EXCLUSIVE: What occurred to the Tomorrow’s World schoolkids of 1966?

As a schoolgirl in 1966 she predicted that the world’s inhabitants might need ballooned a lot that, by the 12 months 2000, folks can be dwelling below the ocean.

EasyJet air stewardess Liz Bowyer, now 70, was one among 18 youngsters from three colleges who spoke to the BBC‘s Tomorrow’s World programme about their ideas – and fears – on what the long run would possibly appear to be.

The clip of their contributions – a few of which had been eerily correct and others heartwarmingly ridiculous – is often shared on social media and has been considered greater than 1,000,000 instances.  

Now, after practically 60 years, she and one other lady who contributed have been tracked down by MailOnline.

Mother-of-two Ms Bowyer and Pippa Warburton, 69, together with a number of of the opposite ladies within the clip, each went to the unique Roedean School.

Incredibly, Ms Bowyer, who stated she was ’embarrassed’ by the clip when it aired on TV, went on to briefly work as a secretary for MI6 and is now, as she proudly instructed the Mail, ‘the oldest cabin crew flying out of Gatwick Airport’.

Ms Warburton, who stated she was ‘fairly mouthy’ at Roedean, presciently predicted the top of South Africa‘s Apartheid regime and in addition hoped that poor and wealthy folks ‘will not look down on one another.’

The mother-of-four emigrated to Perth in her twenties after dwelling in Beirut, India and Sri Lanka. Now retired, she labored as a assist employee for weak folks and lives together with her husband Barry, whom she met within the UK.   

The different youngsters within the clip went to Marlborough College and Chippenham, which is now known as Hardenhuish.

One of the opposite ladies from Roedean, Ingrid Davidson, whose married identify was de Andres, died in 2021.

A fourth was traced by MailOnline however didn’t want to share her recollections.

It means there are 14 remaining former schoolchildren from the clip who’re but to talk out.  

As the identify attests, Tomorrow’s World, which ran from 1965 till 2003, was the right place for youngsters to provide their ideas on the long run.

The present, which was first hosted by former Spitfire pilot-turned-broadcaster Raymond Dankworth, profiled developments in science and expertise.

Ms Bowyer’s contribution was all about overpopulation. Back in 1966, the world’s inhabitants was lower than 3.5billion, now it’s nearing eight billion.

Then aged 13, she instructed viewers:  ‘I assume it is going to be very uninteresting. And folks might be squashed collectively a lot there will not be any enjoyable or something. 

‘And folks might be rationed to the quantity of issues they will have as a result of if they’d too many issues they might squash their homes and there simply would not be room for them.

‘There’ll be so many individuals that they’re going to should have an overflow into the ocean. And so there will be homes beneath the ocean and homes above the ocean.’ 

She instructed MailOnline that her participation started when she and different pupils had been requested to supply a portray of what they thought the world may be like within the 12 months 2000.

The stewardess stated she produced an outline of homes underwater which was later utilized by the BBC to advertise the episode of Tomorrow’s World.

She stated: ‘I used to be embarrassed on the time but it surely was additionally thrilling to see your self and your mates on tv. 

‘Back then there have been only a few channels, there wasn’t a variety of alternative.

‘I do bear in mind watching it and somebody phoned within the center to say “ooh you’re on television”. 

‘I did not precisely take advantage of profound statements on earth.’

At Roedean, which is on the outskirts of Brighton in East Sussex, Ms Bowyer was a boarder and didn’t see her household fairly often. 

‘Either facet of half time period we bought to exit as soon as. No cell phones. Nothing.

‘You could not go to the seaside till you bought the sixth kind. Otherwise we did not get out very a lot in any respect,’ she stated. 

Asked about her prediction that we’d be dwelling below the ocean, she admitted: ‘I do not assume I had thought in regards to the provide of oxygen and every part else. 

‘When you’re a little one of 13, it was years forward to 2000, however I did get it improper.’

Ms Bowyer stated she wasn’t ‘extremely tutorial’ and so left college after only a 12 months within the sixth kind.

