Working Life Wales in a Year

2012 saw the results of the latest Welsh national census,

but that's just a set of dry statistics.

It's not flesh and bones.

Amazing.

It doesn't show us how we really live, or who we really are.

Our hopes, our fears.

I don't want her to die in a hospital environment.

Our dreams.

Throughout 2012, we followed eight very different families

from all walks of life, and from all over the country,

to reveal the real Wales behind the numbers.

The result is Wales In A Year, a unique and unfolding

insight into the incredible daily dramas of all our lives.

And tonight - it's cooking chaos in Bala,

it's lambing season at Ty Cerrig farm...

Dyna fo, d'oen bach.

..and in New Tredegar, the knicker factory falls foul of the taxman.

If they take the machines as payment, the business is finished.

Wales 2012 - a land of 3.1 million people, and 210,000 businesses.

But in our factories, our offices and our shops,

how does today's Wales work?

Approximately 1.3 million people are in employment in Wales,

and just under half of them work for small-to-medium businesses,

employing less than 50 people.

The AJM sewing factory in New Tredegar has a staff of 36,

and is the town's largest employer.

Six garments to get out. Any volunteers?

Owner James Mellor and his team of highly experienced cutters

and seamstresses specialise in the most unexpected of luxury items -

risque lingerie.

On the face of it, James appears to have one of the most enviable jobs on earth,

but hanging out at swanky parties with scantily clad models

does have its downside.

After 25 years in the industry, underwear doesn't do it for me!

In 2012, it's not just the underwear that isn't doing it for James.

Times are tough, and in a town where unemployment

runs at around 11 per cent, the continued survival of Wales's

last lingerie factory has been hanging in the balance.

My staff are like family to me.

Whatever I can do to make sure that they stay in work, I do.

In January, with work about to grind to a halt...

Right, we'll have to take these off, then.

...and almost half of his employees on short-time working,

James made a dash to London, to try and win a vital order

from world-famous lingerie brand Agent Provocateur.

Two and a half months later, things are finally looking up.

The AP order - we managed to secure the one range.

We got the whole range, and we had confirmation then, the latter

end of last week that we've got the one garment from the second change.

Supervisor Tracy's delighted...

It will be a suspender belt.

..but slightly shocked by this turn of events.

Very, very busy. Crazy. Good for the company,

but crazy on the line.

And it's not just the Agent Provocateur contract

that James has won.

At the moment, there's four designers on the floor.

Each designer has got at least five, six - maybe more - styles,

which is great now. Chock-a-block again.

So at the moment, the production plan for the next six months is full

to capacity - something we've never had in the 10, 11 years of trading.

Normally it's a month in advance.

During a double recession, we can now say we've got six months' trading.

But there's a big dark cloud to James's silver lining.

Through his own sense of loyalty to his workforce in the lean times,

he's now in trouble with the VAT man.

So I've got myself into difficulties with the tax and the VAT.

It was difficult times, and we defaulted a couple of times on the payments.

The cause is, really, I kept people on. I didn't want to lose the skill basis.

If I lose those girls, they'll never come back.

If you look at it from a business point of view,

it was certainly the wrong decision to make, but you know, ask me

if I would do it all over again - I probably would, to save the machinists' jobs.

By acting so honourably, James risks losing everything.

The factory, his livelihood

and the last women in Wales capable of carrying out

the highly complex and technically skilful process

of making bespoke lingerie.

We should have young blood in,

training up to learn the skills that are slowly dying away.

Because once these girls finish, that's it.

You're not going to get sewers any more.

The Inland Revenue wants his money back and unfortunately

I can't pay it all back in one lump.

They could say, "We're going to take the machines as payment."

If they take the machines as payment, the business is finished.

There isn't a lot of employment in the area.

If this number of people were laid off,

we'd all be on the dole for a very, very long time, I would think.

With James expecting the VAT man any day now,

we'll be back at AJM later in the programme.

