BBC Money Programme special on over 60s too young to retire
Listen to this item
On Friday the 8th of February 2008 at 7pm BBC 2 is showing “Too Young to Retire” - a special edition of The Money Programme about people who are building successful businesses in their 60s and 70s.
Valerie Singleton: Tonight on the Money Programme: is your age a barrier to your making it in the world of business?
Valerie: Britain has never had such an elderly and healthy population, with almost 13 million of us over 60.Presenter Valerie Singleton also talks to sisters Penny Walker and Annabel Rhodes, who set up their own natural cosmetics business Rhodes to Heaven in their sixties. They are shown taking their products to the next stage, selling them into an upmarket High Street chain.
Laurie South: We need to capture those people and actually help them to fulfil their dreams, because there are some amazing ideas out there.
Valerie: We meet the 60-somethings who have decided there’s a working alternative to 20 years of gentle retirement
One of the older entrepreneurs featured is chartered accountant Dick Pyle, who set up a truffle farm in France using an innovative adopt-a-truffle-tree business model. Customers pay £149 per tree - and then get all the produce from it. You can also visit your tree, or give trees as presents. He was just coming up to 60 and about to retire when he came up with this scheme.
From the BBC press release:
Former Money Programme presenter Valerie Singleton sets out on a journey around Britain to meet some of the oldest entrepreneurs in Britain. She examines if age is a hindrance or help to a new business career and hears the experiences of those men and women who have decided it’s never too late to start.
Statistics show that those who are over fifty and find themselves out of work have only a one in ten chance of being re-employed. So the option of starting up on your own is very attractive and may even be essential.
Valerie Singleton meets a variety of entrepreneurs who are finding success in new fields. There are the sisters in their sixties who started a range of organic beauty products and are working to get high street distribution for them. Then there is the illustrator who has built up a highly successful online greeting card business. There is also the sky-diving septuagenarian who has set up a children’s charity. Finally she meets a retired PR executive who is now trading in truffles.
She also seeks the advice of the UK’s oldest employee and employer - who are both still going strong despite being over one hundred years old.
With expert input on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur from “The Apprentice” star Sir Alan Sugar, and Peter Jones from Dragons’ Den the programme examines just what are the advantages and disadvantages in being an older entrepreneur.
Print this item