She first went to ‘ghastly’ ending college after which to secretarial school.

Her transient first position as a secretary – at what she initially blandly known as the Foreign Office – turned out to be for MI6, is formally now generally known as the Secret Intelligence Service.

The company was made high-profile via its affiliation with Ian Fleming’s James Bond.

Calling it ‘very hush hush’, Ms Bowyer refused to disclose particulars of what she labored on however stated: ‘In these days it was the guide typewriters. Every night we used to have take the ribbon out of the typewriter and lock it away in secure.’

Chillingly, she instructed how MI6 officers probed deeply into her background, even asking if she was a virgin.  

She stated: ‘I used to be solely there for a couple of 12 months and a half to 2 years. What scared me was, in these days, I do perceive why they wished to know every part about you. 

‘Because then you definitely could not be blackmailed. They even wished to know intimate issues, had been you continue to a virgin, had been you on the tablet? That form of factor. 

‘Now, being older, I can perceive why they wanted to know. In these days it wasn’t talked about.’

Several years after leaving MI6, Ms Bowyer went travelling around the globe on her personal, visiting locations together with South Africa, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan and Guam. 

Much of her profession was spent within the catering trade, managing eating places.

But in 2005 she opted for a radical profession change by signing up with EasyJet. By then, she had two youngsters – a son and daughter.

Ms Bowyer, who’s divorced and lives together with her associate Jon, stated: ‘I joined EasyJet in 2005. I used to be in my 50s. When I used to be a toddler, being an air hostess was very glamorous. 

‘I at all times thought I might do it at some stage. Then life and household and youngsters and every part else took over. 

‘When the youngsters had been each away in school, I simply thought why not do what I’ve at all times wished? There’s no good saying I want. You’ve bought to strive it.’

She added of Easyjet: ‘I believe it has been an excellent firm to work for. In life you get what you give.’

Although she took voluntary redundancy throughout the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Ms Bowyer returned to the agency when she turned 70 final 12 months. 

‘I’m the oldest cabin crew flying out of Gatwick Airport,’ she stated proudly. 

In her Tomorrow’s World contribution, Ms Warburton, then aged 12, stated: ‘The black folks, you recognize, will not be form of separate, they may all be blended in with the white folks, and the poor folks and wealthy folks will turn out to be the identical. 

‘Well they are going to be poor and wealthy however they will not look down on one another.’

She instructed MailOnline that she was clumsily speaking in regards to the hoped for finish to Apartheid, which noticed black folks reside as second class residents in South Africa. 

‘It was fairly stunning and horrifying to me on the time. That’s what I used to be speaking about,’ she stated.

She added: ‘When I appeared again on the clip, notably at what the boys had been saying, they had been so perceptive. 

‘But I’m shocked they included mine. I most likely nonetheless do have a powerful sense of justice and I believe that is what I used to be awkwardly attempting to get throughout.’

Speaking of her time in school, she stated: ‘As a youthful pupil within the early days in Roedean I used to be fairly mouthy. 

‘I do not assume I used to be very properly favored by the lecturers, I used to be fairly impolite. 

‘I used to be not very completely happy there. As I grew older within the college I used to be fairly alienated from it actually. I haven’t got horrible recollections of it, however I haven’t got good recollections of it.

‘As far because the clip goes, I do not actually bear in mind. I probably bear in mind my mother and father speaking about it and asking me to return and watch it.’

Ms Warburton instructed how, when one among her daughters noticed the clip, they requested: “What was going on with your teeth!”

The query was a reference to her absent parts of her entrance enamel that she misplaced in an accident when she was ten and weren’t mounted till she turned 17. 

The mother-of-four’s father was a solicitor who labored within the media trade and acted for a sequence of well-known names, together with actress Vanessa Redgrave and Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. 

With the Cold War with the Soviet Union at its peak in 1966, lots of the different youngsters who featured on Tomorrow’s World had been deeply apprehensive about the specter of nuclear battle.

One boy stated: ‘All these atomic bombs might be dropping across the place. One will get close to the centre, as a result of it should make an enormous nice large crater. 

