beginning to think it'd be a happier day if you didn't have to be there. All

right.

Well, I'll stay here. I don't want to spoil your happy day.

I'll send a proxy up the church. You can get married by that.

I ain't got much to do up there anyway, except stand around like a prized lemon

saying, I do, I will. I mean, I can write that down so somebody can read it

for me.

Wish they could.

Oh, light your pipe. Go on, go on. It's got nothing to do with that. It just

seems... What?

It's a waste. It all seems a waste.

A waste to save up? No.

Not to be able to have a drink or a smoke. It's just a waste of time, that's

all. What, a waste of time to save up for my wedding?

Oh, I see. It's your wedding now, is it?

Our wedding?

Oh, good. I'm glad you're inviting me.

Oh, go on. Smoke it. Smoke it. Go on.

Cancel the wedding. All right. Keep your hair on.

It's more than you can do. All right, look.

I just have the one smoke, all right? One tiny smoke only.

All right?

And that's not going to upset your wedding budget, is it?

Go on, smoke it.

I knew you didn't have the willpower to give it up. Not got the willpower? Not

got the willpower to give it up? Oh, blimey, what do you think I've been

for the last half hour then?

I suppose you'll be over the pub tonight?

No, not necessary.

I said I'd give up smoking and drinking for the duration and I shall keep my

word.

Just this one small pipe.

Helps to keep up the resolve, that's all.

Look, I know it's hard trying to save on the little bit we've got coming in.

I mean, a wedding is an expense.

Well, it don't need to be.

If it was up to you, it wouldn't be.

Not that much. I mean, not that much. It don't need to be so expensive.

I mean, we're having a whip round for the booze.

I shall want a new dress. A new dress? A new dress.

What are you talking about? What do you want a new dress for?

I've told you I'm willing to take you as you are.

You don't have to dress up for me, girl.

Not just for you. I mean, there'll be others watching and pointing, you know,

see what I'm wearing. Well, sod them.

Me or Mary, not them.

Well, I'm not going up to the church in red.

And besides, there'll be cars for the church.

Cars for the church? Mm -hmm. Don't be daft. There's no need for that. We can

walk up the church.

Walk? What, mean white? Walk up the church?

White? What do you mean white? At your age?

My age? What about your age?

At your age, I should be thinking of black, I suppose.

Well, if you think I'm too old for marriage, my dear, perhaps you'd better

yourself a nice little toy boy.

No, thank you, Mr Garnett. I've never been interested in that side of

Thank you very much.

Well, maybe you're not, but I might be.

I might be old, but even in age, it can still be a flicker.

Yeah, well, if there is, you can flicker it somewhere else.

Look, I tell you now, I have no wish to put up with any of your fevered

fumblings disturbing mothers tonight.

I mean, when I go to bed, I go to bed to sleep.

Not to be poured and poked around with by you or anybody else.

So let it be clear, marriage or no marriage, I have no intention of

victim of your overeated imaginings. And as I told you before, I am not an

amusement park.

Well, let me tell you something, missus. A man has his rights, even if he don't

choose to exercise them, but they are his rights and nothing to do with a

Unless... He wants to be lenient and say to her, all right, go to sleep, have

your headache, but now still his conjugal rights, because marriage is a

contract. It's an holy bond.

All right, holy bond, but even holy bond, he's still entitled.

Entitled to what? His conjugals. Otherwise, what did he marry her for in

first place?

And that's why you want to marry me, I suppose?

No, no, no, not for that. I don't mean that. God blimey, I don't want that.

No, you won't be getting it, will you?

You never said I wanted it, have I?

flicker left in your bulb, you can plug it in some other socket.

It might be more appreciated.

I shouldn't think anyone would get much light from it.

Oh, yeah.

Well, you might be surprised, my dear. Oh, surprised?

Not you?

Well, that wouldn't be a surprise. That'd be a miracle.

Raising of the dead, I should think.

Never mind about the dead, my dear. You just be careful you don't raise it,

that's all.

Otherwise you might be raising something you haven't bargained for.

