- Hello. - Hi. I'm Louis.
I'm Louis.
Oh, I can't shake your hand. [laughter]
Louis narrates: For 25 years,
I've been making programmes about life
in all its strangeness...
Stand by.
Information to follow.
Louis narrates: ..mystery... - Who are you?
- I'm Louis. - Who's Louis?
Louis narrates: ..and angst...
You OK, Nikki?
Louis narrates: Trying to make connections
with people who are, in different ways,
on the edge.
Not all of us want to be like this.
Louis narrates: Recently, I decided to take a pause,
and trawl through my old shows,
looking again at some stories that stayed with me...
Yeah, this has stuff in it.
Louis narrates: And to reach out to those I'd featured...
Woman on phone: Look at you, Mr Beard and Moustache!
I know. Don't I look distinguished?
Louis narrates: ..to see how their lives have changed.
You've been married six times.
Henry VIII was married six times,
so it's not unprecedented.
[laughs]
Hey. How you doing?
- Good. How are you? - Good.
Louis narrates: From all the hours of programmes,
I've teased out a handful of themes...
- This is gonna be the start
of the second American Civil War!
White revolution!
- Why did you run? - Because they shoot anybody,
and they don't care who it is.
Point blank range,
they'll pull a gun out and shoot you.
Louis narrates: ..all of which, in different ways,
go to the heart of what it means to be human.
[man yells in rage] - You OK?
It seems like every day,
I get delivered from something else
that I didn't even know I had.
Louis narrates: ..trying to figure out
what I've learned about life,
and about myself.
What connection is there between a birth mum and a child?
[sobbing]
You don't feel loved by Rob?
- No, not particularly.
I feel like I'm a burden.
It's wakey-wakey time.
- No.
No, pants first, remember?
Pants first.
Louis narrates: In a way, I see family
as the deepest of all subjects.
The most intimate stories,
because you see people at home,
in settings that are as revealing
as you could imagine.
Over the years,
family was obviously always in the background
to all the stories I did in some way...
..but it didn't become the foreground until 2006...
..when I did the first story I ever did on a family.
I mean, a family of a very strange sort,
a family of religious zealots,
extremists if you like, in Kansas.
That's quite nice.
It says, "Rules that you should obey,
"from Noah Phelps-Roper to Louis."
Noah, who would have been probably seven...
..six, seven years old,
from the Phelps family, Westboro Baptist church -
he made me this little booklet on how to conduct my life.
"Obey, obey, don't kill people.
"Don't marry two people.
"Don't go to a fag church.
"Don't join the army or you will die."
I had known about the Westboro Baptist Church
going back years.
It was founded by a man called Pastor Fred Phelps.
They were famous for their pickets
where they would wave
very offensive homophobic placards.
And then, they began picketing the funerals of soldiers
killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[bell tolls, protesters sing]
And the idea was that the soldiers' deaths
were punishment
for America's tolerance of homosexuality.
And so, based on that,
we thought, "Maybe there's a story here."
- ♪ I'm ashamed to be an American ♪
♪ Where the fags can freely roam ♪
♪ They spread their filth around this land ♪
♪ Every pervert calls it home
♪ God hates the USA.
[doorbell rings]
- Hi. - Hi, there.
- You must be Shirley. - Yes.
- I'm Louis. - Hi, Louis.
How do you do?
So, these are your signs.
You've got "God hates fags" here.
- Uh-huh, and God hates you.
Just don't think of fags
as just those guys who are taking it up the tail pipe.
Think of it as people
who are involved in some perverted sex act,
and I am talking about anything other than
one man, one woman in their marriage bed.
- Hi, guys. - Hi.
- Hey. - Hi.
- This is Gabriel.
- How do you do?
Go put your stuff away.
- And Grace. This is Grace. - How do you do?
- Hi. - Come on, guys.
Let's get out of here, let's bail.
This is our corner.
Come on, little boys.
Zack, you hop in in case he wants you to stay.
- So, um... - Zack, call me.
..I'm gonna keep a little bit of a distance because I'm not
- part of the picket. - That's OK.
Louis: There were about 70 members in the church,
almost all from one family.
And they believed that by going on pickets
and hurling abuse,
they thought that was the most Christian thing they could do.
Women: America is doomed!
- This is shameful.
Right down shameful.
You got little kids like this...
- You obviously raised your brat for the devil,
your big bratness-brat for the devil.
- What was he talking about? - He's talking about,
[mockingly] "I don't agree with fags
"but, you know, que sera sera."
- Fuck you! - You think you can fix this?
With that? You think you're gonna change God?
