Cashing In, BBC One, 9pm
Cash Converters is the largest second hand goods chain of its kind in the world. There are 200 stores in the UK alone and it's two of that number - located in Glasgow and Motherwell - which are the setting for this year-in-the-life-of three-parter about pawnbroking which, you won't be surprised to learn, is a growth industry in these days of austerity. And if the Cashing In format sounds kind of familiar, that's because the company behind the series, Friel Kean Films, also made The Street, which examined the lives of people who live and work on Sauchiehall Street, and The Scheme, the controversial 2011 series filmed on Kilmarnock's Onthank and Knockinlaw housing estates.
The Glasgow branch of Cash Converters is on Renfield Street and, although not the biggest in Scotland, it is the busiest and the most profitable. Its general manager is the amiable Harry Harrison, a man not short of confidence. "It's fair to say if he was chocolate he would eat himself," says franchise owner David Thompson, who has this and 10 other Scottish stores.
Harry and his team see it all on a daily basis, from people getting rid of their kids' old toys, to people who can't afford to pay a bill or buy the weekly food shop and as a result are having to pawn a phone or a stereo or, in the case of regular customer, Blessing, a drum.
We meet Blessing early on as she holds court in the shopfront and her story illustrates both the good and the bad of the pawnbroking business: she has borrowed £30 against the drum using the "buyback" scheme which means she can get it back within 28 days if she hands over £39. She can't afford that today but she doesn't want to lose the drum, so she's purchasing another week's grace by paying £9. Another regular customer is Elaine, who struggles for money and is a full-time carer to her wheelchair-bound 27-year-old son, Mark. She walks away with just £10, but it's enough.
"Some days you fell like you're a social worker for some of them," says one worker. "Other days you feel like you're holding auditions for Jeremy Kyle. But it's a good laugh."
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