Let's talk about social class. I am proud, though slightly surprised, that the BBC's online class calculator has identified me as 'traditional working class'. I have always agreed with John Prescott's definition i.e. that one retains the class of one's parents. And as someone who grew up in Bethnal Green in a house with an outside toilet and no bathroom I am not sure what else I could be.
 |
| A chap with a beard |
The interactive version of Charles Booth's poverty maps of London (in the Museum of London - well worth visiting) identify the house in which I grew up as Dark Blue or "Casual earnings, very poor. The labourers do not get as much as three
days work a week, but it is doubtful if many could or would work full
time for long together if they had the opportunity. Class B is not one
in which men are born and live and die so much as a deposit of those who
from mental, moral and physical reasons are incapable of better work." Now we had clearly come up somewhat in the world by the time I arrived (at least my mother's family; my father's family never did) and might even have been as high as Pink at that point. But one is what one is. The university degrees, accountancy qualification, opera going, waterside apartment living are mere veneer.
 |
| You can put lipstick on a Pink, but it's still a Pink |
No comments:
Post a Comment