You know why you're there, you fucking bitch?
Because you are a rebellious brat,
that's why!
Louis: I began spending time with this family,
trying to understand it.
You know, they would go to normal schools
and go to normal jobs,
but they weren't allowed to fraternise or socialise.
They weren't allowed to mix.
They couldn't go on dates, have coffees un-chaperoned,
and realistically,
they knew that there was a high likelihood
they'd never be married, never have kids,
and I was curious about that.
- Hi. - How are you doing?
- Good. - Can we come in?
Uh-huh.
It's not sinful to get married, is it?
And if you wanted to do that, then how do you do that?
Well, first of all,
I don't think that's ever gonna happen.
- Why wouldn't that happen? - Are you kidding me?
Are you kidding me?
Because I'm Jael Phelps and I serve God, that's why.
That's why.
And I'm not gonna seek after it.
I'm not gonna dwell on it.
It's not my interest, it's not my focus.
I'm a dumb young girl,
but I am not that dumb and goofy
to go... [scoffs] It's so silly.
I'm not gonna talk...
I don't want to talk about it anymore, OK?
So, I don't wanna go there.
Louis: As with any kind of ultra controlled sect...
..you know, I was curious about the mechanisms of control,
and also the mechanisms of self control,
and the way in which the indoctrination took place...
..how it was passed down to the younger generation.
How old are you, Shirley?
- Seven. - Seven.
Do you know what the sign means?
No.
- No?
Maybe she's just out here making up numbers, you know,
because she doesn't really get it.
Noah, do you know what fag troops are?
- Yeah. - What?
It's this nation of these fags.
It's a nation of fags,
that's what fag troops means.
- It is a nation of fags, that's right.
Wait, wait, wait. You're not gonna let him
- get away with that, are you? - Oh! It's fag soldiers!
- No, I'm not gonna... - Fag soldiers!
- OK, fag soldiers.
I am sort of glad that they don't understand it better.
- Well, you understand...
Noah, do you know what else you could be besides a fag
to be in trouble with God and be included in that sign?
Erm...
Umm, soldiers and...
- But what are you?
If you're not a practising fag, what are you?
What if you support fags, what does that make you?
- You're a dyke. - [laughs]
You could say you're...
what you're really doing is grooming him
into the weird behaviour
that is a characteristic of your group.
I mean, if you want to explain your moral outlook to him,
you could do that in a classroom.
- Are you calling our service to our God 'weird behaviour'?
- Is that what you just did? - Yes.
You don't get to call our service to God weird,
and thereby make it so.
Your statement doesn't make it right,
doesn't make it a fact.
- The world calls it weird.
- I don't care what the...
Well, yes, and the world hates us.
Hello?
Louis narrates: What struck me was that these were people
who, if raised in other situations elsewhere,
would have been normal, productive people,
nice people,
but they were carrying on this process of indoctrination
based on the distorted vision of this angry old man,
Pastor Fred Phelps.
- America's doomed.
It's almost 18 months now
and the siege has got people eating their babies...
..and their small children, and each other!
You're gonna eat your babies!
And any preacher preaching it any other way
is a lying, hell-bound false prophet.
Louis Theroux, a demon-possessed...
..BBC documentary maker.
Woe unto Louis Theroux.
God's woe means he's going to hell.
Louis: Gramps, the old patriarch,
gave a sermon, which he released also as a press release.
"Louis Theroux thinks
"he has cutesy little endearing qualities
"that will make him rich -
"feigned humility, self effacing naiveté on camera,
"innocent-sounding questions,
"wide-eyed enthusiasm and pretended befuddlement.
"All gimmickry.
"A shrewd, satanic manipulator for sin."
That's good stuff.
I mean, he kind of nails it.
[chuckles]
I didn't think he was paying that much attention to me.
I think what you see in the Westboro story
is the extremes of what a family does to itself.
Pastor: ..England and America, the rest of this evil world...
Louis: The extraordinary pain that it inflicts on its members,
but which the members put up with
because of the love that they experience.
Pastor: ..no longer keeps America safe...
- In the case of Westboro,
the family is more or less torturing itself...
..and then, there comes a breaking point.
Even when I was there,
people talked about people who'd left,
family members who had gone their own way.
And then, after I left,
Megan Phelps-Roper,
Shirley's daughter and right-hand person, left.
99.9% of Americans...
- She also made it her mission to speak out...
..from a loving place
about what happens inside the church,
in the hope of actually
getting more people to leave.
- The end of this spiral of rage and blame,
begins with one person
who refuses to indulge these destructive, seductive impulses.
We just have to decide that it's going to start with us.