Small-to-medium businesses provide more than half of all

employment in rural Wales, and almost a quarter of these

businesses are owned and run by incomers.

The idyllic hills above Bala Lake - another full-on day

dawns for Stephanie and Toby Hickish, English incomers,

and arguably Wales's hardest working couple.

Oh, couscous. Have you got some couscous?

Toby and Steph moved to north Wales from Wiltshire 17 years ago,

with warnings of impending doom ringing in their ears.

A lot of people said, "You'll never settle in Wales because they don't like the English,"

and all that rubbish, which is absolutely not true for a start.

Far from not settling,

Steph and Toby have gone on to renovate their farmhouse,

raise their family, and established three small businesses -

a catering company based at the farmhouse,

a cottage rental business, and a garden tourist attraction.

If that weren't enough, this year they've taken on business

number four - running the Bala leisure centre caff.

It's always a bit of a rush in the mornings, actually,

because we have quite a lot of salads and quiches to make,

or hams to cook, and all that sort of thing.

This morning, Toby's on caff duty...

..while Steph heads out to one of their five holiday cottages

with fresh linen for changeover day.

Toby and I ended up running it as a holiday cottage 10 years ago,

and I absolutely love doing it, but since we've opened the gardens

and got the other cafe, it's actually really quite stressful.

Sometimes it can take up to three hours to do a changeover,

which I just simply don't have that time.

I mean, I love people. I could never sit in an office

and not interact with people. I suppose I'm fairly gregarious.

I didn't work very hard at school, so I haven't got any fabulous qualifications that see me

through into a wonderful solicitor's job, or anything like that.

I think my strength lies in people skills, I hope.

As Steph and Toby's mini business empire expands,

their latest venture, the leisure centre caff,

is proving to be more challenging than they first imagined.

Well, it's working out a whole system, really. It's a new business.

It's new to us.

It's a lot more complicated than you might think, you know -

what people want, and to some extent whether that's what you're going to give them, because if you give them

one thing, it might stop them buying something that was more profitable!

That's the truth of it, really.

If there's wastage, then the sums are difficult to do,

but if it all sells, it pays.

So as far as we're concerned, it's multiples. It's volume.

The salads don't really cost very much, as long as you're not tipping them away.

LAUGHTER

You soon get told if you try and charge too much!

We had to reduce the price of the tea.

We charged £1.75 per pot of tea, at home - still do.

Down here, they were up in arms! It's now £1.50.

Yes, it's been very busy. It's a good thing. It seems to be locals.

It's very good news, because we need people all year,

and then when it's a nice day, people come off the lake,

but that's not very many days a year, actually, especially this year.

I find it very satisfying, this place buzzing away.

Whilst Toby cleans down the caff,

Steph returns to the farmhouse just in time for her next task -

taking a party of green-fingered enthusiasts on a guided tour

of their three acres of stunning gardens -

designed and landscaped by Toby and Steph.

Hello! Welcome to Caerau Gardens.

Thank you very much for coming,

and thank goodness that we've got such a lovely day.

If you see any weeds, don't worry about them - you can pull them out

or just ignore them, in fact you might get a discount on your coffee!

We've been here 18 years, and when we moved in, the gardens were

a field and the house was derelict, so we've done absolutely everything.

There's lots of different bits of gardens to see - there's lovely woodland walks and things.

If you go right up to the very top, there's a beautiful view of Bala Lake.

On the back of this steady stream of visitors the gardens attract,

Steph and Toby decide to open a garden cafe

in front of the farmhouse, and by early afternoon,

Toby returns to help out with the lunchtime trade.

Oh! I've got to get cooking!

He's soon joined by Steph,

and their non-stop day enters another phase.

Oh, no! That's the worst thing in the world, lasagne.

The paninis - how are they doing? Do you think this is done, Toby?

-Yes.

-The trouble is, it's a party of people, so they've all ordered at once.

