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From Our Own Correspondent: Going to work

Going to work

03/11/2013

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Going to work

From electricians in Nigeria, to pastry-makers in Rome - and journalists past and present

Restoring the street-lights in Lagos, struggling as a carpenter in Rome, surviving as a journalist in northern Sri Lanka, or in bear-infested mountains, it's all in a day's work.

From the difference that street lights can make, to broadcasting from a studio with a bidet in it, our correspondents have seen, or done, it all.
Fergal Keane is reminded of his first days as a reporter back in Ireland, when he visits a Tamil newspaper in Sri Lanka. The buzz and the news values are the same, but the safety risks are incomparably worse.  
In Rome, Joanna Robertson finds that artisans like carpenters and pastry bakers are struggling to make ends meet. Some have to rent out rooms to pay the bills. Can skills gained over generations survive? 
Lagos at night is dark, and can be a bit scary. But as Neal Razzell finds, a crew of electricians is restoring the street lights in Nigeria's biggest city, and improving not just people's lives, but their incomes, too. 
Things are looking up for the trullari in southern Italy, too. They're the specialist builders who maintain the trulli, round dry-stone structures with conical cones. Dany Mitzman finds the former sheds or hovels are now desirable holiday homes.
Ian McDougall was a foreign correspondent for 27 years, filing 10,000 stories from four continents in that time. In 1976, he looked back over his long career, with some startling, and amusing, anecdotes. 
And Mark Doyle, also a foreign correspondent for many years, remembers a favourite moment in Ghana, when the business of getting hold of a smart jacket at short notice, revealed what's best about the Ghanaian people. 

Presenter: Pascale Harter
Producer: Arlene Gregorius

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