CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: Shown tonight for first time in 60 years, the other 7Up - starring the children of Queen Victoria's Britain who witnessed the world changing like never before

The most ambitious documentary series in television history concludes this week. 7Up, tracing the lives of 14 British people across the class spectrum, from childhood to pension, is a unique and deeply moving record.

Tens of millions of viewers over seven decades have followed the journeys of Tony, Jackie, Symon, Neil and their friends, all thrown together aged seven for a Granada TV show.

What almost no one realised, as the show became a national obsession, was that it had a twin, a second documentary that mirrored its findings... but with a group of subjects whose average age was 79. This other programme is being aired tonight for the first time since 1964 – restored, re-edited and retitled 70Up: The Victorians.

Its premise is close to that of 7Up, which introduced the country to a selection of children: some from private schools, some from middle-class homes, some from the East End of London.

The pensioners also came from across the social classes. They were, the voiceover intones, ‘the children of Queen Victoria’s imperial Britain’. And because they are at the end of their lives, not the start, they have a wealth of wonderful anecdotes, extraordinary experiences and fascinating opinions to impart.

But apart from their age – the oldest was born in 1870 – there’s one notable difference. Whereas just four of the 14 children in 7Up were girls, the majority of those in 70Up were women. The reason was twofold: millions of British men were killed or suffered life-limiting injuries during the two world wars.

Also, the average life expectancy for a British male born in 1890 was just 45 years, compared to 49 for a female, according to the Office for National Statistics. Women, in other words, had a better chance of living longer.

The painter Clara Hahn, like most of the participants, she appears to have been discovered by producers at an old folks’ home

A lady dressed like a character out of a Dickens novel says the pleasures of old age are helping others

The average Victorian family, we are told, had at least six children – with one in seven babies dying before reaching his or her first birthday. ‘I am the youngest of 15,’ revealed one lady, with a girlish giggle. ‘So we had a lovely time.’

Strange as it seems to modern viewers, almost none of the interviewees were named – nor would they have expected to be. In 1964, the celebrity era in Britain had yet to begin, and the idea that in the future ‘everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes’ (as Andy Warhol said in 1968) didn’t yet exist.

The result is that the faces on screen in 70Up are mostly unidentified. We can only hope viewers might spot relatives this evening and, perhaps with the help of old family photos, be able to supply a few names.

One who is named, probably because she was already known in the art world, was the painter Clara Hahn – though like most of the participants, she appears to have been discovered by producers at an old folks’ home.

Wrapped in a crocheted blanket, with a silk cravat and a transparent net over her fine white hair, she declared, ‘Well, I’m not elderly. I’m old, I’m very old indeed. I’m 94.’

One Cockney lady announced: ‘I’m quite happy, I don’t worry about nothing.’ Dressed in magnificent Victorian finery – a black hat smothered in artificial flowers, and a silk dress with a lace collar fastened by a brooch of shining black jet, she said: ‘I don’t want to die. I want to live to 100.’

The 1960s voiceover tells us: ‘The first and fundamental thing about the elderly is that, although they are of today, today’s world is often a stranger to them.’

All the myriad changes that overtook Britain in the 20th century are what make their reminiscences so remarkable. When they were young, the workhouse was an ever-present threat for people, especially the labouring classes, who fell into debt.

‘In olden times, going back to my mother’s days,’ said one woman with a shudder, ‘on ten shillings a week, nothing else, it meant the workhouse for them if they couldn’t pay their way. That’s how it was. Old age was a dread. I personally can dispel that fear. But our parents had that dread.’

The interviewees make almost no mention of the world wars. That was normal in the two decades after 1945: the subject was off limits for many people. Instead, they are baffled by the sheer speed of change.

Proudly wearing her wartime Civil Defence beret, this woman lamented the loss of Empire: ‘All these wretched countries that have taken off and gone away'

When they were born, the speed limit for motor vehicles was 4mph. Until 1896, the law required all cars to be preceded by a man with a red flag. By the time this film was made, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had gone into space and President John F Kennedy had pledged the US would put astronauts on the Moon.

Not that these technological and social advances impressed the Victorian generation very much. ‘You can look back and think what silly folks there are coming up today,’ scoffed one.

Another lady, proudly wearing her wartime Civil Defence beret, lamented the loss of Empire: ‘All these wretched countries that have taken off and gone away, what are they doing? Just fighting each other. It strikes me as being pretty dreadful. I much preferred it in Queen Victoria’s time.’

Some of them had vivid memories of figures who exist today only in history books. Clara Hahn once met the Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck, the man who unified Germany.

She visited him at his estate near Hamburg in 1893, hoping to take his photograph: ‘Just as the stable clock struck 12, the garden gate swung open, and out he came. His great dane was beside him. I went to meet him, carrying a bunch of flowers. He raised his hat, bowed very politely, and said, “But, young lady, this is all wrong. Old gentlemen don’t accept flowers from girls, surely.” And he picked a red rose out of the bunch and presented it to me with another polite bow. With that he drew himself up to his full height and I felt very small indeed.’

Other interviewees were not afraid of being controversial. Mrs Dorothy Rose, in her mid-80s, proposed euthanasia for the elderly. ‘I think we all live too long,’ she said, ‘the elderly people live too long. They’re 99 and 101, and gosh, we don’t want them. You have to have everything done for you, and you’re dependent on the people who look after you. Well, I think euthanasia should come in. It will, you’ll see. I shan’t live to see it, but they’re going to do it, I’m certain. They’ll have to.’

This still seems shocking now, despite the recent, narrowly defeated attempt in Parliament to pass a law permitting ‘assisted dying’.

How long until Mrs Rose’s prediction becomes reality, we cannot know, but it might not be long if the Bill is reintroduced. Just imagine how her idea must have sounded at a time when suicide had been a criminal act in Britain until three years earlier. Most, though, were content with their lot.

‘There are a lot of advantages in being elderly,’ chuckled one lady, in horn-rimmed glasses and pearls. ‘Sit back and take a back seat!’

‘Well, I think I’ve got what I want,’ said another, in a magnificent hat of black ostrich feathers. ‘I don’t think I can get more out of life than I do.’

‘I want to enjoy myself as much as I can,’ beamed a man with a broad South Wales accent.

And the last word goes to a lady in a hat and shawl that belonged on a Charles Dickens character. The pleasures of old age, she said, were, ‘happiness, and the power to help other people as much as we can’. In today’s cynical world, they are admirable sentiments that ring across the decades.