Louis narrates: When she left,
Megan got in touch with me.
Hello.
Louis narrates: We stayed in touch...
- Hey. Louis narrates: ..emailing
back and forth intermittently and we became friends.
How are you doing, anyway?
- I'm good. I'm finding the bright side,
- and it's nice. - That's great.
Louis narrates: She's been completely cut off
from her family for years now,
and is not allowed under any circumstances
to visit her Mum.
It changes over time, you know,
the way that the pain feels.
But it doesn't...
It changes because I'm changing, you know,
I'm getting older.
I now am a mom,
and so I have these memories of my mom
coming up all the time now,
and sometimes it'll make me happy,
and sometimes it'll make me cry,
but, like, it's...it's...
She's my mom. It never goes away.
It's not the past.
It's now, and that's incredibly painful,
no matter how long it's been.
Louis: Families come under pressure.
It's often to do with the intolerable demands
made by family members.
Sometimes, as with Westboro, due to indoctrination...
..but also, in fact, more often,
because of illness, because of disease,
because of mental decline.
Around 2011, I went through a kind of crisis.
I felt like I'd run out of stories I was interested in.
I don't know, I just felt I was in danger
of repeating myself, of doing re-treads,
And the only story that we had...on the slate,
that I was excited about,
that felt new and different and interesting to me...
..was about people with dementia.
Phoenix, Arizona,
is a population centre of the elderly
and, therefore, of dementia.
And also a centre for pioneering techniques
in coping with dementia and its symptoms...
..so we decided to base ourselves there,
at a residential home called Beatitudes.
One of the men there was called Gary Gilliam.
He had vascular dementia brought on by a heart attack.
This is a hard place to get out.
Louis narrates: Big personality, very humorous,
beloved by all the other residents.
- I'd like to know where the in hell...?
- Hmm. - You OK?
Well, I'm worried.
I'm just gonna walk up here and see if I can't...
What are you worried about?
What am I worried about?
There's nothing to worry about.
Well, guys get out and get lost.
Louis: What sort of things do you enjoy doing here?
How do you keep busy?
- This is my workplace. - Doing?
Dentistry, or working on something dental,
or doing, you know, whatever.
Whatever they want to put me to, I don't care.
It's not really a medical building
or something like that,
but here we are.
I ain't never leaving.
it's kind of strange that way.
Does he know where he is?
- He does know. He's, um...
- He seems to think he's involved
in a dental practice here.
I know, yeah, and one of the ways we redirect him
is to have him examine our teeth.
- When you say... redirect means what?
- If he's on a mission to go outside,
or if he's just having one of those moments,
that he's irritable, you can easily redirect him by saying,
"Hey, Dr Gary, I have a problem with my tooth.
"Can you look inside my mouth?" And he will.
- You want to take a walk with me?
- Sure, I'll walk with you.
See, now, they change these things around
every other week.
"Push until alarm sounds.
"Door can be opened in 15 seconds."
That's a siren going off for 15 seconds
through this building. You can't use that.
- No. - That's ridiculous.
No.
So, you know, what can I do? I'm screwed.
Someone told me you used to be a dentist?
- I am a dentist. - Is that true?
I guess once a dentist, always a dentist, you know?
It's like being born...
..an Indian or something, you know,
you're always gonna be an Indian.
Would you take a quick look at my teeth?
- Yes, sir. I would.
- They're not very clean, though.
Oh, I know.
- You're a Brit, aren't you? - Yeah.
Well, you guys don't clean your teeth like we do.
I know.
Bite down, please.
You got good occlusion.
You know, you're in cross bite back there.
- Uh-oh. - Yeah.
I wouldn't do anything about it
'cause it's not gonna hurt you now.
- How well do you feel you know Dawn?
- Know who? - Dawn.
Oh, do I know you?
Well, I haven't known you very much,
because if I would, I'd remember you forever.
- Aww. - 'Cause you're a pretty lady.
You remember the pretty ladies, huh?
- I try to. - Right.
I think I'm losing my grasp.
He tells me that every day. It's good for my ego.
[chuckles]
And are you married?
- No, sir. - No.
Nobody would have me. I had a...you know...
I had a sign out in the yard for a long time.
It got to be embarrassing.
- What about Carla? - Carla?
That's the meanest little booger in the world
- but I just love her. - Who's Carla?
She's a little gal about this tall, isn't she?
- And she came to work for me. - Right, exactly.
And then she ended up running my office.
- Mm-hm. - Did an excellent job of it.
- She did. - She's really a nice person.
- She is. - I think a lot of her.
- Yes.
