The Romanian Wave

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Romanians are the second largest foreign nationality in the UK. Why did they come and will they stay? One politician famously once said he "would not like to live next door to Romanians." But now they work in the health service, they teach in British universities, pick fruit on farms and wash cars. Yet sensational headlines have described them as "criminal gangs" and "begging Roma." Tessa Dunlop, a Romania-phile historian, uncovers a misunderstood, multi-layered immigrant community and asks why so many now call Britain home.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi Patrick IE here. I've made a brand new podcast called 30 Animals that made us smarter.
0:05.2	It's about how animals have inspired innovations in science and technology and
0:09.8	the animals will be really upset if you don't check it out.
0:13.2	But back to the podcast you've chosen to listen to now. Alyna, she's first there.
0:24.3	Nup.
0:25.3	Look at her.
0:27.3	She's so cute.
0:29.3	She is cute, isn't she?
0:31.6	I've bought my two month old daughter back to Guy's Hospital in London to meet
0:35.8	a lina one of the fertility nurses who helped me on what was a rocky road to have a
0:40.4	baby. I'm Tessa Dunlop and this is the Romanian Wave for the BBC World Service.
0:49.2	Are you? I've been in this room you know to have counselling. I think I've cried in this room I feel sure
0:54.2	I have a lot of people are crying in this room I was definitely one of them it took
1:00.2	five years for me to have a second child and in my 40s it involved lots of IVF and several
1:06.2	miscarriages which needed medical intervention.
1:10.4	There's one thing that struck me about my treatment.
1:13.0	Nurses, midwives, a gynecologist,
1:16.0	at least five of them were Romanian.
1:19.0	Twenty years ago, I hardly ever heard Romanian spoken in London and now I hear it almost daily on the
1:25.4	tube in taxis in the library and in hospitals up to half a million Romanians and
1:31.2	now in jobs across the UK economy.
1:34.2	Who are they and what are they doing?
	...

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