‘And then the world will simply soften and the world will turn out to be an enormous form of explosion. and it’ll turn out to be like a supernova of stars.’

Another added: ‘Some madman will get the atomic bomb and simply blow the world into oblivion.’ 

One of the opposite ladies had related worries, saying: ‘Well I believe it is going to be so overpopulated that it’s going to all be wars, all nuclear explosions and every part to make the earth, an excessive amount of radiation. 

‘It will turn out to be too scorching to reside on, there might be no life in any respect on the earth.’

Others gave much less fearful however extra correct contributions, even when they had been a bit of untimely on the date.

One lady stated:  ‘First of all computer systems are taking on now, computer systems and automation and within the 12 months 2000 there simply will not be sufficient jobs to go spherical and the one jobs there might be might be for folks with excessive IQ who work computer systems and such issues. 

‘Other folks simply aren’t going to have jobs. There simply will not be jobs for them to have.’

On the identical theme, a well-spoken boy stated: ‘I do not assume there’s going to be atomic warfare however I believe there’s going to be all this automation. 

‘People are going to be out of labor and an important inhabitants and I believe one thing needs to be executed about it. 

‘If I wasn’t a biologist that is what I wish to do, to do one thing in regards to the inhabitants downside to attempt to mood it in some way.’ 

However, different contributions had been comically outlandish.

One boy stated: ‘I believe I’ll most likely be in spaceships within the moon dictating to robots, or else I could also be, I do not know… answerable for a robotic courtroom judging some robots.’

Another lady stated: ‘I do not like the concept of form of getting out and discovering you’ve got bought a cabbage tablet to eat for breakfast or one thing.’ 

She added: ‘I do not assume I’ll nonetheless be on earth, I believe I’ll be below the ocean. 

‘I believe the inhabitants could have gone up a lot that both everybody might be dwelling in large domes within the Sahara or they will be below the ocean.’ 

Ms Warburton stated that when she first left college at 17, she was ‘fairly a misplaced individual’.

‘I selected to go to Beirut with a boyfriend  that I met in my residence city of Oxford,’ she stated.

‘I went again with him in December 71. He was from Syria.’

She added: ‘He owned a boutique in Beirut. So I helped him on the market a bit of bit. He used to purchase garments in London, Milan and Paris.

‘It was very fascinating. I solely bought to go to Syria as soon as. He had a giant household and his mother and father solely spoke Arabic.’

She stated Beirut was a ‘stunning place to be’, however when she left, the nation’s devastating civil battle was nearing. 

‘There was a variety of combating and capturing within the streets, you could not go close to the home windows. 

‘There was a curfew at night time. It was an altogether a lot completely different place.’

‘Then after that, once I went again to England, the battle began. Then Beirut was flattened.’

The battle, which was largely a results of divisions between the nation’s Christian and Muslim populations, lasted from 1975 till 1990.

It resulted in round 150,000 deaths and the mass exodus of a couple of million folks. 

After returning to Britain, Ms Warburton bought a 2:1 diploma in English literature from the University of Sussex.

There she met her husband, Barry. The couple purchased an previous fishmonger’s van with the goal of taking all of it the way in which to Australia.

They drove via international locations together with Serbia and Turkey however needed to cease as a result of the border with Iran was closed. 

The couple then opted to go to Athens and from there flew to Mumbai earlier than spending six months in India and Sri Lanka. 

From Jakarta – the Indonesian capital – they flew to Perth.

The pair favored the town a lot that they wished to remain completely. 

By a stroke of luck, they had been in a position to get everlasting residency and have stayed there ever since, bar returning to Britain for holidays.

Ms Warburton, who can also be a grandmother of 9, stated she had a ‘actually fascinating, different profession’, which initially noticed her serving to folks to construct life expertise and recuperate from previous trauma.

She then labored for an organisation supporting households with youngsters earlier than ending her working life as a disabilities co-ordinator for the native authorities.   

Were YOU one of many youngsters within the Tomorrow’s World clip, or are you aware somebody who was? Email [email protected].