And I hate people having to wait.

All of this running around is quite normal for Toby and Steph.

Just do it - now!

They work around 14 hours a day, seven days a week.

We're under control. Are we?

And yet, despite their non-stop graft running four businesses

that employ up to 15 local people,

financially, they're far from having their cake and eating it.

We're not money people, so we don't quite understand it, so we just work.

I think just work, really! It's lucky we enjoy our work.

Our turnover means that we've got to be VAT registered now.

If we're charging £2.50 for a child's meal,

we have to take 20 percent of that off before we get anywhere.

We've still got to pay all the staff and things after that.

It's a terrific percentage. Very, very difficult.

It's quite something, isn't it?

I need to lie in a darkened room for a minute. Right. What next?

Um... gateaux.

There are 90,000 full-time unpaid carers in Wales, looking after

family, friends, and neighbours.

Their work saves the Welsh economy an estimated 7.7 billion a year.

In Merthyr Tydfil,

46-year-old Suzanne Foley is an unpaid full-time carer.

As well as looking after her husband Jason, who is epileptic

and unable to work, and her two teenage daughters - Savannah, 17, and

Lowri, 15 - Suzanne also cares for her 77-year-old mother, Gertie Sage.

Ready for your breakfast?

Following a stroke three years ago, Gertie is blind and suffering

from Alzheimer's, a disease that is slowly destroying her memory.

Right? I'll get your tablets.

Haven't you put any sugar on here?

Yes, Mam. Three?

Two weeks ago, Gertie suffered a fall that has left her bruised

and very fragile - physically and mentally.

I think she's getting worse.

She had that fall a couple of weeks ago,

and I think she's gone more forgetful since she's had that fall.

She can still remember things from years ago,

but something that happened five minutes ago, and she can't remember any of it.

Oh, wait a minute.

-There's six there, Mam, all right?

-Yes, but I can't...

I know, but you can feel them, Mam.

Not with all this on my hands, now.

Leave it.

-No, because you won't take them then.

-I will. I'll take them after my breakfast.

No spitting them out.

What happened yesterday?

You went down the Alzheimer's coffee morning. Down in Rhydycar.

I don't remember nothing.

Oh, this is ridiculous, see. I can't remember nothing.

She's getting more confused.

She's forgetting people, she's forgetting things.

Her habits - and she's always been so clean, my mother have,

and I can notice things changing there as well.

She's doing things now, my mother, if she was sensible,

she would be appalled at.

So, you know, it's getting really hard with her now.

Caring for Gertie is proving tough for the whole family.

I'll make you coffee when she's finished her breakfast.

From the time you get up till the time you go back to bed.

Back and fore all day, all day, all day.

Like you said, me and Sue got no us time...

..unless the kids are here. That's what I've got to put up with.

It's like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest here.

Oh, I know what's happening to me.

I know what's happening in here.

And I can't get it out.

The only respite comes on a Thursday morning,

when Kim from the charity Age Concern takes Gertie out for a walk.

You don't have to... Put your fingers in there.

I love walking and Kim, she's marvellous too.

She takes me every time.

Never mind what the weather, she's taken me out. She do.

It's also a much-needed break for Suzanne.

Her needs is...

She's getting...so demanding now and I do everything I can for her.

I spend most of my day in my mother's house. Back and forth,

cos if I'm not in there, she's constantly screaming for me.

And I feel so guilty cos it feels like I'm neglecting my kids.

Cos she makes me feel guilty for spending time with my kids.

Suzanne takes time out with her daughters where she can.

But Savannah and Lowri have begun to notice the strain.

I love my nan to bits, but it does get a bit...

It's horrible seeing it.

She don't like it now, even my mother just goes out with us, just to town.

She don't... It's not her. It's her dementia and stuff.

-It's horrible, like.

-It would be best if my nan went to a home.

I think it would be difficult for my mother.

She'd be really upset over it.

