Episodes
| Title | First Broadcast | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| The Builder | 20221124 | Millennial Graham Unwin set up his painting and decorating company three years ago in Gateshead. Since then, and despite covid, he has established a successful business with work including hotel chains and the local authority.
There's an acute shortage of skilled workers in the North East of England, not just because of Brexit but because younger workers are chasing the money' down south where there's a lot of construction and building work. Skilled workers are in such demand that young men, attracted by high wages, are prepared to live out of a suitcase and away from their families for double the wages.
Graham shares his work experiences with one of his loyal employees, 65-year old Alan Oliver, who always wanted to work closer to home and is now planning to reduce his working days after 50 years as a painter and decorator.
Both agree that the South Shields/Newcastle communities have never recovered from the closure of mines, steel works and shipyards in the 1980s and there is little evidence of the Government's levelling up policies.
Even though house prices are half as much as those in the South, high interest rates and inflation have forced Graham and his family to pull out of a house sale because of high mortgage repayments.
Series Producer: Sara Parker
A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
Baby boomers v Gen Z/Millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. Baby boomers v Gen Z/millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. |
| The Cab Driver | 20221123 | Cab drivers provide a life-line for rural communities that lack public transport.
Ian Fountain started working in his dad's cab office more than 50 years ago when he was only 12. At 21, he learned to drive his own taxi. Now he has his own company, CabSmart, in Ipswich where 24-year old Kabil works both as a driver and a controller, co-ordinating bookings and supporting the other drivers, many of whom are like him, from the Bangladeshi community in the town.
The job is particularly important to Kabil as he is helping support the family after his father had a heart attack. Unlike in Ian's time, it's unusual and hard for youngsters like Kabil to become cab drivers because of training, regulations and the cost of insurance (anything up to £8,000). But with Ian's support, he has achieved his dream (he admits to being something of a petrol-head).
CabSmart has won awards for its work in the community, including charity events. The taxi firm stayed open throughout covid taking NHS staff to work, delivering medication to the elderly and vulnerable, helping with the vaccination programme, as well as supporting the ambulance service by taking those who needed to go to hospital after paramedic assessment.
The company also has green credentials, as it increases the number of electric and hybrid vehicles in its 80-strong fleet of cabs - as well as working with Suffolk council on an electric taxi/bus pilot scheme to some outlying villages.
Series Producer: Sara Parker
A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
Baby boomers v Gen Z/Millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. Baby boomers v Gen Z/millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. |
| The GP | 20221121 | As the NHS faces another winter of staff shortages and critically high demand, the Generation Gap looks at the role of the GP through two doctors at a Tunbridge Wells practice.
In the front line of increasing demands on the health service through primary care, newly qualified 32 year old GP Dr Seema Malvankar is about to return to her job after maternity leave, while GP Dr Tony Buckland has a specialist role at the practice in skin surgery. He treats everything from cysts to certain skin cancers to save both his own NHS patients, and others from neighbouring practices, having to join long waiting lists for hospital treatment.
Even though many GPs are retiring early in their 50s, Dr Buckland, who is nearly 70 and a partner in the practice, has put off retirement to continue working for the NHS, albeit part-time.
Meanwhile Dr Malvankar, who wanted to follow in her GP father's footsteps after he died when she was nine, is returning to two days a week as a salaried doctor . She joins the many part-time GPs who keep the NHS going.
How different is it for her starting out in a world of telephone/zoom appointments, e-consults, targets and paperwork, older patients with a multitude of health issues, long waiting lists and the possibility of mega-hubs swallowing up small practices.
For Dr Buckland the hours were longer when he began as a GP in 1980 with on-call nights and weekends, but the rewards were close ongoing relationships with patients and the community, often from cradle to grave.
Series Producer: Sara Parker
A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
Baby boomers v Gen Z/Millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. Baby boomers v Gen Z/millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. |
| The Hairdresser | 20221122 | As the rising costs of living mean tough choices between food and heating for some, others are reluctant to forgo their trip to the hairdressers.
Sonya Roberts, 35, has a salon in Didsbury, an attractive area on the outskirts of Manchester, which she set up ten years ago with another 25 year old friend. She bought her friend out shortly before Covid but, with the help of the Government furlough scheme, managed to keep her team of five employed and to re-open after the pandemic. Now she is facing the threat of double-digit inflation and, although confident that her loyal clients will keep her salon going, like many small business owners she's concerned about rising costs and overheads. The salon lease is up for renewal while supplies such as latex gloves have tripled in price.
Meanwhile in Stratford-upon-Avon, Janice Gennard in her mid-60s, runs a mobile hairdressing business with none of the overheads of a salon. As well as cutting and colouring clients' hair in their own homes, she does the hair of elderly/dementia patients in a care home. She shares her story with Sonya, including her experience of running a salon in Ireland where the 2008 recession was particularly bad.
Both agree that hairdressing and styles have changed considerably in the past 20/30 years but that many clients say a trip to the hairdresser is so important for self-esteem and mental health that they will make savings elsewhere - whatever the hardship.
Series Producer: Sara Parker
A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
Baby boomers v Gen Z/Millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. Baby boomers v Gen Z/millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. |
| The Turkey Farmer | 20221125 | Paul Kelly, 59, is the driving force behind KellyBronze Turkeys, which was set up in 1971 when his parents Derek and Mollie bought a plot of land in Danbury, Essex following his father's retirement from one of the major turkey producers in the UK.
From small beginnings, a turkey empire has grown, with farms throughout the UK, one in Virginia America, and a hatchery supplying chicks to other farms. But it is still very much a family run business with free-range Kelly bronze turkeys at its heart.
Eighteen months ago, his 28-year old son Toby joined him - but it's a different world from when Paul worked with his father Derek who is still involved at 90 years old.
Toby had initially started on a high-powered international career in the corporate world with BMW, but during lockdown realised how much he missed farm and family. He has returned to share his ideas, which he hopes will bring added value to the turkey business throughout the year, developing a range of charcuterie and increasing the farms' social media presence.
Toby and his father share their very different experiences across 30 years - from when Paul was young and the whole village would turn out to pluck turkeys for Christmas, to the current worry of getting enough labour to butcher and pluck seasonal birds now. Not only are they having to cope with skills shortages, but they are facing an early onset of a virulent strain of bird flu, which has already killed turkeys on one of their farms and wiped out several larger turkey farms in East Anglia.
Series Producer: Sara Parker
A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
Baby boomers v Gen Z/Millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. Baby boomers v Gen Z/millennials compare jobs and lives across the generations. |