The Day the Immigrants Left - BBC1

[Blasphemous]

Anyone watching this?

The Indian restaurant - It may be the editing but the training in the Indian Restaurant was lacking to say the least. The young lad seems to have been thrown in at the deep end. He bailed out and that's disappointing but from what I've seen, there wasn't any training. Three other people who were supposed to start but two said they had food poisoning and the other said his partner was ill.

The Asparagus cutters/pickers - The British workers were/are slooowwwwww but one of the lads gave it a good go. He did say the migrant workers were better than he was and that if 'he had a farm he would employ them'.

The potato packers - They never stopped moaning and one of them took issue with having a foreign worker telling him what to do in the induction. BUT the migrant workers seemed to win them over. A young lad that was supposed to start with them never did as he said he was ill. The two lads who did do the work applied for jobs but there were 'no suitable vacancies'. I'm not sure if the employer said that or the two lads.

The Chippy - That lad (teamed with a British Labourer), seemed to do the best out of the lot. The employer kept him on for a further two weeks until the job was done. He moved away from the area though. Not sure where he went.

Interesting.

 

[dextrous]

I was embarrassed by the attitudes of the majority of brits involved.

Having said that, having been involved in a BBC documentary (when I was a newish teacher nearly 20 years ago), if my experience was anything to go by, these people will have been chosen carefully and do not represent a true cross section of the population. BBC bias and a need to shock and paint a bleak picture was prevalent then, as it may have been in this documentary.

 

[Blasphemous]

I was embarrassed by the attitudes of the majority of brits involved.

Having said that, having been involved in a BBC documentary (when I was a newish teacher nearly 20 years ago), if my experience was anything to go by, these people will have been chosen carefully and do not represent a true cross section of the population. BBC bias and a need to shock and paint a bleak picture was prevalent then, as it may have been in this documentary.

Come on dex tell us what we want to know... what was the show you were involved in?

 

[oompah]

The firm where i work employ alot of agency workers 90% are foreign, supplied by a agency,not sure this is because there are more registered with the agency but the wage is the same ie: minimum.Has to be said their work ethic cannot be faulted but I wander why there are not more brits coming through the agency.

 

[oompah]

I was embarrassed by the attitudes of the majority of brits involved.

Having said that, having been involved in a BBC documentary (when I was a newish teacher nearly 20 years ago), if my experience was anything to go by, these people will have been chosen carefully and do not represent a true cross section of the population. BBC bias and a need to shock and paint a bleak picture was prevalent then, as it may have been in this documentary.

Come on dex tell us what we want to know... what was the show you were involved in?

Please sir

 

[dextrous]

There was a BBC series of documentaries called something like "A Year in the Life of...", which was supposed to be a fly on the wall view of a typical trade. Can't remember the full details, but it involved a BBC team coming in several times throughout a year for a few days filming at a time.

Anything that happened spontaneously had to re-happen spontaneoulsy several times until the producer/director was happy with the quality of the shot and where possible had been edited to make it fit their preconceptions.

For example, several of us used to go to the pub on Friday lunchtime for a bit of nosh and a chinwag about work etc. So, the BBC sent a crew down and took over the bar with their lighting, sound, camera's etc - thus making the pub into a set (so much for "fly on the wall"). The director asked me a question about what I thought of teaching as I'd been in the job for a bit over a year. Every time I answered, positively, she rephrased the question over and over again, honing on the negatives. After about 10 minutes, she got me to the point of remarking that "if you remove all the great things about it, then yes, it's a s hite job". So having got me into a negative frame of mind, she then said "good, now we can turn the cameras on"!!!

So, tonight's documentary may well have been taken along the same lines - to sell "copy" and not reality.

 

[Blasphemous]

You didn't get on with them then?

They refused to put your name on the credits didn't they?

 

[Gasman28]

I was embarrassed by the attitudes of the majority of brits involved.

