THE spotlight has fallen once more on a farmer's son from Hawkswick with ITV's broadcast of 49 Up.

As ITV celebrates its golden anniversary year, 49 Up visits the group of people whose lives have been documented since they were seven to see where they are now as they approach their half century.

Nick Hitchon was only six and a pupil at Arncliffe School when he was chosen by ITV's World in Action to take part in Seven Up back in 1964.

Based on the Jesuit maxim "Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man", the pioneering programme took 14 children from a variety of backgrounds and asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Thanks to the popularity of the first programme, Michael Apted, a researcher on the original Seven Up, took over the project and he has followed Nick and the other children into adulthood, filming every seven years.

The original intention of the film's makers was to see to what extent British life was bound by its social and economic restrictions.

But Mr Apted admits the programme changed as it got older.

"It became less about a system and more about the drama of everyday life, marriage, children, holding down jobs, success, failure, love and loss, things we all relate to."

For Mr Hitchon's brother, Andrew, a former Craven Herald reporter now working in York, the whole experience was somewhat strange.

"I was only a year old when the first programme was made," said Andrew.

"But I was told later about some of the TV people's antics such as getting Nick to 'walk to school' (he actually went on a bus), a journey which went past a scenic local landmark for the purposes of the film, though it meant going in completely the wrong direction."

He added: "Taking my brother's example, had he followed the predicted pattern he would presumably have gone to work on the land, as his ancestors did for countless generations before him.

"Instead he went to Oxford University to study physics."

Nick went on to become Professor and Chair of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in America, where he has now lived since 1982.

In 49 Up, viewers will find out whether Nick's wife, Jackie, who admitted to missing Britain in 42 Up, has persuaded him to move back home with their son.