Who are?

Never mind about who are.

Ew, I thought you was only smoking one pipe. Yes, that's right, but now it's

in it because this is my house, my pipe and my tobacco.

And my nail file is in low view.

Anyway, I thought you were giving it up.

refraining from my dear refraining from it like other things I've managed to

refrain myself from to keep control over might only seem a little flicker to you

as you seem to think but you mind yourself it don't burst out into flame

I might not be able to control it someone as virgin as you say you are

badly burned I'm not proud of this thing I've got

Given to me by the Lord.

Oh, don't bring him into it. Because the Lord wanted us to procreate. Now, God

made it.

All right, yes.

But in the beginning, all he made was Adam and Eve. He didn't make the rest of

us. The rest of us, he gave us the tools to assist him.

To mass produce.

And you had the one child?

The one that is known, my dear.

The one that has been recorded.

But... The leash has been slipped on a few occasions, unfortunately.

There has been times, I'm willing to confess, when even my iron control of it

hasn't been enough.

It's a fearsome thing, my dear.

And at its first stirrings, I would say to it, down, boy, down.

And some women who flaunted and teased it beyond my control have been more than

frightened of what they've raised up.

Fainted they are, some of them. Fainted dead away at the sight of it.

I'm not boasting.

Because it was given to me by the Lord.

I didn't grope myself.

But when I was younger, less mature than I am today,

Bit crude, perhaps, if you like, as most youth is.

I got up to pranks with it.

I won competitions with it for the longest.

I beat the opposition by a mile.

A mile?

Like a yard.

Well, you don't notice.

Like a snake, it coils itself in repose.

we're married, if you like. I'll show it to you.

No.

No. I'd sooner you kept it in your room.

Nothing to be tampered with, my dear. I can tell you. No.

As long as you can keep it tame.

You'll be staying in your own room then after we're married, wouldn't you? You

must be joking. After what you've just told me, it seems like the safest place.

Here.

I wouldn't want it creeping up the stairs during the night.

Don't worry.

I'll always be in shouting distance.

It all seems a bit of a tall story to me.

Tall? Yeah, well... Perhaps you should be

looking for some other kind of woman to marry, if all that you say is true.

No, thank you, my dear. I'm quite happy with the choice I've made. Are you?

I'm not so sure that I am.

Right. Well, I'll give you a hand and put the kettle on then.

Oh.

Oh, uh... Here, what about the council?

What about the council?

Well, we've got two flats there.

They might think that when we're married, we should only have one flat.

No. I've got my flat and you've got your flat.

Me neither.

No, I'd rather not get married than lose my flat. No, me neither. Look, if the

council comes nosing about, you know, saying anything at all about any one of

these flats, well, it's divorce, isn't it?

Half and half and split up.

Half and half now.

Yeah, but, I mean, if that's the way it's going to stay, I mean, nobody's

talking about changing that. I don't want the council moving you in with me.

I don't want to move in with you, thank you.

No, me neither.

I mean, no point in getting married just to lower our status, is there?

You've got your privacy and I've got my privacy.

I mean, that's the way it should be. I mean, marriage or no marriage.

But I don't mind making an honest woman of you. Oh, thanks.

No, I mean, I'm all for it.

I want to put an end to the gossips about you and me living in sin together,

see, so you can come down here then and do your domestic work or whatever

without any scandal.

Look, I'm not going to be an unpaid housekeeper, you know. Nobody said you

But I am now.

Well, that's only temporary, my dear, until you become my wife.

Your unpaid housekeeper.

Well, as a wife, I will expect you to do a little bit of housekeeping,

naturally. Well, do it all now.

Yes, but as a wife, my dear, you'll have more status, you see. You'll belong to

someone and you can hold your head up amongst other women.

What?

Nobody will be able to cast any stones on you then because I will have made you

honourable.

Oh, I'm so grateful to you.

What will I be expected to do?

For all that.

Right, I won't make no demands on you. No unnatural demands, that is. No, you

just go on the way you're going. I should be perfectly happy.

