The Town That Never Retired - Episode 2

First Broadcast:
Thursday 12 July 2012 at 21:00
BBC One
Silver River Productions





I was highly intrigued by the concept of this programme.  With the state pension age rising in the UK, older people are to be expected to work much longer into their lives.  This programme conducted a study to investigate how feasible this is going to be.

"If you take a newborn today, it's quite likely that their state pension age will have to be 77... If you think on to our children's children or your grandchildren's children, their state pension age could easily be into their 80s." 
- Raj Mody - Head of UK Pensions PwC

This is a scary thought, but only in this day and age.  If, in the future, people are to have a greater life expectancy, then they should be fitter and more able to work when they 80 compared to the 80 year-olds of today.

Nick Hewer, who is presenting the programme alongside the brilliant Margaret Mountford, asks the question:

"Even if we are still raring to go, will anyone want to employ us?"

In order to gain an answer, they put pensioners back to work, and in this second episode, put them up against people of a younger age.


The problem I can see with this experiment is that the young people were hopeless!  They didn't represent the younger generation of workers at all.  I'm 19, I've been working since I was 15, and I was totally shocked and angered by the attitude of these young workers, particularly in comparison to the enthusiasm of the pensioners.

A lot of the younger people didn't even bother showing up to work, often pulling a sickie.  I do wonder if these layabouts were selected because of this trait, as you'd think the workers would make more of an effort, seeing as they're representing their generation in the UK on television.  It angered me because I know that I am much more  hard-working than them, and I know a lot of people of my age that are equally capable, yet our generation is being made to look like we're lazy and incompetent.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the programme.  I like watching programmes that enable me to have a good rant.  I am also big fans of the presenters, due to my abnormal obsession with BBC's The Apprentice.  I just feel that the experiment was flawed.  The older generation wouldn't have cut the mustard if the programme had employed younger people with more work ethic.  Not to discriminate the older generation - a lot of them aren't computer literate,  but that's simply because they haven't grown up using this kind of technology. This, combined with the fast pace of the working environment would have put the younger generation further ahead.

The programme is looking well into the future anyway, when people are expected to live longer, and therefore, work longer, so why put the pensioners of today back to work in order to gain an understanding?

Image from www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00tt325