I’ve been a bit tired and emotional this week. The boys went back to school, my youngest starting for the first time, marching off in his little uniform. I cried at the gates – not because of the momentousness of the occasion, or even because I was sorry to see them go (I’ve had five months of them, are you mad?), but because of the teachers, shrugging off their worries to welcome us with a smile. I love teachers. Worship the ground they walk on. Give me a teacher dressed up as Professor McGonagall on Halloween, and I will give you a pumpkin-shaped bucket of incoherent tears. They don’t need to dress up. No one is paying them to dress up. But they do it all the same, while they teach our children to read, and do their times tables, and spell, and - Oh, I’ve gone again. Give me a minute…

As far as I’m concerned, no one could ever pay teachers enough, or praise them enough – though our shitshow of a government could make a start. Anyway, I dropped my kids off, weeping and wondering if the pub was open, before resolving to go home and do some work. The house was empty, I was on a deadline; now was my opportunity to really get stuck into that edit, and read all those books piled on my bedside drawers.

After upcycling a coffee table, going on an 8K run, repainting the hallway, tiling the downstairs bathroom, and prepping some salmon for the dog, I finally came to, realising I was sweaty and in need of a rest. So I settled down – in the middle of the day – to watch some telly. I chose Lodgers and Codgers, a new Channel 4 series, for my afternoon delight.

Now, I must disclose a vested interest in this show. Although I never laid a finger on it, L&C was made by the production company I used to work for, and was the last thing on the slate when I left. But, beyond hooting at a few early casting tapes, I don’t think I contributed much, so you can take this as the clear, unbiased view of an outsider, albeit one who still e-mails old colleagues saying things like ‘I’ve got an idea for you! How about The Masked Singer for celebrity skiing?!’

In many ways, this is an old-fashioned format. The premise, as you might suspect from the title, is that young people move in with old people – the kind of classic culture clash RDF is famous for. Because decent housing is unaffordable for struggling millennials, who are busy buying lattes and going to Berlin, but well-cushioned boomers bought their massive properties for 6 shillings back in 1954 and are mortgage-free, thank you very much. Both parties come to the table with preconceptions, which are largely borne out across the show.

First, there’s a sort of speed dating event in a pub, which gives you a pleasing montage of old and young in a frank exchange of views - pierced avocado-eating upstart coming out as pansexual; hunched wrinkly coming out as a Leaver, etc. But gradually, tentative alliances are formed, and a few pair off to try living together. A major letdown is that this is only a trial arrangement, and they’re not locked into a six-month contract of mutual misery and recrimination. When lovely ‘single Pringle’ Liam heads to peppery Flo’s drab seaside home, it’s only for a week, but that’s quite enough for them to get a handle on each other. Liam discovers that Flo’s bathroom is filthy, and she’s a grumpy old cow. She resents him brandishing Marigolds, telling him to lose weight and stop being such a baby. But of course, as the days go by, they find common ground, end up on a night out together, getting squiffy and tottering round Brighton’s backstreets.

Along the coast in Hastings, the splendid Nicole, a pouting fashion-blogger, moves in with Ted and Claudine, who own a fine art deco home, along with several other rental properties that they dangle in front of her as if to say ‘you too could have all this bounty if only you’d been born fifty years earlier!’ Claudine is one who prides herself on telling it like it is, but Nicole is gloriously unabashed, continuing her scrupulous application of lipstick and greeting her landlady’s sour face with a disarming hug. Claudine can’t help but be charmed, and finds herself playing photographer at one of Nicole’s photoshoots, impressed by her work ethic.

Obviously, despite warming to each other, neither party has the slightest intention of making it a permanent arrangement, and when the week is up, they gaily part ways, assuring each other that they’ve all learnt something worthwhile. In the end-credits catch-up, we hear that Nicole has stopped buying plastic bags. Flo thinks Liam might have e-mailed her but she lost it. I found these muted, prosaic updates curiously refreshing and touching.

This is a cheerful, gentle series which soothes the soul and smooths the feathers. It doesn’t attempt to be ground-breaking, or shatter our illusions too brutally, but simply trundles along, giving us flawed and endearing characters, the products of their environment, doing the best they can. I’d much rather watch that than Stacey Dooley investigating spycam sex criminals.

However, there was one moment that really choked me, elevating the show beyond a cosy teatime treat. Flo, the crabby, lazy 83-year-old loner, gradually revealed herself as a 4-month-old orphan left in a children’s home, who raised four of her own children as a single mother, and is now left festering alone, resolutely unsorry for herself. She wouldn’t describe herself as lonely: ‘Years ago I had jobs, and I had children and in fact used to get bloody worn out with it, knackered. Now I’m not.’ She stares, defiantly, at the off-camera producer. ‘That’s how it happens. That’s life.’ She jerks her shoulder dismissively, a lifetime of toil and worry, in its dim and thankless twilight, shrugged off.

I dissolved then, like I dissolved at the school gates. People with the weight of the world, putting their troubles behind them, getting on with it. Because that’s what you do.

That’s how it happens. That’s life.

• Lodgers and Codgers, Channel 4, 5 episodes