But seriously, I come from working class background, both parents and grandparents before me were poverty stricken wretches who had to eke out a living working 25 hours a day down the pit then walking 15 miles home in the rain to an evening meal of ½ a roofing tile spread thinly with engine oil.
And I don’t mean each oh no! this had to be shared between 11 kids and adults.
Then it was off to bed, well I say bed but it was really a pile of old rotten coal sacks that the dog used to piss on and mighty glad we were for the warmth of that piss.
Sunday was our day off, sort of. We’d all trundle down to the church to give thanks to him upstairs for all our earthly joys and then it was a 27 mile walk into the country to pick dandelion leaves for a rich and nourishing broth, if we were really lucky we’d find a dead rat and should that happen our joy knew no bounds.
We could save the rat for Christmas, admittedly it tended to smell a bit ripe by then but who were we to complain.
Anyway, I grew up and now live a life of comparative luxury, some days I eat a whole slice of stale bread…all-to-myself, don’t have to share with anyone.
Sometimes I look back on the good old days with affection, yes we had it rough but we were happy, we knew our places
I have a British cousin who works in a bank in a management position. Very nice guy, dresses well, speaks well, has a nice house. I usually felt somewhat inferior to him, but not because of anything he did or said, but because I was raised just one step higher than having cars on blocks in the yard. When I was staying with him I spoke to his teenage son about where he would go to college.
I later found out from another cousin, that I had inadvertantly insulted the family. The father had not “gone to University” and they had no plans for the son to do so. Apparently the British school system is good enough that many jobs in the US that would require a degree would not over there.
I tried to explain that encouraging kids to go to college in the US is just taken for granted, certainly in the type of family my cousin had. I’m still embarrased that I made them feel bad, they are some of the most gracious people I ever met. And, the irony is that I never graduated from college despite going on to work as a researcher in high-tech.
The last I heard the son is also working at the bank in a job that gave him enough money to put down a deposit on a home for he and his wife.
When I was in high school some of my friends and I persuaded two girls to sneak out at night, come to my friend’s house, take off all their clothes and make out with each other. One of the girls was named Kate Middleton. I’ll never forget that name, from that incident. Therefore as soon as I saw that the Prince was with a girl named Kate Middleton, I laughed to myself over this coincidence. Now every time I see any reference to this woman, all I can think of is a 15 year old girl, naked, making out with one of her friends on the floor.
Some people seem to be branded with their working-class background no matter how far up the greasy pole they climb. One example is John Prescott, one time deputy prime minister. In his early working life he worked on merchant ships as a steward.
When he got up to speak in the House of Commons some of the upper-class twits on the Conservative benches would call out “another gin and tonic steward”.
Luxury! We used to dream of having 1/2 a roofing tile smeared with Engine Oil for our supper. We had to make do with bits of thatch from the abandoned cottage down by t’Mill, with naught but a pinch of tarmac for afters.
And- of course- being a Mancunian, our Chowder is no doubt a true Master of the Ancient and Noble Lancastrian Martial Art of… Ecky Thump :D.
many of the traditional middle class jobs such as law, politics, and (to a lesser degree) both still have a very influential “old boys network” of contacts and relations. Even if there is no outright prejudice regarding someone’s background, these fields are still more difficult to advance in without these contacts.
State secondary schools were very poor for a long time. They tended to concentrate on practical subjects such as maths, engineering and sciences and not offer choices of subjects required for more traditionally middle class employment This has gotten better recently but is still a problem.
For example I went all the way through comprehensive school without any significant teaching in grammar (nothing more extensive than full stops and question marks) and later learned that this was a deliberate policy at the time, this obviously does little to help me later in life. I had no option to study law, politics, psychology, and many other subjects at A level.
State schools also have to spend a lot of resources on their much higher percentage of kids with severe learning and behavioural problems. Private schools tend to be much more straightforward about teaching to the tests and coaching their kids on specifics for entrance to different fields.
The drive to get more kids through University was very poorly executed. It really just led to a proliferation in very poor university courses. People ended up doing the same job as they would have done before, they just now need a degree to do it, start work four years later, with £10 - 15K debt hanging over their heads.
You must have a fairly good ear for dialect, because I’ve lived in Manchester for 46 years and never noticed those differences - unless you mean those living in council properties say “Y’righttt?”, whereas those who own their home say “Are you alright?”!
Bits of thatch, a pinch of tarmac? so you were the bastard that kept taking bits off our 'umble 'ovel
By 'eck lad you had the life of Riley, it’s a good job me whippet never spotted you, we’d have had deep fried knackers for supper if’n he had.
Ah Ecky Thumping, unfortunately the powers that be declared this noble art illegal back in 1881, summat to do with keeping us in our places, downtrodden, grimey, lice infested and hungry
I guess my efforts to not see classes in America have been successful. I was unaware that so many Americans felt the way people in this thread seem to–making all of these meaningless distinctions.
When I get together with my friends for a drink or a poker game, we’re likely to have a guy who owns a $20M ranch, a mechanic, a realtor, a retired businessman who spends his summers up here in his 2nd home, a ranch hand, and a teacher. We’re all the same “class,” and we’re all just as likely to overtip the bartender.
Yeah, we have people who resent the “damned trust-fund babies” and people who don’t want to drink at the bar the miners and ski-lift operators frequent, but they’re the exception, not the rule, and that’s why I love living here.
All this time, I’d thought useless trivia like what high school you attended and whether your grandfather had money or titles didn’t matter in the U.S. (outside of places like Boston, where I’ve seen the class discrimination firsthand), but this thread depresses me.
Your cousin was just having some fun with you. No Briton would be offended if you asked them about college.
This. The same kids who’d have taken trade apprenticeships 20 years ago now go to college to learn how to be welders or whatever, and don’t learn how to weld or how to do anything else.
