Interior designer Meg Mathews swaps her celebrity lifestyle for unemployment in Ebbw Vale for a new BBC TV series.
Famous Rich And Jobless takes four celebrities out of their comfort zone to survive on less than £10 a day.
Meg found fame when she married Oasis rock star Noel Gallagher, though the couple divorced within four years.
Actor Larry Lamb, gardener Diarmuid Gavin and former model Emma Parker Bowles also appear in the programmes on BBC One Wales on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Meg found fame when she married Oasis rock star Noel Gallagher, though the couple divorced within four years.
Actor Larry Lamb, gardener Diarmuid Gavin and former model Emma Parker Bowles also appear in the programmes on BBC One Wales on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Meg has to hand in her £8,000 diamond earrings as the celebrities are stripped of everything they value to be left with some old clothes and a Jobseeker’s weekly allowance of £39 to live on.
They are guided and assisted by employment expert Emma Harrison and Craig Last, a former youth worker for the charity Centrepoint, who has helped many homeless young people find jobs.
At the beginning of their eight-day experience, they are sent to four unemployment blackspots across the country where they spend their first four days surviving on benefits and looking for work.
Larry goes to Hartlepool, Diarmuid to Hackney, Meg spends her time in the Ebbw Valley and Emma tries to find work in Wolverhampton.
Meg succeeds in earning some money by making friends with the locals in her community.
A tiny rented flat in Ebbw Vale is a far cry from her £1m London home, and she admits she doesn’t know how much electricity costs.After earning £52 for a nine-hour shift on a market stall she says: “I think I will be a lot more economical in every way when I get home.”
But she perseveres and even inspires a former prisoner to ignore a stream of job rejections and find confidence to keep looking for work.A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2009 found that Blaenau Gwent – the county which includes Ebbw Vale – had the highest rate of joblessness in the UK.