Having said that, having been involved in a BBC documentary (when I was a newish teacher nearly 20 years ago), if my experience was anything to go by, these people will have been chosen carefully and do not represent a true cross section of the population. BBC bias and a need to shock and paint a bleak picture was prevalent then, as it may have been in this documentary.

Dex, although I agree in principle, I have another slant on this story.
I am all in favour of controlled immigration, but this country needs to get its act together. The government stopped workers from foreign climes coming to our country to work in lower paid jobs, such as Chinese restaurant workers etc.
We all know the fable about Eastern Europeans coming over here to take jobs away from Brits and yes, I have seen some of their carp work, but having seen/ heard, first hand the indigenous people not wanting to take on the same work.
The lazy bast***s in this country should have their benefits cut and made to work.
The same applies to every foreign national that comes over here to sponge off the country - this country is far too soft and should look after us first

 

[dextrous]

You didn't get on with them then?

They refused to put your name on the credits didn't they?

What got me was that a fly on the wall should have been impartial (how naive I must have been back then).

Another example - at the time I was living with a few uni mates in a 3 bed rented house. Lads together, we weren't overly houseproud. So, over the BBC came, and went to the local shop to purchase a tin of heinz spag bol. They wanted me to heat it up and eat it, thus showing the "typical" lifestyle of someone new to the profession. Wouldn't have done it, but they gave me £30 cash for "expenses" (remember this was 1989), which was subsequently spent down the local pub after they left, to get rid of the foul taste of tha spag bol and get some half decent grub from a takeaway.

 

[Blasphemous]

Ah the BBC.... never let the truth get in the way of a good story though dex! I bet that 30 quid tasted very nice. At least you got something out of it mate.

 

[dextrous]

I am all in favour of controlled immigration, but this country needs to get its act together. The government stopped workers from foreign climes coming to our country to work in lower paid jobs, such as Chinese restaurant workers etc.
We all know the fable about Eastern Europeans coming over here to take jobs away from Brits and yes, I have seen some of their carp work, but having seen/ heard, first hand the indigenous people not wanting to take on the same work.
The lazy bast***s in this country should have their benefits cut and made to work.
The same applies to every foreign national that comes over here to sponge off the country - this country is far too soft and should look after us first

Some interesting points here- I agree that our welfare state has enabled a number of people to be employed as "professionally unemployed people". It has removed the hunger and need for too many to get off their sorry backsides and make the effort, and this was demonstrated by some of the participants in tonight's documentary.

Personally, I've never been out of a job for more than a few weeks, since I've never considered myself too proud nor any job "beneath me" to do anything to make my own way - when I have taken breaks from teaching I've swept popcorn in cinemas, sold vacuum cleaners, laboured on sites (retrained as a plumber to help) etc etc.

But I'm rambling now - I repeat that one concern about tonight's documentary is how bleak a picture it seemed to be painting about the quality and motivation of out of work brits as a whole. I'm too optimistic to believe that this is a fair reflection of the reality.

 

[dextrous]

Ah the BBC.... never let the truth get in the way of a good story though dex! I bet that 30 quid tasted very nice. At least you got something out of it mate.

Cheers Blas - I like to think you're a bit older than me and that you had been paying your TV licence at the time. So it follows that that £30 may have been directly from you Cheers - stella artois was (even then) reassuringly expensive

 

[Blasphemous]

Ah the BBC.... never let the truth get in the way of a good story though dex! I bet that 30 quid tasted very nice. At least you got something out of it mate.

Cheers Blas - I like to think you're a bit older than me and that you had been paying your TV licence at the time. So it follows that that £30 may have been directly from you Cheers - stella artois was (even then) reassuringly expensive

Oh and just for your info, I was born when England won the World Cup mate (Football).

 

[dextrous]

Oh and just for your info, I was born when England won the World Cup mate (Football).

Whipper snapper. I emerged form the womb 3 months before Kennedy was assassinated. I remember where I was at the time - suckling on my mother's teets

 

[conny]

Bloody hell you 2 are still babes! (No, not that kind! )

Got 7 years on you Dex and 10 on Blas!

Now wheres that bloody zimmer frame gone?