Louis narrates: Carla was still married to him,
but he no longer recognised her as his wife.
- There's Gary with his dogs. He just loves his dogs.
- What was the Gary of old like?
- Definitely an outdoorsman.
Highly intelligent, very interested in everything.
And remembered things verbatim.
- Did he? Good memory.
Has he gone back to a particular point in time?
- I think he's more in his 20s, early 30s.
I'm not even his spouse,
because in his mind,
he would have never gotten married.
In terms of your relationship with Gary now,
how fulfilling is that for you?
When he's really sweet and just kind of caring,
then, oh, yeah, I savour that,
but it's very little, yeah.
Hey, Gary.
- I see you're getting photographed.
- Yes.
That means you'll be in jail in a month.
- Yes. - OK.
Yes, so...
- Hi, Gary. - Hello.
- You remember me? - Yes, I do.
Louis narrates: Carla used to take Gary out for lunch,
but it was more complicated than you might think.
- Here are his two ladies, right there.
Hi, Pat. Hi, Betty. How are you doing?
- Oh, I'm doing just fine.
- Good.
- I just need to ask you something quickly, Carla.
You said these are two special friends of Gary's.
Yes. Betty is very possessive,
but Pat is more normal.
Then don't bring them both.
No, absolutely not. No, we're going with Pat.
I don't understand why he's...
You know, would it not be more normal
for him to put his arm around you?
Err, no, he's never been...
physically very... I'm just his buddy.
There's another lady called Betty.
And did you say that there's more intimacy
in that relationship?
Well, she, I guess,
has always taken her clothes off,
and I've seen her a couple times,
um and, um...
I don't know what happens after that.
- Taking her clothes off?
In his room, yeah.
- And getting into bed with him? - My guess is yeah.
The idea of Gary with another woman,
performing sexually, wouldn't trouble you the least?
No, I just realise it's the disease,
and it's the way it is,
and it's unconditional love.
It's nothing to be bad for me,
you know, it's not... Um, no.
- Carla and Gary are in a relationship
in which he's seeing other women at the care home...
..'cause he doesn't think he's married,
he thinks he's a bachelor.
And, you know, with Carla, she doesn't stop loving Gary.
She just has to deal with this new Gary.
- Bye, Gary.
- See you, kid. - OK, love you.
- Nice doing business with you. - Ditto.
- It's business?
When she comes into town.
So it's a depiction of love, but love under extreme stress.
Are you gonna take me with you?
- No. - Where you going?
- You're still here, remember? You got a year's lease.
So I have to stay here?
- This is where you live,
and I live in South Chandler...
..in my own house.
Jesus.
- So, where are we going? - Me and you...
- You're staying with April.
- You're staying with me.
We have the pleasure of that.
- Let's go. - Really?
Yeah, come on, you got the pleasure of being with me.
What are you?
- What do I call you? - Huh?
Louis narrates: Afterwards, I heard
that Gary moved to a different facility.
He declined further.
This is February 2016.
It's a rather touching portrait of Gary and Carla,
close to the end, done by a Phoenix radio station.
Carla [on recording]: I am Carla,
and I am married to Dr Gary Gilliam.
I knew Hospice of the Valley
was gonna be part of the end of our journey...
..and the day that I get the phone call
that he has gone somewhere else...
- [Gary mutters indistinctly] - [Carla chuckles]
Carla: I have no regrets.
Louis: Gary died...
..not long after this, in 2016.
Carla: I love you.
- Making the dementia film was huge for me,
because it gave me the confidence
to tell other stories
in a similar vein,
so in the years afterwards,
I took on documentaries about families
enduring extraordinarily stressful
and emotional events...
- Langston. - It's your grandmother.
Come on, turn your head over
and give me a smile.
Hey, come on over here.
Louis narrates: ..going through the most profound,
life-changing situations.
- What connection is there
between a birth mum and a child?
- It seems to be a connection that's...
..just there.
I know that Isaiah feels that.
The connection seems to be in the heart.
- Hi. - How are you?
- Good.
Louis: Families involve interdependence.
We support one another.
Very often, we are entrusted with making decisions
especially when other family members
are vulnerable in some way,
either because they're old, or because they're young,
their minds are still immature, still developing.
We make decisions for children all the time.
In important respects,
we consider that they are incapable
of deciding what's best for themselves.
The end of 2014,
I was living in America
and we were looking for new ideas,
and over the years,
I'd seen documentaries about trans adults,
and people transitioning in adulthood,
and then someone I worked with
suggested a documentary on trans kids.
And I thought, with children,
the stakes were higher,
because they and their parents
are making decisions
that will affect their whole lives.