But she has to come to facts that she is going to have to do it at some point.

I... I really don't want my mother to go into a nursing home.

Perhaps eventually it might have to happen.

But as long as I can keep her...at home

and give her all the care I can...

If she went into a nursing home, my biggest concern is how would she be in different surroundings.

And different people. And I know she'd go downhill straight away

because she've always been used to having, you know, us around her.

It's frustrating, it is.

I know she's got dementia and that, she's blind,

but...it's my mother-in-law at the end of the day.

I don't know the last time me

and Sue went out as a couple for a drink.

Just a night out. I do remember.

We spent the night in Oxwich Bay in Swansea, just slept on the beach, me and her.

-That was last year.

-Last year. Ralph and Steph came with us. Just crashed out on the beach then.

Had a barbecue, couple of drinks. Brilliant night. No monitor with us.

And the kids stayed here and they kept an eye on her.

-Which was fair enough. I was telling them about Oxwich, good night that was.

-Oh, yeah.

-Slept on the beach, didn't we?

-Like an old pair of hippies!

-Brilliant!

-It was such a relief. It was...

It was a weight off your shoulders, wasn't it?

I didn't like leaving the kids behind because they always come with us.

But it was their idea - go on, you need a night away, you and Dad together.

We couldn't get in anywhere camping, so we just slept on the beach.

Lovely night though.

I'd missed seeing my wife getting drunk!

There are approximately 176,000 self-employed people in Wales, with

almost half of that total working in the farming and food industries.

It's 3am on a crisp April morning and in Milford Haven docks,

after ten days at sea,

the Mercurius is unloading its haul of fresh scallops.

It's the start of a very busy day for Shaun Ryan,

the boat's owner and Wales's last deep-sea trawlerman.

-Take over if you want.

-Take over!

Today is Good Friday, when as a nation,

Wales eats more fish than on any other day of the year.

By 5am, the scallops are on the road to shops,

markets and restaurants across Wales.

And Shaun's quayside fish processing unit and fishmonger's

is buzzing with activity in preparation for the big day ahead.

Today, Good Friday, so it's a very busy time.

This is all for your sorting and processing side of it, in here.

And then we've got the retail side, out the other side there,

with our mad Janice. I'd better not call her mad cos she'll hit me!

They're like skateboards. We will sell out today.

It's mostly the Catholics,

but everybody always has fish or smoked fish on Good Friday.

By nine o'clock, there's a queue to get into the fishmonger's,

something that doesn't particularly surprise Shaun.

There's been a good demand this year for what's around.

The markets have been good.

And the vans have been gone since first thing to get the fish

round to the hotels and restaurants for the weekend.

You're pulling my leg!

SHE LAUGHS

I think that must have been Moby Dick!

I'll see if I can find a smaller one, yes, Hilda?

It gets really manic.

It's ten past nine and we've already served...17 people.

And we've been open...ten minutes.

See? The more money we take, the bigger smiles we smile.

The scales might be looking good,

but the cash is going out as fast as it's coming in.

Fuel prices are going absolutely ridiculous.

It's the highest I've ever seen since I've been fishing.

They've jumped up...

In the past fortnight, they've jumped up another four pence a litre.

It's going crazy.

If it carries on going now, it's just not liveable with.

It's pointless. You might as well go and sign the dole

and get some money back off the Government what you put into them.

And it's not just fuel costs Shaun's fighting.

He's also trying to keep his prices competitive with the supermarket giants.

Last week, a local supermarket's price was 10.99 a kilo for cod

and we were 8.90.

For every pound you spend in a local shop, 75p stays in the community.

25p goes away.

For every pound you spend in a local supermarket,

25p stays in the area, 75p goes away.

Did you know that? It's horrendous, isn't it?

But whatever the day-to-day financial concerns,

on this Good Friday, they sold out of fish by midday.

They've done better than what they did last year.

They all comes back cos they all likes me!

