Original subtitles

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

all the art.

But they don't give a monkey's down at the age of death, and they're gonna love

me pension for a start.

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

death, that's what I'll do.

But richer or poorer, I'm bloody poor, that's a fact. That's because in

and in health, I said I'll do.

Well,

there we are, Mr. Garnett. There is your checkbook and your gold card.

This is available everywhere up to a very large amount. And the cash that you

asked for.

Tell me,

why have you opened so many different accounts in other banks?

Precautionary. Don't want to put all me eggs in one basket, do I? This is a very

respectable high street bank. All your money would be safe with us. Yeah, well,

you would say that, wouldn't you?

I mean, look at that bank went up the spout the other day, the BBCI or

something.

If I'd had my money with them crooks, I'd be a pauper again today, wouldn't I?

Oh, I can assure you that most banks are not crooked.

Yeah, well, I mean, every crook claims to be honest until he's caught, don't

eh?

That BBCI.

That looked as respectable as Westminster Abbey till the fraud squad

collar on him. Bloody Maxwell, he'd treat you like a bloody popey, wasn't

No, mate, if you've got money, spread it around a bit. That way, if your bank

turns out dodgy, I don't lose all my money, do I?

Besides, no one person knows where it all is.

That provincial nosy partisan ain't what I've got.

Now, Mr Garnage, you are going to have to declare this money. I told you, the

authorities will have to know. Why? That was spare dosh, that was.

Nobody knew that existed till I brought it in here.

Look, the authorities didn't want to know about me when I had nothing. Well,

don't want to know about them. Now, I've got a few, Bob.

Fair weather, friends.

That's what your authorities are, mate. And they give tons for us, the people.

I mean, nick our money, yeah.

Nothing for what we want, though, is there?

Your Labour lot's just the same, innit, eh?

Supposed to be the party of the people, eh?

Fair shares for all.

Until they get into power, and then you'll see them hobnobbing with the same

catch of bloody toys as hobnobbing with.

Like the same parties and the same big houses.

flying all round the world at our expense to drink with all their mates in

governments. You'd never see them down here in our local pub, obnobbing with

likes of us, except at election time, when they seem to think a smile and half

pint's enough to buy you a vote.

Another thing.

If they did get our money, no -one round here would see the benefit of it, mate.

I mean, your national health would be no better off, nor any other things they

say they want our money for.

But there would be several hundred thousand pounds worth of spare dosh

about in the government. And who knows which pocket that'll finish up in.

Why do you think the Prime Minister lives next door to the Chancellor?

I don't know, but I'm sure you're going to tell me.

Because when the Prime Minister nips over the back fence and in the back door

the Chancellor's house, it's not to borrow a cup of sugar, you know.

Oh, he goes in there and says, whoa, Chancellor, good morning, and how are we

doing? And the Chancellor says, whoa, Prime Minister, we seem to have several

hundred thousand pounds with a spare dosh floating about.

And the Prime Minister says what you or I would have said in the same

circumstances. Well, always do with a few Nelsons, eh, Chancellor?

Nelsons?

Nelson, Eddies, Reddies.

Oh, yes, well, if you do need any help with investments, at my age, with all my

money, what do I need with investments?

Never mind all that. Just make way.

The governor's ready for a little wet.

Aren't you, governor?

Well, I think we'll have a drop of the old shampoo, eh?

Oh, I'll just hang these up for you. Oh, my tongue's just hanging out for a drop

of that.

Yes, I can see it. Covered in boot polish.

Allow me, governor.

Ah, it's a knack, you see.

Oh, I suppose you've acquired it. All the champagne drinking you've done. It's

knack I acquired.

Serving the rich, Mrs. Hollingberry.

You?

When were you ever close enough to the rich even to serve them? When I was a

steward on the big liners.

Serving the top table.

Steward on the big liners?

Barman on the Irish ferry, more like.

Oh, I'm sure they liked all that on the top tables.

What would she know about stopping all the rich?

All the way they serve it, you're supposed to have the bang and the fizz.

all part... of the celebration.

Well, half of it's on the bar, the rest of it's on the floor.

There's not much of it left in the bottle.

No wonder it's the rich man's drink if that's all you're left with after you

open it. The rich, Mrs.

Hollingbury, when you've had the experience of them, what I've had,

bothered about the spillage of a drop of champagne on their marble floors.

They have gallons of it in their cellars. She's ignorant of the ways of

world.

Here, we can have marble floors.

Well, Perhaps in your new house, eh, Governor?

New house?

What new house? Well, now, that's up to you, Governor. You're the boss. Where

you lead, I'll follow.

Cheers to the Governor. A captain of the universe.