Smile.
Louis narrates: The main family that I spent time with,
the kid was called Camille...
- Careful. Stay out of the road, Camille.
Louis narrates: ..and Camille's parents were Casey
and Eduardo.
Camille had only just turned six.
Obviously quite young, but clearly intelligent,
full of life, full of humour and energy.
Camille: Oh, my god, that was close!
Louis narrates: So we accompanied Camille
on her first visit
to a gender specialist called Diane Ehrensaft.
So, Camille, the first thing I'm gonna ask you
is just to draw a picture of a person.
That's me. I can draw myself on here.
That's me.
- So, when you were born a long time ago,
your mommy and daddy thought they had
a little boy named Sebastian.
Right now, how would you describe yourself?
- A girl. Not a boy, I'm a girl.
- You're a boy and a girl,
but you'd like to be a girl and not a boy.
Not a boy and a girl anymore.
- Not a boy and a girl anymore? - Not transgender.
- And not transgender.
But so, what shall we call it?
Um, girl.
Louis narrates: The doctors and clinicians
I met in San Francisco
were supporters of the idea
of children being able to make the choice to transition.
- Bye, Diane. - Goodbye.
Louis narrates: What they told me was,
"If you transition as a kid,
"and you become a trans girl," let's say,
"It was better for your long-term mental health."
[horn honks]
- Hello. - Hello.
- Can I come in? - Come on in.
- A change of outfit. Look at that.
What's striking, looking around,
is all the photos of Camille as Sebastian...
- Yeah. - ..looking very boyish.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- To me, that one's a tough one,
because that was the last time we captured Sebastian.
In honest opinion, that was the last time
we saw that, you know, spikey little hair,
and the cute little clothes.
I think it was really, for me,
kind of saying goodbye.
And I don't...and it's not a bad thing in my mind,
it's kind of like, "Yeah, that was the phase. We're done."
Louis: What is going on? Camille, what are you doing?
Putting lipstick on.
- How...for how long have you been using Camille
and the 'she' pronoun at home?
- A month. - A month.
- Just a month, so this is all really new for you.
This is very, very new.
We get confused quite often.
- How are you feeling about it?
I'm fine.
It's just hard getting used to going from one to the other.
It's difficult, it's really difficult.
It's not an easy thing to do.
- Do you find it confusing ever?
- Yeah, yeah.
I think that's kind of par for the course sometimes,
and I think it's that way with kids a lot,
but definitely with discovering who you are as a person.
- Trying to figure out what is solid
and consistent and dependable?
And cater to that and support that.
It is difficult.
I'm not gonna lie, it's not easy.
This is not a very easy thing.
We may have had not so bad of a time at this,
but it's not an easy road to travel. You...
It's gut wrenching...
..honestly.
Louis narrates: The hub of the action
for the programme
was a gender clinic at UC San Francisco.
Charlie.
So, do you prefer boy pronouns like 'he',
or girl pronouns like 'she'?
I just want to do it the way you want it.
On the face of it, you have what seems
a relatively straightforward...process -
the decision to support the child
in how he or she views him or herself,
in terms of, you know, their gender...
..but there are also medical interventions
that go along with that.
Louis: What's he doing?
A month ago, he had another implant put in.
What do you mean by an implant?
Shay's on a puberty blocker.
- Hi, Shay. I'm Louis.
As you understand it,
what is that little thing in there doing?
- Making it so I don't go through puberty.
- And why don't you want to go through puberty?
- Because I don't want to be a girl.
- You don't want to? - No.
As puberty looms on the horizon,
the child is given...
assuming he or she wants to keep on that path,
given puberty blockers,
and then at a certain point, cross gender hormones,
all of which are quite serious biological interventions.
Any way you look at it, it's a big decision,
on a question that will have lifelong medical consequences
and psychological consequences.
The heart of the documentary
was Camille and Camille's family...
..just following the process of the transition,
and I was there
when Camille went to school in a dress for the first time.
Louis! [parents chuckle]
- Hello, there. How's it going?
Look at you! What a nice dress.
Was it any different
wearing a dress than it is normally?
You don't think Camille is still exploring...
..trying different things?
I don't know.
Honestly, it's been such a...
..quick journey in the last one year
that we've been going through this
that it doesn't feel like...
..there's a lot of the exploration left.
Now it's...
..big leaps and bounds forward.
- After the program went out...
..I had the impression that
we were kind of surfing the wave of quite a big cultural moment.
Literally, within a month or so around our transmission...
..in 2015...
..Caitlyn Jenner came out as trans.
