BBC News | HARD CASH | Meet the Team

The Hard Cash team

I began my career as a reporter on the Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh, moving on to the now defunct Sunday Standard in Glasgow as a feature writer. My first flirtation with television was with an STV series called Into the Eighties - that's how long ago it was! I was unexpectedly invited to present it because the producer happened to like an article I had written. After presenting a number of series on my day off from newspapers, I was invited to London to become one of the presenting team for a new daily current affairs magazine programme called Sixty Minutes, the BBC's successor to Nationwide. At this point I gave up the day job and concentrated on television.

Since then I have presented a number of mainline BBC programmes, including Breakfast News, Songs of Praise, the early evening news programme Reporting Scotland (which I anchor in Glasgow twice a week), A Family of My Own and, of course, Hard Cash.

I still manage to keep up my writing, producing four books, including biographies of Eric Liddell and Jack Clemo, and most recently, an account of life with children, pets, job and domestic chaos called Family Life.

I love Hard Cash because it gets to grips with the money issues that matter to all of us, issues which I approach not just as a journalist but with the same concern as any harassed mother in charge of a family budget.

I grew up in Southall, west London among the first generation of Indians. My parents arrived here in the early 60�s and struggled with the little money they had to raise and educate their four children. Being raised among immigrants you learn to value the importance of money, good financing and avoiding getting ripped off. So it annoys me when its sometimes the most vulnerable who are targeted by the unscrupulous.

My background in Journalism started from grass roots radio. While studying for my law degree at Bristol Polytechnic, I started working with a small pirate station which would be one of the first to get commercial status. Its here I learnt how important it is to give a voice to people who often get over looked. I went on to finish my degree and freelanced for Radio 4�s You and Yours and Womans Hour. I also worked as a development worker giving all sorts of advise to the local community.

My first job in Television was for BBC South where I became the Health Correspondent and I spent four years. It was a real achievement to be given a job as a Social Affairs Correspondent for the ONE and SIX O�Clock news giving me the chance to work on the big breaking Health and Education stories.

Now I�m looking forward to bringing the experience I�ve gained to my role as undercover reporter, exposing scams and sharp practise for Hard Cash.

I�m from Gowerton, near Swansea, in South Wales and as a child went to the local Welsh school and then on to college in Cardiff. My first TV job was as a presenter of children�s programmes on the Welsh television channel S4C. I also did a bit of work in radio. My family are bilingual so having made a start on Welsh speaking programmes I then decided to try my hand on English television and was fortunate enough to become a presenter on UK,OK alongside Katy Hill (now presenting Live and Kicking). I�ve always loved travelling and so I was delighted when the chance came to work as a roving reporter on the BBC�s Holiday programme, then Wish You Were Here and Holiday in Style. Next came the children�s consumer programme Short Change on which I was spotted for Hard Cash. But in all of this I haven�t forgotten my Welsh roots and still like to present occasional programmes in Welsh when I can. So who knows it could be Arian Caled next (that�s Hard Cash in Welsh for all you English-only speakers.)


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