I was been thinking, Mr Garnet, when we are married, perhaps a

nice little bungalow for two with a little bit of ground out Eppingway.

A bungalow?

attraction I could see for Mr. Garnet in a bungalow as he wouldn't have had

anybody upstairs to nag at him.

Watch your back, my daughter.

Watch your back.

You silly white puddin'! Put that bloody chair up.

Marriage? Who said anything about marriage?

Well, I thought that's what we'd been planning.

What you might have been doing, my dear, but I've been planning no marriage, not

since you left me standing at the church a laughingstock.

Oh, well, that's all in the past now.

There's a lot of things in the past, my dear, and they can stay in the past as

far as I'm concerned.

I was poor and living on a pension in the past, but now I'm rich.

Yeah, well, money needn't change things.

Don't be daft. Of course money changes things. There's no point in having money

if it don't change things, is there?

Well, it needn't come between us, that's what I mean. I mean, I wouldn't allow

it to alter my...

Feelings for you. Because, you see, I was prepared to marry you when you was

poor. But you wasn't, was you? You wouldn't say obey. You wouldn't say I

would you? Well, I obey. There, I've said it now.

In the church.

You wouldn't say it in the church, would you?

Well, arrange the wedding, book the church, and I'll say it. Well, I obey.

I obey.

But will you? Whatever you say.

Pour me whiskey.

I obey.

Fetch it here.

Put it back on the bar.

Fetch it here.

Needs a lot of thinking about, doesn't it? I mean, you say money don't matter,

but there's different market forces at play now, isn't it?

See, when I first asked you to marry me, I was poor, and you was all I could

afford then, but now... I'm in the market for something a bit better,

a lot younger.

Something with a good few miles left in it.

More energy, that can run about a bit faster, fetching and carrying, and

probably a bit better... cooking and cleaning.

Something I could be sure would see me out because that's important.

I don't want to spend time training up a woman to my ways and then have her peg

out of me and have to go through it all again with someone else.

It's nothing personal.

I mean, put yourself in my position.

If you was the one who had the money and I was the one who was poor, would you

marry me? Of course she wouldn't.

Another whiskey.

Oh, get it yourself.

We had the bands, read out the ears.

Oh!

Where did you get all this money, anyway? That's what a lot of nosy people

to know, my dear. I'm not being nosy. Aren't you?

I'm just curious, Ethel. It was curiosity killed the cat.

Yeah, it might be something heavier that kills you.

I might have been left it by a loving relative. Or...

I might have made some very shrewd investments, but on the other hand, I

have just won it. There you are, you see.

Mr Garnet is clever enough to have made investments.

The cleverest man around here, as I've always said, and lovable enough to have

been left by adoring relatives, and clever enough to have won it. Eh,

Eh?

Well, you didn't steal it, did you?

If you think this is stolen property, my dear, perhaps you'd better not drink

it. Pat, you'd better forget about marriage. If you think my wealth is

don't you commit an immortal sin, do we?

No, no, no, that's all right, Mr Garnet. I take your word for it.

I haven't said that I didn't steal it yet.

Never mind.

Never mind.

Keep me in ignorance.

I can always go to confession.

What lives we'd lead without confession?

And another thing, Mrs Ollenberry.

There'll be no need for you to go poking about up my chimney when I'm out

looking for my money box.

I've got somewhere more secure to hide things than prying eyes now.

I've never looked up your chimney.

Yeah, that bad leg of yours ain't rheumatism, you know.

That's from all the hours you've spent kneeling down begging forgiveness for

the lies you tell.

Sinner's knee!

That's what you're suffering from, my dear.

No, no, there's no money in there. It's just my credit card.

Have they stopped?

No, I've got all these bank accounts all over the place, you see, and I've got a

little book with all my names of the banks in it, and I don't know where I've

put it.

Shut up!

Have I got a count here?

I don't know, have you, sir?

Well, I think so.

I seem to remember coming in here.

Yeah, I'm sure this is it. Trouble is, they all look the same.

What is your name, sir?

Oh, well, you got me there.

I beg your pardon, sir? No, see, I've got all these bank accounts, like, in

different names, you see, all me aliases.

And, uh... Let me run a few names past you. Um, Bobby Moore.

Dennis Thatcher.

Uh, Harold Wilson.

Um, Neville Chamberlain.

Hold on, hold on, just a minute.

I ain't lost it. It slipped down the lining. It slipped down the lining of my

coat. It was there all the time.

What bank is this?

Westminster. That's with a W, isn't it? Hold on.

Yeah, look.

Westminster.

Powell?

Ah, yes, Mr Powell.

Enoch, isn't it?

a very substantial one. Well, look, see, I've opened a checkbook with all the

credit cards, Nick.

No problem. I'll have them cancelled and get new ones out for you. Thank you.