Actors like Laverne Cox.
But then, increasingly, you heard dissenting voices.
Now, in recent years,
there's been a huge increase in the number of children
reporting gender dysphoria.
Louis narrates: Early transitioning
became a topic of debate
on the most mainstream TV shows.
There are now people who are in their mid-20s,
and there's no coincidence about that age, either,
but in their mid-20s,
who are looking back and saying,
"I really regret what I've done."
You know, it's a little over five years
since I saw Camille and the family.
But we've stayed in touch,
and Camille's now 11 years old.
In the end, I try and focus on what I can see,
which is Camille's story.
Loving, supportive parents,
trying to do the best thing for Camille.
Hello.
Hey! How you doing?
Good. How are you?
Louis narrates: And they're moving along,
full-steam ahead, with her transition.
I mean, that's...these are big decisions that she's made,
and she's made them informed decisions.
No decision is made by any of us.
It's all Camille-led.
[laughs] She's the president of this team,
and then now we're hitting puberty.
We're gonna be getting her puberty blocker installed.
"Installed" - it sounds like a car! [laughs]
- Does that feel like a big step?
Does that feel like a choice
that you need to think about and interrogate?
Or does that just feel like,
"OK, that's what we're gonna do"?
Yeah, it just feels like...
Yeah, it's just gonna happen that...
I really don't care because this is...
I know this is what I want.
- That's an excellent summation of who she is as a person.
She really is the kid
who knows exactly what she wants,
every second of every day,
and moves forward with it,
and never questions herself.
Louis narrates: To me, what's most important
is they seem to be doing really well,
- and that Camille seems happy. - Bye!
She's growing up, she's super smart,
comes across as mature and well-adjusted,
so that's what I see.
Come on!
- 2015, I was living in London with the family,
and we'd had our third son,
and I couldn't really travel for work.
For the previous 20 years,
I'd been making programmes in America and elsewhere,
but not in the UK.
I think for me,
there'd always been a kind of safety
in being among people who were very different to me...
..and now, here I was, faced with doing stories
with no culture difference to hide behind.
I'm gonna count to five...
One of the ideas I looked at
was to do with brain injury.
A lot of the film centred on a family.
Rob and Amanda were the parents' names.
The children, the two boys,
were a similar age to my two oldest boys,
and Amanda had fallen off a horse.
- Hi, Rob. - Good morning.
- How you doing? Alright? - Louis.
Louis narrates: She'd spent 18 months
in a brain injury unit.
When we arrived the first time,
she's only literally a couple of days
out of supported accommodation
and they'd put a huge effort into adapting their home
so that she could live there, in an annexe.
So, it's a story that's both extreme
and very close to home.
- So, this is your new house?
- Yes, this is all... Yeah, the main bit we have.
- And you've been here for how long?
- Two weeks this weekend. - Two weeks.
Pictures!
Is it nice having Mummy back living with you?
- Yeah.
- Quite a big change, isn't it? - Yeah.
Kiss.
- Mwah! - Properly.
- Nah.
- Yes. - Oh.
Mwah.
- That's too quick and rubbish. - Never mind.
- Where's Daddy gone? - I mind.
- Where's Daddy?
- Where is Amanda?
So, this is Amanda's bedroom,
Amanda's kitchen.
Whether she uses it or not, I don't know.
She hasn't yet, so it's...
There is a lock on there.
That was one of Amanda's stipulations,
that she wanted the door locked.
- She wanted a lock on the door? - Yes, yeah.
What was that about?
- Erm, perhaps a bit of privacy, I think.
You know, she's been in an institution
for such a long time,
I think for her to come home
and have just a bit of independence,
to be honest.
- That's Amanda, is it? - Mm-hm.
- Yeah. That's Amanda there. - Is that Amanda?
- Yeah. - What was that for?
Amanda: ABBA night.
- Oh, yeah. - Now, where are you, Rob?
- Err, there, there. - So that's you.
So, on Wednesday, you came back from the unit.
- Yes. - And, as I understand it,
to begin with, you were saying that you'd like to come out
- to your own house... - Yes.
..and not even be in the family home.
- Yes. Mm-hm. - Is that right? Why was that?
- Erm, I don't know.
I just felt I would be better on my own,
me and my dogs and my cats.
- Amanda having her own house isn't doable.
She would need a 24/7 carer.
It's cheaper for Amanda to go into a care home.
That's a 38-year-old going into a care home.
No way.
- That's just... - I wouldn't have minded.
No, sadly.
As far as you are aware,
you feel you're the same person.
- Yes. - And you've got
some physical things that you need to work on.
