Lives in a Landscape - It's a Bargain

Download It's a Bargain

We're all at it - from the very wealthiest amongst us to the very poorest: buying and selling on eBay. And no one knows better than Dave and Gary what's involved in shifting the items traded up and down the country.

The idea was simple: the depression in the building trade left Gary casting round for an alternative occupation. He's quite entrepreneurial and when someone suggested buying a van and cashing in on the eBay boom he decided to do just that, roping his uncle Dave in on what is now a family business.

They operate from a garage on a council estate in Cottingley, on the outskirts of Bradford, but for most of the week they're on the road - picking up and dropping everything from household goods to wool and even ornamental fountains! Their job takes them up and down the country and in just one journey they pick up a bed from the Speaker's wife, Sally Bercow - who has sold it on eBay to someone in the North - and drop off a rusting metal bench from Salford to a new owner in the South who hopes it will net him many thousands of pounds.

This might not be the future they once envisaged: Dave spent thirty years as a metal worker but when he topped 26 stones in weight his knees gave in and he lost his job. He has had gastric surgery and lost a third of his body weight but is sticking with the van driving for the time being. His nephew, Gary, needs him: he has a baby on the way and thinks he's identified an opportunity to make money from our national obsession with bargain hunting.

Producer: Sue Mitchell.

Published on Friday, 5th July 2013.

Available Podcasts from Lives in a Landscape

Subscribe to Lives in a Landscape

We are not the BBC, we only list available podcasts. To find out more about the programme including episodes available on BBC iPlayer, go to the Lives in a Landscape webpage.