Oh.

They're very nice of you when you've got a few quid, aren't they? Hey.

Well,

my real name is...

if it's just the same, innit?

Same bars, chains, burglar arms, steel doors.

It's the furniture of your rich.

If they won't lock up your criminals, then the rich has got to lock themselves

up. Yeah, the trouble is, though, if you live among them, they can rob you

without involving themselves in a lot of travelling expenses.

Never mind, it's got its compensations, eh? Blimey, a few weeks ago, this was a

meal you could only dream of, ain't it?

Oh, yeah.

dreaming of a meal like this once a year at Christmas. And even then, only after

a year of saving.

Well, there you are, you see. For the rich, it's Christmas every day.

For the idle rich.

Eh?

Well, it's all right having Christmas every day if you haven't got to prepare

Christmas every day. Oh, God, blimey. Now what's wrong?

What's wrong?

All this. What's wrong with all this? You never lived so well.

No, and I never worked so hard either. You couldn't please them.

It would please me.

if you was to have sod off home to your wife, I'd never ever turn cooking for

you. I mean, it's all right for you sitting there eating, but since we got

I've done nothing else but prepare and cook huge great meals and wash up piles

of dirty dishes. I'll pour you a new dishwasher.

Yes, and you bought me a new oven, too, and I had far less to do when I had

neither of them. When all I had to do was make a cheese sandwich and cook the

odd bit of meat.

pension before you could afford all this. Legs of pork, turkeys, best end

legs of lamb, old bloody salmons, huge great T -bone steaks. Least I had the

time to sit down and enjoy the little bit I'd got.

Well, what are you going on about you sitting down now?

Yeah, but what about your pudding, your spotted dick and custard? Well, I'll see

to that first, if you like.

Oh, sod your foot.

There's no pleasing them.

Oh, shut up, you.

Listen, I never thought...

hear myself say it, but you are a thick mint.

If there is such a thing, you're it. Look, will you shut up and eat your

for crying out loud?

Look, I'll buy you a new dress, a new hat if you behave yourself, and it'll

you to put in later.

I don't have any room for anything.

Oh, you're beginning to look like a pudding, you are.

You know, I think all this money is a test for you. What are you talking

a test?

I think the Lord has given you all this money just so he can watch you and see

what kind of man you are. He knows what kind of man I am, my dear. He's given me

all this money and he has a reward.

No, I think he's testing you.

Yes, he knows you'll be on your way soon now from this earth and he's got to

decide... He's got to decide where he's going to put you.

Purgatory.

Hell. With the...

No, it'll be heaven for the governor.

He loves him. He's given him his money.

It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a

camel to pass through the eye of an eagle. Oh, Blimey, look, the Lord gave

the money.

No, to tempt you.

It's that serpent with the apple again.

Only this time, it's you that's being tempted to eat it.

No, look, rich people go to heaven. Blimey, they wouldn't go to church if

didn't have a chance to go to heaven, would they? Besides...

If the rich people put more in a plate than the poor people do, innit? Look,

Queen's rich, isn't she?

Do you think she ain't going to go to heaven?

Well, I was born in Dublin, and I know a lot of the Irish got their doubts about

that. Well, you think heaven's going to be full of tramps and beggars?

You think God wants them sort of people up there in heaven, ne 'er -do -wells,

sleeping in cardboard boxes all over the place?

He loves poor people.

Well, he's made more of them, that's for sure.

He loved me, and he gave me the money as a reward.

No, to tempt you with the sins of the flesh, to see if you were strong and

resist them, or was weak and would perish. Look, I'm not a sinful man.

No, you couldn't afford to be, but now you can.

Gluttony. I mean, that's the thing you couldn't afford before, but look at you

now, you can.

I'm sure of you, and I'm insured as well.

It's gluttony. Your eyes are bigger than your belly. Get off.

and still to come.

Yesterday it was a side of beef, a leg of pork, salmon, eels. We got dogs for

miles around sniffing round your dustbin.

And there's hungry people starving in the world.

Well, take some of it up the church then. Well, take your leavings up the

church. All right, well.

Look, I'll give him some money. Find some poor people, I'll give them a few

bowls. There's poor people sitting here.

You said I could have a new drink. Yes, you can.

And a new hat. Yes.

And I need a new pair of shoes to go with it. Oh, I see. You'll take my money

then, won't you? Oh, yes, if it helps with your salvation, Mr. Garfield. No, I

have spoke to the Lord.

When? I prayed unto him. Didn't I? I asked him about the money. I asked him

give me a sign what he wants me to do with it. I said...

Do you want me to give Mrs. Ollenby any of the money, Lord?

And there was no sign from him.

Do you want me to give Michael any of it?