I must be mad.

It's not as though I expect much to change anyway.

But as you say, it'll make us look more respectable.

And as long as I can keep my own room... I told you. And as long as you're not

harbouring any ideas... No.

It's companionship. Right.

And with all your faults, it'll be less trouble than keeping a dog.

I don't know. I sometimes wonder what the purpose of it all is.

What? Well, why God made us all in the first place and put us here to live in

places like this.

I mean, it's not a happy life, is it?

You have to make your own happiness, my dear, I'm afraid.

Well, you seem easily making things.

Just being you is enough for you, it seems.

Well, I'm not unhappy in myself.

I mean, you have to make your own life, though, see?

You're given so much play to start with, and you have to mould it, like a

sculptor would, you see, into what you want to be, into what you're happy with.

You seem to be happy enough just sitting there smoking that thing and pouring

beer and whiskey into yourself.

Oh, we're all entitled to our little pleasures, my dear.

I mean, you've got your beads.

And your candles, what you light up in front of the statue, and your holy

I've got my pipe.

And a few drinks I allow myself to imbibe on occasions.

Nothing that would offend the Lord, I'm sure.

Oh, wouldn't it?

He'd have to be a saint to put up with you puffing that thing all over him.

Not a sin, my dear.

Smoking.

Blimey, your father Delaney, he likes his pipe, doesn't he?

And I noticed he wasn't back when he dipped it into my pouch when he was

Nor getting stuck into my little drop of whiskey that I had.

You offered him a drink of that.

A drink, yes.

Not sit there guzzling it till the old bottle was empty.

He's Irish, isn't he? What's that got to do with it? Nothing, nothing.

Don't want to be labelled racist again.

But the Irish, they wouldn't belong to a church if they couldn't do a fair old

bit of drinking in it, would they?

I'm Irish.

I can go to church without drinking.

I can sit here in my own home without drinking, content, without forever

yearning to be in some pub or other drinking myself senseless. You was born

England, my dear.

It's not the earth my feet tread, but where my spirit lives.

Yeah, well, don't worry, you'll be English when you marry me.

That's right.

Oh, well, never mind. I'll still retain the right to my Irish passport.

You're lucky, my dear. Most Irish would give their right arms to be English.

Most foreigners would. From Hong Kong to your Russian Orioles. Blimey, it's

their dream.

The Irish aren't foreigners.

Not in Ireland, maybe.

No, not anywhere.

Look, if Ireland is so wonderful, why are most of them over here, eh? We were

forced to come here. We didn't come voluntary. Oh, I see. Brought over here

chains, was you?

Forced to come here.

Because of the potato family.

Bloody typical, that is, isn't it?

The favourite food, they don't even know how to grow it properly.

Look, I've got nothing against the Irish. God blind me, I'm prepared to

one of them and I'm willing to make him my wife. Thank you.

No, I mean, look, as you say, it's a world we've all got to live in, right?

Master, servant, man, woman.

That's it, I suppose.

It's the way the Lord made it and that's it.

I mean...

See, you were saying, what is the purpose of it all, right? Well, I'll

you. See, God made us, not himself personally, not so at the stamp as they

made by God.

You say, oh, look, there's Mrs. Olinbury over there. I'll make him now.

I'll make her Irish and give her fair hair. Oh, look, there's Mr. Garnet.

I'll make him English and give him... A bald head.

Try not to be fictitious, my dear.

See, what he'd done...

He made the Garden of Eden first, see, and Adam and Eve. Well, he probably did

make them himself personally, see, and everything in the garden would have been

marvellous and smelling of roses, but Eve, typical bloody woman, she

took God's apple, the one he was saving for himself, see, and we got slung out

of it.

Probably looking forward to that apple he was for after his lunch.

Probably told everyone, Oi, that's my apple, that rosy one, so hands off it,

but... Eve, typical bloody woman, see, had to disobey.

As woman has been disobeying man ever since.

Probably why God invented marriage. He said, right, I'll teach woman to obey

once and for all if I never do anything bloody well again.

