[rispainfarm]

Did anyone else see the Estate last night, can't remember which channel. But it made for unsettling and depressing viewing. Sure there are people in this country that don't want to or have the inclination to find work, but there are others on sink estates that want to better themselves, but don't know how to either becasue they can't get a job or they are so poorly educated they just don't know any better other than a benefit life. There was so much hopelessness there and it made my heart break to hear how much that little boy wanted to see his dad but his dad was not interested. How easy it is though to end up in a hopeless situation even though we are educated and have at the time lots of options, one piece of badluck that snowballs and we could find ourselves in a situation that we can't control and that to me is frightening, just look at that normal couple who found themselves being burgled they shot the thiefs to protect themselves and they were charged with manslaughter or whatever. A normal couple going out their daily lives, luckily they got off, but you never know what is around the corner and that frightens me sometimes. Its programmes like that that makes me so grateful for what we have and who we are.

[Fowgill Farm]

Just talking about it in the office this morning, if you go to BBC news home page theres a link to it on that page 'Panorama Trouble on the estate' watch on i-player.
Yee gods what chance do those poor children stand! Eye opening.
mandy

[Bionic]

How about the mother who doesn't sent her son to school because she wants to keep him close to her? With no education the poor kid doesn't stand a chance.
I was brought up on a council estate but nothing like that one. My parents were hard working and a good example. We had a good education and good morals but it makes me wonder how I would have turned out if I had lived somewhere else. 
Sally

[tizaala]

What sort of message are some of those 'parents' ( I use the description loosely) sending to those kids, Mother (sic) smoking pot and drinking , three kids by different blokes, keeping kid off school for company, and the saddest part, she's being helped with parenting skills.....about thirty years too late.
Got to admire the bloke with two cleaning jobs , at least that couple are trying to escape with some dignity.
Depressing program to watch

[Hermit]

I did not see the programme but I expect it was very depressing viewing by the sounds of it.
BUT... there is education, apprentice programmes in fact allsorts of opportunities out there for eveyone if they could be bothered. We used to have quite a large business and joined a scheme run by the local council to get youths into employment. They could choose from a variety of jobs to go into as apprentices and even got transport to and from work paid for and their clothes!!!  Very few turned up for work and that was only cause they were tracked down by the agency and brought to work. One lad went the distance and got a full time job. My sister lives on an estate but her kids are now doing degrees  via their work. I do not listen to excuses and sympathy merchants. Life is made too easy nowadays, if benefits were paid in vouchers for food , clothes and bills then they would have to work for their fags, booze and massive tellies if they wanted them. If there are no jobs or placements ,unemployed folk should attend an education programme to widen there scope . If they still refuse to better themselves then bring back the workhouses. Rant over.
 
 
 
 
 

[Bionic]

Got to admire the bloke with two cleaning jobs , at least that couple are trying to escape with some dignity.
Depressing program to watch

2 cleaning jobs and still only earning £100 per week. Yes, definitely admire him

[Greenmoor]

I didn't see it, but I've worked for the Probation Service and hubs is currently the senior surveyor on a green energy project in several sets of flats belonging to social housing.  He's seeing some dreadful sights and was fed up when he got home yesterday because he'd been wandering around in areas filled with used syringes all day.  It's the young children that upset us - like the two year old he ushered back into his flat because he was wandering on the communal landing of the stairwell on his own.  So sad. 

I do feel for the people who want to better themselves and are stuck surrounded by the problems in these areas.

[rispainfarm]

Although i totally agree with you hermit, and while i think about it, why don't the government put them to work doing community work, that way we wouldn't feel they were getting benefits for nothing and they might learn a skill and have a cv to present to a perspective employer. But getting back to what I wanted to say, parents have a choice but the children have none, and it is a vicious circle. They learn by their parents. Until we have experienced that mentality of no one working, a sink estate, I hold my judgement on judging them though as a lazy useless lot. (thats a first holding my judgement  )
Sorry just to add, without a role model to show you how to work and have respect for yourself you will never be able to, so yes i do feel sorry for them because they are born into that world  whereas there are others who have oportunities and yet waste them

[Fowgill Farm]

If they stopped the have a kid get a council flat/house benefits system there wouldn't be so many of these unfortunate kids about.
My friend scan mums to be at a hospital near a sink estate like this, anyway one day young lass is on bed in front of her and my friend says gosh you here again you just had one baby, the reply yeah well if you have two yer get more money don't yer!
need i say more
mandy

[Greenmoor]

My friend scan mums to be at a hospital near a sink estate like this, anyway one day young lass is on bed in front of her and my friend says gosh you here again you just had one baby, the reply yeah well if you have two yer get more money don't yer!
need i say more
mandy

I'm definitely doing something wrong because my three cost me a fortune!  Even with all of the benefits, is it really possible to be better off long term WITH children, or are they just incredibly short-sighted? 

[Hermit]

My Dad said all folk on benefits should be given a bucket and brush! Shovelling snow , leaves , whatever the jobs were in the community that needed doing. One man whom I totally admired ( he is dead now) went to work with computers three days a week. He also was a fully qualified horticulturist and worked ther rest of the time in a garden centre. He was physically disabled, in a wheelchair and found it hard to talk. He was an inspiration, he could have lived a very easy life at home but he chose not to . Roll models are not just parents , they should be shown this at school or by attending other schemes. Perhaps National service should be brought back.

[Greenmoor]

I've just watched it now.  I hadn't realised it was about Shadsworth - hard to believe that it's only 10miles from here.

I felt so sorry for the couple where he worked as a cleaner 

[SteveHants]

Read "Chavs" by Owen Jones.


Part of the problem is that most of the council house stock was sold off under the 'right to buy' schemes - so houses are only available to those in most need, which perpetuates that "daily mailist' stereotype of council estates being full of 'scum' (or the most needy/those who the system has failed/insert your own 'underserving poor' analogy here). There is no chance of any governments building more council housing, so it becomes a vicious circle.


The other factor is one that was born on a large scale in the individualist philosophy that became popular in the eighties, and was continued by New Labour that one ought to improve the status of ones self (usually by acquiring more possessions or greater wealth) rather than ones social class as a whole (a strong trade union movement, improving health service, state pensions, state housing etc).


Insert your own version of that idiotic Lamont "on your bike' comment if you choose.

[deepinthewoods]

i was brought up on one, they are hell. and theres lots of them!!

[Lesley Silvester]

I didn't see the programme as I don't have TV but I was talking yesterday to a friend about some of the kids she's taught.  One 11 year old boy, if asked to do something he didn't like would tell her to F*** off and storm out of the room and she would have to get someone to find him before he left the school, as she couldn't leave the rest of the class.  She said that she didn't blame him as that was how he was talked to at home.
 
Other friends took in their two nieces (through Social Services) as their mother was neglecting them (out wandering the streets at 3am with her 3 year old, in search of some alcohol, etc).  These girls were the youngest of 6 children (four fathers) who were living with varous relatives.  The last I heard, she had had another baby and was in a special residential centre learning parenting skills.  I think the baby would have been taken into care if she hadn't agreed.  She was one of six children herself who all have successfully brought up their own children.  In her case it was alcohol that was the problem not her upbringing.