No sign.

Anybody else, Lord?

And there was no sign.

You see, some people's life down here is intended as a punishment for them. I

mean... He wants them to suffer, and I don't want to spoil any of his divine

plans that he might have for people. I mean, I know they say he's a hard God,

and he lets a lot of suffering go on down there, but blimey, it's only the

people who are made to suffer who are complaining, isn't it? Hey, nobody else

seems to give a stuff, do they?

I mean, after all, it's his world. Look, I'll say it to him again in your

presence.

Lord, do you want Mrs. Ollenberry to have a new dress?

Speak now.

Or in a few minutes, Lord.

You won't get no messages like that.

You believe in the Lord, don't you? He sees all, he hears all, he knows what

saying. Well, he don't send messages or write letters, at least not to the likes

of you.

Well, what do you expect him to do, phone you?

How are we supposed to know what he wants, then?

He gave us free will. No, excuse me.

He wants us to do his will. Our way.

What do you mean, our way? He judges us. When we come before him on Judgment

Day, he will say to you, Mr Garnet, you did it your way.

Regret.

I had a few.

Too few to mention.

But Lord...

This your judgment day? Give me redemption.

Because I did it my way. Oh, but Christ ain't shut

up.

Ignore him. He's a prodigy.

I'd be very wary if I was you, Mr. Garnet, in your position.

I mean, the Lord, he'll give you just enough rope to hang yourself with.

not funny.

He could be watching you, sitting there, enjoying your gluttony, and then... and

then... take you, just like that, in the middle of your pudding.

I want that pudding.

Or he might let you get used to the mudding, enjoy your gluttony, and

make you spend long, miserable years on the pension, getting older and more

feeble, and at the mercy of all those you scorned when you was

wealthy.

Oh, dear, yes, I'd be very wary if I was in your position.

Oh, God, I'm a pub!

It's a power cut!

Bloody hell!

So where's the Woodley?

I'm his secretary.

I didn't think it was Ian.

Is he in?

Why?

I want to see him, of course.

Have you an appointment?

My visiting card, dear. Take that into him, will you?

Tell him there's plenty more where that comes from.

Go on! I'm not National Health rubbish, you know.

Mr Garnet, Esquire.

My phone number.

My address.

One knock downstairs if he ever calls.

Esquire. 54 Mandela Road.

Yeah, it used to be Albert Morrison Street.

Our militants like to keep up with the times.

You have winning ways, Mr Garnett.

Um, excuse me, is the sir for medicine?

Inherited, I'm afraid. What are you afraid of? The Labour Party will take it

back if they get in?

What have you come to see me about? What is your problem?

Um, do I call you sir or doctor? Mister.

Eh? I'm a surgeon.

Look, I don't want nothing took out or cut off.

Tell me what is wrong.

Well, uh, see, my problem, Mr.

Woodley... Call me, Doctor, if you feel uncomfortable. I'd sooner call you, sir.

It's more like the protocol of it. Be my guest!

Are you inviting me home?

Mr. Garnett!

Will you please tell me your problem?

Well, my problem's money, you see.

Not a lack of it? Oh, no, no, I've got a lot of money, bags of it, loads of it.

So what is the problem?

Well, it's my age, you see. I'm, well, over 70 now, and I want to know how long

I've got, you see.

I don't want to leave none of that behind me when I go, but on the other

don't want to run out of it before I do go. So if you could give me a date.

It doesn't have to be the exact day. You know, a week here, a week there would

be all right. I am a doctor, Mr. Garnett, not the Almighty.

But you're a Harley Street doctor.

Yes.

I can examine you.

I will examine you.

But a couple of hours after my examination, you could be walking down

and... I wish people stopped doing that.

Say it. Mrs. Hollingbury done that. You know, you could be having your pudding

and... Or you could be getting out of bed and boom. Who is Mrs. Hollingbury?

It's a woman I live with.

Ah, women.

They can put years on you. Or deny you the years you should have. Yeah, you're

right there.

Perhaps I should... Don't give it up.

No need for that.

Just take it easy.

Look, I don't do nothing like that.

Perhaps you should.

Look, it's my money I'm worried about, not my bloody sex life.

To ease your worries, or to alleviate them to some extent, I think I'll book

into hospital.

Eh? Don't worry, it's a very nice place.

More like a hotel than a hospital.

You'll have every comfort, and I shall arrange to have you thoroughly examined

with several of my colleagues in attendance.

There's no lack of, um... Oh, no, no.

Come round and make yourself at

home. Put your feet on the mantel shelf.

The Tories were right and... Hey, when you've got money, this is the way for

you.

The richer, the poorer, I'm bloody poor. That's the fact. That's because it's

sick to spend it all for...