The latest series of The Secret Millionaire has attracted a steady stream of appreciate comments from viewers in recent weeks... Many have said they’d like to find out more about the various individuals who have taken part, others have wanted to pass on their good wishes, and a couple of people have been desperate to find out what music has been featured...
As a result of so much interest in the programme, The TV Show is planning to host a Q&A session with the programme makers on its next live show – which takes place this Saturday at 4.10pm.
Ex homeless people going to work on a farm for outreach work! £5 per day = free labour for the respectable white establishment. It's so patronising to stomp about outreaching to homeless or ex-homeless. Where is the long term solutions/outcomes via drug/drink counselling and other life coaching. In being "free" labour or choir members these activities are only distractions from their homeless experience/circumstance. This subject and such surrounding issues should be revealed via a Dispatches programme rather than secret millionaire = no so secret missionary!
Is Dispatches only concerned with the economically active (the services they receive), religious affairs or immigration?
I just watched the Rochdale edition of The Secret Millionaire. I live in a terraced house that is about two minutes walk from the Falinge Flats where this week's millionaire stayed during her time here, and I was more than a little disturbed by the way that the programme portrayed Rochdale.
The Falinge Flats have a reputation around here for being pretty rough, it has to be said, but I walk through there on a regular basis, and what I see usually is just families getting on with their lives, like anywhere else. It seems to be a bit of a dumping ground for asylum seekers and immigrants, but you can bet your life that the Africans living there work, the Pakistanis living there work, the Polish living there work... I'm not saying that the local white population do not work; I'm just questioning the 70+% unemployment figure that was made such a big deal of during the show. It really doesn't tally with what I am seeing with my own eyes. What I am seeing is a mix of families from many different countries doing their best to bring their kids up and live together in a fairly ugly place, and thanks to lots of strong mums and dads, there's a high level of success.
The view from the front window of Hilary's flat is very ugly, granted. The Hunter's Rest, the pub that your millionaire got a job in is a different kettle of fish altogether. Go back and watch the programme again. The front of the Hunter's Rest pub is full of hanging baskets and there are nice tables out to sit in the sunshine. If the camera person had turned round what you would have been looking at is a wide swathe of well mown and tended common land, complete with trees and a large duck pond with benches, and ducks. Cronkeyshaw Common is probably about a mile long, and it is beautiful, peaceful and very well used by the local community for sport, picnics, fairs and festivals. Rochdale has a thriving parklife with many hard working and committed park keepers. The houses just a few doors up from the Hunter's Rest are gorgeous old stone cottages going for a quarter of a million each. There is an estate up Syke that has a bit of a reputation, but tell me, if everybody there was so rough how would hanging baskets and ducks survive? I've got a smile on my face just thinking about the ridiculous disservice you did to Rochdale, but it is a wry one.
Yes, there are poor areas in Rochdale, but there are also very beautiful and affluent ones [google the town hall, google St Chad's, our parish church, both smack bang in the centre of town.] I live in a rough part. I am a single mum, scourge of Blair's Britain. I am an artist and at the moment I work providing workshops for the council to fund my masters degree. I spend a day a week in uni and two days a week in unpaid placement in adult mental health. I get no grant or loan. My children are teenagers from a single parent family, the lowest of the low. They are clever, polite, kind, popular, caring, good fun to live with, and extremely successful at their very successful Rochdale school. I look round and I do not see us as being unusual in this area.
The son of the woman who runs Back Door said something along the lines of, 'they haven't got anything, these kids; just this and my mum.' I felt that was a lousy thing to say, and a lousy thing to include in your programme. The vast majority of children here are nurtured and cared for by their parents and teachers just as you would expect, and I can't believe I am having to make the point.
There is a massive amount of talent and drive here, heaps and heaps of creativity, motivation and love. A lot of us just haven't got much money, that's all. We're doing our best. I found your selective documentary offensive.
Could you ask these people what sustained political and social action they take to stop the cult of the individual that is de-moralising society? Could you ask them if they think that their media performances might simply sustain our myths of the heroic (and saintly) individual?
Please first of all adress the fact that Channel 4 need to address the good as well as bad about the areas "on the whole" please and not just a section that is really not a reflection of the place only the governments problem with funding.
Also, do the millionaires get the tax relief on these donations?
If you are a millionaire and are struggling to "decide" waht to do with your money...why not donate to a local/national childrens hospital, this way you can designate a certain ward or purpose and will know where your money is going
How does it feel to go off any where, any time, any place - without having to have to answer to any one as in a boss? Plus how does it feel to have a sense of 'your home/place' where ever you want? I believe this is a strong element to feeling perfect comfort wherever one may be. I would love to be able to work and buy my own luxuries. Having brought up three children (without allowing them to gather debts) and returning to higher education, I would love a chance to give back to society and reap the benifits in a simple holiday home abroad.
------------------------------------------- 'History is 'Herstory' too'.
After watching the new series of Secret Millionaire, I was absolutely disgusted that Daniel Smith was filmed standing outside a relatives council flat, where he stayed for 10 days at The Elephant & Castle. How derogatory for the respectable, hard-working families, whom have lived there for many years. Where is the connection between the Elephant & the West End where the homeless received little help? I think this "Millionaire" just wanted to do anything to get on TV & jump on the wannabe band-wagon. Compared to some other Millionaires on this series, Mr. Smith failed to pull at my heart strings, even taking into account his age. He readily admitted that he had NEVER given to charity before, so why now? The other millionaires ended up gaving a far better result compared to this upstart.
So why live at the Elephant & "help" out somewhere completely different. Is it not the case that other millionaires stayed within the community they were helping? Also, why "help" the cause of homelessness, especially in the Capital City, where this problem will not go away with a few thousand pounds??
In the first series people looked genuinely taken aback and shocked. In this series you get the inkling that the receivers know whats coming because they have seen the format already.
The thoughts of Chairman Al.
If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.
Originally posted by Chairman Al: you can't make anymore of these programs.
In the first series people looked genuinely taken aback and shocked. In this series you get the inkling that the receivers know whats coming because they have seen the format already.
I have felt the same all through this series - watching their reactions to the disclosure of the millionaire was very revealing.
**********QUESTION: Who are the most decent people in the hospital? ANSWER: The ultrasound people. **********