- Yes. - But there haven't been,
sort of in your own sense of things,
personality changes, or even brain damage, if you like.
- Mmm, that's how I feel. - Is that how you feel about it?
- Rob, is that your perspective, as well?
No.
No, I mean Amanda's still Amanda, of course,
and there's still lots of Amanda...
I say the 'old' Amanda, it's not the right word to use,
but there's definite changes...
..you know, without a doubt.
Especially on the emotional side of it -
like, I find that quite hard.
Your emotions are quite flat,
and I do notice that things annoy you more.
I mean, you've always said that you've lost your squishy side.
Mm-hm.
- At the risk of asking an intrusive question,
so you've been together 22 years?
Rob: Mm-hm. - That's a long relationship.
Amanda: Yes. - Were you happy together?
- Yes. - Very, yeah.
Good team.
Best buddies. It was good.
Yeah, it was good, and it still is good,
just different, for the time being.
[inhales deeply] Yeah.
- Stop tapping. - I know, drumming constantly.
Stop it.
Louis narrates: It became clear
that there were strains there.
Strains that, in some way, were completely recognisable
from any young family.
- Oh, a little chip.
Louis narrates: Kids not behaving,
Mum and Dad being tetchy with each other
because they're tired, or whatever...
- Nice.
- ..but with that sort of multiplied
by the brain condition that Amanda had.
A few weeks later,
I went back for a second visit to see how it was going.
- All OK? - Yeah, good.
- Been difficult, hasn't it? - Yeah.
- Difficult in what way?
- Um... Just we'd sort of had the idea
that Amanda was gonna be in the annexe,
- that was her sort of... - I'm dead. I'm dead.
..prerequisite for coming home,
was that she would stay in the annexe,
but she hasn't, so it's made it a little bit difficult.
Amanda's...not brilliant with the boys,
just because she's got a bit of a short fuse.
And as she says, she's lost her 'squidgy bit',
so she'll go from being super, super nice
to... [imitates explosion] ..straight in,
all singing, all dancing, lots of shouting.
You said you've found it a bit hard, Mummy being back.
Why was that?
- Because she's been shouting at me non-stop.
Ooh, a blue tit! Sorry.
Err, yeah, she's been shouting at me non-stop.
- Yeah, well, I could see that would be hard.
- Yeah. - Because of the brain injury.
Yeah.
- Oscar, are you hungry? - Mmm?
- I'm tuning it! - No, thank you. I'm not hungry.
[indistinct chatter from TV]
How do you feel now about being back?
- You feel it's the right move? - It's nice.
I get to see my kids every day...
..even if they don't want to see me.
- Hey!
- You wouldn't cuddle me last night before bed.
[babbles]
- That made me sad.
- I know, but...
"I know, but" what?
- I was already in bed snuggled up
- really, really, really tight. - I only wanted a cuddle.
Do you care that you made me sad?
[groans] It's not that, it's... [groans]
He wouldn't give me a cuddle night-night.
- No, it's not that, it's...
- Do you still love me?
Yes! Why wouldn't I?
- Because you don't behave like you do.
Louis: You get the feeling that aspects of family life
really grated on Amanda's nerves,
and, you know, one of the things that a brain injury can do
is sort of rub away some of that...
patience, tolerance, sense of forbearing.
Rob: You ready to attempt this Thai green curry?
- Is it worth attempting? - I hope so.
Louis narrates: Amanda wasn't totally happy.
Rob seemed, to me, close to breaking point.
Amanda: You laugh at me.
I wasn't laughing at you, I was just laughing.
- Mmm.
Mm-hm.
- Don't believe you. - No.
- It feels like
you're a little bit angry with Rob.
He makes me out to be a bad person.
You believe I'm a bad person.
Mmm.
Louis: Do you really believe that about Rob,
that he thinks you're actually a bad person?
- Yeah, I do.
Take that grin off your face, smoky pants.
[Amanda chuckles softly]
Yeah, it's a grin counteracting a...
- You don't really think that about Rob,
- do you? - I do.
He doesn't like the way I am now.
But like I said, the person he married
died the day I fell off that horse.
I am what's left...
..and I don't think I'm enough for you anymore.
You don't feel loved by Rob?
- No, not particularly.
I feel like I'm a burden.
- Rob was saying that he would like more
of the sort of cuddling,
- "I love you"... - Mm-hm.
- ..stuff. - He's just a perv.
- OK. [all laugh]
Just go and get a shag, I don't care.
What's up, Oscar?
- What do you need?
Louis: What I took away from the experience
of filming with them
was that life can be very unfair.