Teach her to nick my bloody apples.

You know your trouble?

You think God is just like you.

Every time you talk about him, you give him all your own bad habits.

I mean, for all you know, he might be a woman.

God, a woman don't talk bloody daft.

It's the last thing he would have made himself as a woman, isn't it?

And would you turn that light off in the kitchen?

Go on about economising. Make me sit here in misery, not allowed to have a

or a smoke, and you burn lights all over the house.

going out there again in a minute.

Well, when you do, my dear, you can turn it on again.

No need to leave bloody lights burning, is there? You want to save up, don't

you? You want a happy day? Well, turn some lights off.

One little light bulb? Yes.

One little light bulb.

But they're a lot cheaper if you turn them off.

Come on, bed.

These lights are going off now.

You want to save, my dear. You want a happy day, don't you? Right.

Lights out.

and feel your way upstairs, can't you?

Get off of me! That's my watch chain.

I mean, you're the one who wants happy days.

You're the one who wants everybody to save up for your happy days. Oh, bloody

hell!

What's going on with you?

Sir, if you're right...

What do you think I'm going to do? Pray!

Oh, blimey!

Why didn't he give us the warning? Why didn't he give us no warning?

What would you have done? We could have prepared.

Prepared what?

I don't know. It's too late now anyway.

Is that

enough?

Better be on the safe side.

Don't you think you'll get your clothes on?

Eh? Well, I'm going to get dressed.

I mean, if the house is blown down and we've got to be rescued, I don't want to

be found in my nightdress by a stretch.

What are you doing?

There's clean underclothes in there I washed for you. They were for next week,

but you'd better put it on now. I mean, in case we do have to be rescued, you

don't want to show yourself up.

and if this weather keeps up.

Besides, I don't know if it's any good for you. I mean, you're not a Catholic.

Oh, marry one.

Yeah, well, maybe. I don't know if it covers relations.

Not even married ones if they're not Catholics.

I mean, especially when he's got a rush on with a disaster like this. I mean, he

won't have time to worry about Protestant.

He'd be too busy trying to play ball to Catholic.

Oh, shut up.

What are you doing under there?

Come on. If the house blows down, it'll be safer under here.

There's no room under here. Well, stick your head under, can't you?

What are you going to do? I mean, if the house blows down and it falls on us,

we'll be dead and alive under here. I know what I'm doing.

It's government guidelines, isn't it?

They issued a pamphlet on it.

If there is a nuclear warning, go and sit under the table.

I mean, this can't be worse than a nuclear bomb, can it? Well, we're a

-free zone, anyway. Oh, shut up.

Are you afraid?

No.

What are you shaking for? I'm not shaking. You are. You're trembling like

jelly. It's the wind, isn't it?

Oh, your teeth are chattering. What do you expect them to do? It's bloody cold,

isn't it?

I'm old. I shouldn't have to go up to this sort of thing at my time of life.

Being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night under a bloody table.

Oh, stop doing my hip any good, this. Well, moaning won't help. I'm not

am I?

You'd think someone would help and you'd think someone would show a bit of

consideration. Will you?

Look, I'm not young anymore, but if I was, I'd be out helping old people like

us. I'd be knocking on doors.

Nobody's knocked on our door. We could be dying in here.

Nobody's bothered.

What's the matter? What's the matter?

I've got to go. Where?

To the lobby.

dimensions could have reached it from here. I mean...

That's what this is.

It's not bloody fair.

It's not our fault.

People like us, we didn't do it. You must have helped with that pipe.

Oh, don't talk daft.

I'm only smoking tobacco in that pipe, not bloody rainforests.

I don't want yours. It's mine.

Not yet, it ain't.

Mummy!

Mum!

Oh!

You old Scrooge. You old miser.

You've been holding this from me, and I've been strapped...

buy me a new dress, new pair of shoes, that new hat I wanted, car to the

Oh, several cars.

There's enough here for the wedding.

Plenty. I was going to make my wedding day a very happy day. You'll be pleased.

We starve to death.