Perhaps 30 years ago I had an opportunity to go and work in London - the national news agency the Press Association had offered me a job in the House of Commons after I had completed a trial on reporting Question Time.

The money was terrible - £2,400 if I recall rightly, some £400 less than I was on in the provinces at that time.

Chums, some of whom had made the journey already, urged me to take it.

Slog it out for 18 months and then you'll get on a national newspaper, they told me...and they may well have been right. But I couldn't face living penniless and miserable in a one bedroom slum.

So I never did seek my fortune on the mean streets of the capital.

Now life has turned full circle.

My daughter, newly graduated from Southampton Institute in film studies, is pondering her future.

Kirsteen is still living down on the south coast continuing with her student job, dishing out the tickets and the pop corn, in a cinema.

Her heart is set on film production and, though today there is an encouraging amount of film and media work in the regions including Birmingham, she has no real choice.

The British film industry is centred on London and she will have to up sticks and try her luck.

And no doubt Dad and Mum will have to fork out while she finds her feet.

Granny can't really do much - she is capital rich but cash poor. Essentially living off the interest on her savings.

Actually, she has given quite a bit away down the years to myself and my brother in a bid to mitigate inheritance tax.

But there is no more to gift if she is to have any sort of standard of living.

She could do some sort of equity release, but, probably correctly, has always been reluctant to lose control of her destiny. And, at 81, what, she keeps saying, would happen if she ended up in a nursing home for ten years?

No wonder then that a survey out this week found that middle-aged couples are being financially stretched, having to help both the older and younger generation make ends meet.

One in five people said they had stepped in to provide regular support for children aged between 18 and 25, while 13 per cent expect to have to help out their parents during retirement.

The majority of those in this middle generation said they thought life was much harder financially for young people than it was for them, according to the Portman Building Society.

More than three-quarters said they thought house prices were too high for the young, while 57 per cent believed the cost of higher education was a burden.

For the moment, granny is sprightly and well able to cope on her own. As for Kirsteen, well I too think it is really hard for young people these days as they launch themselves into the world of work.

She would like to do a Masters degree but the fees alone are more than £4,000 and, even if she gets a start in the film industry, it will be on a pittance.

So all three generations of us will be "broke".

Pass the begging bowl.