That a lightening strike of misfortune
can derail your life.
And as much as they adapted,
as much as they did their best with the new situation,
there's no question in my mind
that the horse fall and the brain injury
was horrendous,
and they had to get on with life.
So these profound, life-changing events...
..you know, you tend to go, kind of stumble through life
thinking, "Don't sweat the small stuff -
"brackets - it's all small stuff."
Well, some of it isn't small stuff.
Amanda's moved out of the family home.
She's got her own place now, with round-the-clock support.
Rob is checking up on her most days.
They speak every day
and he'll take the boys over every weekend to see her.
- Hello. - Hello. [laughs]
- You're looking quite red.
Is it my screen or are you actually that red?
- I don't know. Perhaps I've got a disease.
You... [laughs]
- Am I red? Rob: Yeah, you're red.
I'm red, apparently.
Rob's there with you.
- Hiya! - Yes.
- I'm hiding, I'm here. Oh, you can't see me.
- I can see you now.
You're looking quite red, as well.
Thank you for doing this.
Your life was changed...
..beyond recognition,
and when you look back, how do you make sense of it?
- There is no sense to be made.
It just is what it is, and I was unlucky.
And they gave me a 30% chance of survival
and I proved them wrong,
'cause I'm still here.
How's your relationship with Rob?
He's still my best friend.
And he's now got a new girlfriend.
So, yeah,
he's moved on with his life. I'm happy being single.
- What I observed was,
you do quite a bit of...teasing of Rob.
I was 17 when... I was still at school
when we met,
and now I am 40-flipping-3
and I still love him.
And he still makes me laugh and he's still a bugger.
[chuckles] But he's mine.
I wonder if it would make sense to talk to the both of you
- together for a minute. - OK.
Would you be alright to do that?
- Yeah.
- There he is. [chuckles]
He's hiding behind the door. Come in!
If I can just
take an outsider's perspective for a moment...
..what I am hearing is you're happy in your house,
but you feel Rob's moved on in a way that's really painful.
Yes he has, but are you happy?
- Yeah.
- Do you love her? - Yeah.
- You do? - Yeah.
Ah, that's the first time he's said that.
Yeah, but I don't really talk about it with you
because it'll probably hurt.
Well, it does anyway. It's been three years.
Rob: Mmm.
If Rob ever decided, like,
in order to make his new relationship work,
that he needed to establish more distance...
..from you, Amanda,
would you be able to let go, do you think?
I already have.
It doesn't make me happy, but I have.
He's got his own life, I just disapprove.
So I've already let go.
There you go.
But you call him quite a lot, I think.
Erm, every day.
- Maybe more than once?
- Only if he doesn't answer.
If Rob said, "OK,
"in order to move on with my life,
"I need you to stop calling"...?
I'd be sad, but I would stop.
That's it, I'm not calling you ever again.
OK, that's fine, that's fine.
OK, done.
- That's never gonna happen. - There we go.
I'm glad I could sort that out for you.
- Yeah.
[both laugh]
[baby coos]
Please, don't.
Rob: Mummy!
Mind this arm, that's it,
and you can sit on my leg. That's better.
Rob: There's the two brothers.
Amanda: Oscar's having a busy day.
Oh, cool dude. Sunnies, shorts and wellies.
Shorts and wellies!
Amanda: Fab-o.
- How did I die?
That's a great place to stop.
- No, Dad. - Yeah, it's time to go up.
- No, Dad!
- You can read some more of these books, if you like.
- Read them? - Yeah.
- I saw how much all of them
were willing to put themselves through
to make it work.
I think, in the end...
..for that family, that family made the decision
that they needed to make.
Amanda: Oliver. - Yeah?
Amanda: What are you doing?
Rob: Oli, Oli, Oli!
Louis narrates: Love is hard...
..and subject to all different kinds of strains
to do with people changing.
Or people succumbing
to serious diseases like dementia...
- You guys want some floss or something?
- I've got my own, thanks. - OK.
Louis narrates: ..or their behaviour just being impossible.
- You haven't seen Solvi in a few weeks.
- Hi, Solvi!
Do you remember...?
Louis narrates: And it's in the nature of love
that because of how powerful it is,
that it brings risk with it...
..the risk that it will end.
I'm just smiling at you.
- Why? - I don't know.
Louis narrates: But you don't stop loving
because of the risk.
In fact, the risk is what makes love so precious...
"They were playing Chip's new game,
"secret of the sands."
Love you. [kisses]
- Goodnight! - Goodnight.
Louis narrates: ..which makes it
all the more important
that you value every minute that you have it.
Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.tv