When the till is full and the chillers are empty,

and when you've been at work since 3am,

that's as good an excuse as any to shut up shop early.

The number of Welsh people working past retirement age

has almost doubled in the last decade.

In 2012, there are more than 560,000 over-65s in Wales.

And 7% of them, some 40,000 people, still work.

It's lambing season at Ty Cerrig Farm in the foothills of Snowdonia.

It should be the busiest time of the year for 81-year-old tenant farmer Gruffydd Edwards.

But he's currently too ill to take to the fields.

Instead, the burden of lambing all 200 of his pregnant ewes has

fallen solely to his 31-year-old daughter, Carys.

This morning, I want to go around the sheep.

Check if there's any new lambs born.

We are three-quarters of the way through. We're on the last 50

to be lambed.

So I have to just watch that all the sheep are happy this morning.

Heini, bydd ddistaw.

This year, a good Welsh lamb is fetching around £60 at market.

And with rising rents

and feed costs leaving many tenant farmers living on annual

incomes as low as £8,000, every lamb delivered safely by Carys is vital.

I'm going to catch this ewe now to give the lamb some milk.

What I'm doing now,

I'm giving the lamb some milk so...get some food into him.

That's the most important.

Dere nawr, oen bach.

When it's bad weather, it's very, very important for them

to get sucking as quick as they can.

And then I look, he's a male.

So I put that down

in my book.

Tyrd o na. Ie.

Tyrd o na.

He's got a brown left leg, so we'll call him Film Star

and then I'll know him because he's got this brown leg.

Whilst Carys continues her vigil alone,

Gruffydd sits at home recovering.

At the beginning of the month, I had the flu.

And I think I got it just after the burning.

I'd been in the heat of the heather burning and so on.

But this is the worst flu that I've had, well, for many years, I think.

Of course, I'm getting older as well, so that's no help.

I've been lucky of Carys to...

feed the sheep and so on.

The big question hanging over Gruffydd and Ty Cerrig Farm is

whether or not he will be forced against his will to retire.

This summer, he faces a hip replacement operation,

but if he doesn't fully recover, can Carys afford to take over?

I don't mind looking after the farm,

it's just there's no living in farming.

You have to have another job.

It's very hard to keep on going to get money.

After that flu that I'm... I'm out of breath straight away.

Oh, I...

I'll be buggered for carrying cakes out for these sheep now.

I'm lucky Carys is there.

Whatever the outcome of Gruffydd's operation,

and however financially viable the farm may be,

Carys is in no doubt about the true value of this way of life.

It's the best life I can imagine.

Although long hours watching after them,

it's nice to see a young lamb being born.

Oh, it's...homely.

Homely.

Earlier in the programme,

factory owner James Mellor was in serious trouble with the VAT man.

In New Tredegar, the fate of his company, AJM Sewing,

has now been decided.

We've had our visit from the dreaded taxman.

Fortunately, we proved our case.

We've set up agreements with him.

Providing we adhere to those agreements, he've left us alone for 12 months.

For myself, it's a huge relief. At least I can sleep at night,

knowing that the factory's still going to be open on a Monday morning.

Knowing how profitable the business is at the moment,

it would have been devastating to have lost the business over actions

that happened when things were not doing so well.

So it's relief all round for James and his 36 employees.

But now it's time to put pedal to the metal

and get cracking on those exotic orders.

-This is a thong, isn't it?

-Yes.

Yeah, I think this comes around there and that comes there.

Do you know what I mean?

Like that. Somehow. And then that goes...somewhere else.

I think this is going to be a classic.

Don't ask!

Next time on Wales In A Year,

Ty Cerrig Farm's future is in the balance,

as Gruffydd goes under the knife.

Miserable. Miserable.

There's more heartache in Merthyr.

I'm so surprised she didn't break every bone in her body.

And Jahan witnesses the dark side of the drinks industry.

Open your legs a bit, mate, so you don't be sick on your shoes.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd