I'm not sure how 'typical' that is. Growing up on the edge of the Valleys we always associated horses with posh people. You know. 'Out Usk', as we'd say.
The horses and hounds of the Llangybi Hunt might appear at a carnival in Caerleon, say, but you'd never see them in Cwmbran or Abersychan I don't expect or up The Varteg.
There was a miners' fox hunting group up the Valleys at one time. I'm not sure they had horses though.
I'd say it varied. In some places equine culture may have resembled Ireland's rather than England's but South Wales is strange. You didn't have to head very far east from the Eastern Valley to find 'Yoicks! Tally ho!' types and Tory farmers in 'The Middle of Monmouthshire.'
The transition from the industrial Valleys to rolling countryside that seemed an extension westwards from the Cotswolds but not as twee was quite abrupt. It was if someone had drawn a line down the middle of the county.
The Banwen Miners Hunt was kennelled in the old lamp room of the colliery, and at least initially was entirely the result of Banwen villagers. It had horses. ‘Has’ might be more appropriate given they’re still with us.
The Colne Valley Beagles (no horses) used to stagger their meet times to accommodate the change of shift in the mills.
Meets at Woodford Halse of the Grafton Hunt were heavily supported by the employees of the Great Central Railway.
Why weren't there jobs to encourage posh people to attend working-class sporting events like stockcar racing, wrestling or greyhound racing dahn the East End?
Ok, that's flippant but it raises some questions about values and what is considered important and why.
It's purely by historical accent that Cockney rather than RP ended up as the accent of the Court.
What if we lived in a parallel universe where stockcar racing rather than Glyndeborne was considered the apogee of taste and chic?
Clearly you missed Brian Sewell’s (yes, that Brian Sewell) documentary on stock car racing for Radio 4 a decade or so ago.
Randomly, he was an aficionado/expert on it, this wasn’t at all a ‘fish out of water’ programme, and Radio 4 gave him time to explain at length why their audience should give it a go.
Sure, but Sewell wasn't employed to develop middle-class audiences for stockcar racing.
I suspect he was on a deliberate 'slumming it' pose, but I might be doing him a disservice, old boy.
Point taken on ‘employed’ but he did leverage his platform to attempt to interest a middle class audience in stock car racing.
You are doing him a disservice - even though the whole thing feels like a spoof, he was an attendee at the stock cars at Wimbledon dog track pretty much weekly from the 1970s to his death!
Yeah, but it wasn't authentic was it? Not like it would have been for @Heavenlyannie.
I'm not doing Sewell a disservice at all. I'm calling him out. I've been to a few wrestling matches. Giant Haystacks. Kendo Nagasaki. I enjoyed them. But I was there in a middle-class and ironic postmodern kind of way.
Sewell would have been like that at stockcar racing events.
If he was honest he'd have admitted it.
Ok, but why is that ‘inauthentic’? Why are you ‘calling him out’ for something he obviously genuinely enjoyed?
Why does it have to be ‘in a middle-class and ironic postmodern kind of way?’
I’m really confused here, I thought we’d dropped that verse of All Things Bright And Beautiful.
If a working class man wants to go to the opera does he get called out for inauthenticity? I’d hope not. And yet go ‘downmarket’ in your enthusiasms from a ‘higher’ class and get judged.
And there, for overseas readers, is why this thread, in the 21st century, is necessary.
A lot of class markers in the UK are about differences in accent, etiquette and taste. These differences in socialisation are evident regardless of how much you now earn or what job you now do. They are primarily to do with how you are brought up.
The problem with UK class prejudice, is that it assigns a moral value to these differences - and also to to having preferences outside your class. Not unlike gender roles in some ways - it is about how you perform your social role.
I am joking to a certain extent @betjemaniac and as it's confession time, I will admit to a certain amount of bristling when I read of the Banwen Miners' Hunt and The Colne Valley Bugles.
I feel let down. Betrayed.
These things are irrational but they are there. I'm middle-class, had a professional job, but catch me at the wrong moment and I'll become as Bolshie as any old-fashioned miner from Blaina.
Some of my best friends at university went to private schools. They don't have two-heads.
But when the hwyl and my blood is up you might hear me ranting and raving in class-war fashion.
I'm sure Sewell did genuinely enjoy stockcar racing. I enjoyed the wrestling matches I attended. But they weren't my natural milieu any more than stockcar racing was Sewell’s.
Of course we can enjoy things in an ironic postmodern kind of way. That's part of the fun.
As a Freemason you'll be aware that many 18th century toffs attended the early Lodges in order to slum it a bit. Ok, there was more to it than that but it was part of it.
The bottom-line for me if I were to wear my Bolshie hat would be, yes, it's perfectly fine for a working class person to enjoy opera. No, it's not fine for a toffee-nosed git like Sewell to enjoy stockcar racing. It's cultural appropriation and he should fuck right off out it ...
I hasten to add that whilst Masonic Lodges are clearly 'Synagogues of Satan' where otherwise decent fellas are lured and seduced into beastly demonic rites, a particularly noteworthy feature of Freemasonry has been its capacity to act as a social leveller.
I'm not knocking that.
But neither am I going to join my local Lodge even in an ironic postmodern kind of way.
But neither would I try to dissuade anyone else from doing so.
Where I am from horse racing was for everyone. Working class men like my dad would spend a couple of hours each evening going over the form books. The horses he picked often came in second. Racing trips were run from our local working men’s clubs. Those clubs would have race nights where videos of races were shown for people to bet on. Cricket was also popular with working class men. Both my dad and grandad played for my home town first team. My dad should have had a tryout for Lancashire but I was on the way so he got a “proper job”
If a working class man went to opera yes he would be seen as trying to be posh. A working class woman not so much but still a little. There can be a lot of reverse snobbery. My dad got a middle class job eventually but still remained working class at heart.
a particularly noteworthy feature of Freemasonry has been its capacity to act as a social leveller.
For those above a certain class anyway. Otherwise they simply won't get invited. My paternal grandfather, lower middle class tory that he was, was unsurprisingly a Mason. My grandma was well-served by Masonic Widows, but my dad never joined and I think likely associated it with the nastier aspects of his dad's character. I, equally unsurprisingly, have never been invited.
I remember sitting in a pub with a mate of mine one evening when we decided that we two didn't really fit in anywhere. We were both born into working-class homes but through education (and more important, love of learning) we got into middle-class jobs and attained a middle-class lifestyle.
We've both got far too many books, and are too intellectual, to fit in with our working-class friends. On the other hand, we weren't brought up with a middle-class culture. We aren't narrow-minded Tories and we'd be even more uncomfortable in a golf club lounge than in a working man's club.
As it is, neither of us has kids. (My mate has never even married.) I suppose, if we had, those kids would be middle-class. But I can't see myself obsessing over getting them in the 'right' school or wanting to keep them away from the nasty working-class oiks.
I wonder if this social dislocation is a factor in the mental issues (severe depression) I have suffered? Not that it matters, really. It is as it is.
I think social dislocation is a contributor to my developing manic depression, though there is probably a genetic element as well. But I am actually very relaxed about who I mix with; I live on a council estate and have a working class family background, but I have mainly middle class friends and hobbies. My husband and children are middle class. Being a nurse for several decades has meant I have mixed with people from all backgrounds, such as Arabic princesses and Luton prostitutes, and I know that people are just people no matter their class. My accent goes up and down like a yo-yo according to who I am talking to, though.
My working class family have openly referred to me as ‘posh’ for decades, probably from when I moved to London in my early 20s and certainly since I married a middle class man and moved to Cambridge. It’s no big deal.
Where I am from horse racing was for everyone. Working class men like my dad would spend a couple of hours each evening going over the form books. The horses he picked often came in second. Racing trips were run from our local working men’s clubs. Those clubs would have race nights where videos of races were shown for people to bet on. Cricket was also popular with working class men. Both my dad and grandad played for my home town first team. My dad should have had a tryout for Lancashire but I was on the way so he got a “proper job”
If a working class man went to opera yes he would be seen as trying to be posh. A working class woman not so much but still a little. There can be a lot of reverse snobbery. My dad got a middle class job eventually but still remained working class at heart.
You misunderstand, Hugal. Betting on horses is a working class thing. By and large owning them and riding them is a middle or upper class thing.
On the Masons, my Dad became one briefly. He was self-employed at the time and I'm sure he only did so because he thought he'd get some work out of it.
My mother always said that the Masons were the most corrupt outfit going in a South Wales known for nepotism and political corruption of all kinds.
Her uncle was a Grand Master in Bristol though and she always felt he was in it for the right reasons. I have no reason to doubt that nor what she said about Freemasonry in South Wales.
In my experience it's a drinking club which largely attracts aspirational lower middle class blokes who think they are going to hob-nob with the great and the good and that it's a sign of them having 'arrived' socially.
I'm sure it varies from place to place. My Dad eventually conceded it was a load of bollocks but that could be because he didn't get the contacts he was hoping for.
I remember sitting in a pub with a mate of mine one evening when we decided that we two didn't really fit in anywhere. We were both born into working-class homes but through education (and more important, love of learning) we got into middle-class jobs and attained a middle-class lifestyle.
That's not that far off my situation - in fact, so is most of your post. It's not quite looking in a mirror, but definitely wondering if there is a mirror. Thankfully my sport of choice is cricket, so if we go out for a shandy, there's all manner of different backgrounds represented. I wouldn't have a clue where to send the kids we don't have as I went to a special school for six years, then two years as an assisted place at a private school, while my other half (who I think I am safe to reveal is from a far more academic background) went to local comprehensives.
I think it fair to say that I don't really fit anywhere except round the cricketers.
I've never understood why class is important. It seems to me that one danger about giving anyone a label means that assumptions will then be made about their likes and dislikes and their opinions and their value.
As Karl said above I have no idea where I would fit into the various definitions already given.
Class is important, imo, because there is inequity in society and it is important to understand why so that it can be addressed. I see this in my everyday work with working class students and understand it from my own experience as one.
My main hobby for years was competitive ballroom dancing. I still dance when I can and teach a bit. Though not cheap by any means it is still a class leveller, particularly in the Northwest of England where I am from. Most people in my area at some point had ballroom lessons and can do a decent waltz and cha cha cha when called on.
I too had a working class upbringing in a council estate, but now people see me as middle class.
@la vie en rouge Yes, she did, and the faux shock told us far, far more about the people making comments about it than anything else. Apparently the reason why she gets on well with HMK is that they both enjoy Wagner.
On the Masons, my Dad became one briefly. He was self-employed at the time and I'm sure he only did so because he thought he'd get some work out of it.
My mother always said that the Masons were the most corrupt outfit going in a South Wales known for nepotism and political corruption of all kinds.
Her uncle was a Grand Master in Bristol though and she always felt he was in it for the right reasons. I have no reason to doubt that nor what she said about Freemasonry in South Wales.
In my experience it's a drinking club which largely attracts aspirational lower middle class blokes who think they are going to hob-nob with the great and the good and that it's a sign of them having 'arrived' socially.
I'm sure it varies from place to place. My Dad eventually conceded it was a load of bollocks but that could be because he didn't get the contacts he was hoping for.
Just on the tangent, as (nearly) the only Freemason left on here* that’s basically it. Not so much of a drinking club as a dining club - there’s rarely a bar outside the dining room, and that typically shuts once dinner has started. And these days most people are driving.**
I don’t doubt favours have been done in lodges, but then equally so they have in rugby clubs, Women’s Institutes, Rotary, the local pub - it’s natural anywhere like minded people gather. I can well believe @gamaliel ‘s mother on the subject in South Wales, though tbh I suspect that even there the local rugby clubs probably had the actual crown for nepotism (where it wasn’t just the same people at a different bar!)
What I will say about masonry these days is that there’re a lot fewer people joining for a leg up - you can do that on LinkedIn without the apron.
I think it’s more like a ‘man cave’/repair shed set up that just provides a bit of fellowship and some amateur dramatics. I feel much calmer in a lodge meeting with all the ritual (as someone with ADHD and ASD) than I do anywhere except a church service.
*I can think of I think 2 others, but I’m not outing them.
**standing line is with so many people thinking the police are masons, the police tend to lie in wait outside Masonic halls just so they can prove they aren’t by nabbing them, so drivers tend to be towards the colder end of stone cold sober in reality.
I wasn't so much commenting on horse racing as the Senedd's patronising assumptions in going for dog racing. Am I the only person who might suspect that they are signalling their virtue by banning dog racing, because it's an easier target and who cares among those who have power and matter, when it's only a low class pursuit anyway?
I've related, but not identical, suspicions that very few of those who have protested over the years about hunting, have rejoiced when it was banned and are still making a noise with allegations that it's surreptitiously still going on are really driven primarily by their charitable concern for the welfare of foxes rather than their resentment towards people in pink coats who have more money than they do.
I wasn't so much commenting on horse racing as the Senedd's patronising assumptions in going for dog racing. Am I the only person who might suspect that they are signalling their virtue by banning dog racing, because it's an easier target and who cares among those who have power and matter, when it's only a low class pursuit anyway?
I've related, but not identical, suspicions that very few of those who have protested over the years about hunting, have rejoiced when it was banned and are still making a noise with allegations that it's surreptitiously still going on are really driven primarily by their charitable concern for the welfare of foxes rather than their resentment towards people in pink coats who have more money than they do.
Unless you've got evidence for your suspicions, I'd keep them to yourself, unless you're quite casual about the possibility of inadvertently bearing false witness, or at the very least Bulverism.
I wasn't so much commenting on horse racing as the Senedd's patronising assumptions in going for dog racing. Am I the only person who might suspect that they are signalling their virtue by banning dog racing, because it's an easier target and who cares among those who have power and matter, when it's only a low class pursuit anyway?
I think there may well be "an easy target" aspect. The cruelty arguments for dog racing and horse racing are very similar, though I think there may be more incentive to look after horses than dogs because of their higher value - both for racing and later stud. But, while there will be people who will protest about the cruelty of horse racing actually seeking to do anything to reduce the harm to horses will be limited to very minor changes.
The "easy target" isn't, however, only going to be based on class. It will also reflect the number of dog races compared to horse racing - in Scotland where there is also a campaign to end dog racing this will affect only one track (Thornton, Fife) as all the other greyhound tracks are now closed, compared to five horse racing courses.
...Betting on horses is a working class thing. By and large owning them and riding them is a middle or upper class thing.
This made me smile and remember a conversation I had with a friend who is a lot more of a countryman (not difficult) than me, about the costs of horse ownership. It struck me then that unlike old Fords (a working-class pursuit where I came from) it is tricky to keep half a horse for spares under a tarp in the corner of the garden, or to make a good one out of several which are knackered.
I should also add that I had an uncle who was a big hunt fan, a lorry mechanic who lived (and died) in a council house. I don't think he was very unusual in the west country where he lived, but then neither were his deference and xenophobia.
We've both got far too many books, and are too intellectual, to fit in with our working-class friends.
It seems to me that historically there was also a strong tradition of the working class auto-didact in the Anglo-sphere, although it tended to be connected with working class institutions, and perhaps in an earlier era with certain strands of non-conformism (the phenomena of 'lift' has come in for comment across multiple time periods).
We've both got far too many books, and are too intellectual, to fit in with our working-class friends.
It seems to me that historically there was also a strong tradition of the working class auto-didact in the Anglo-sphere, although it tended to be connected with working class institutions, and perhaps in an earlier era with certain strands of non-conformism (the phenomena of 'lift' has come in for comment across multiple time periods).
Angela Rayner and John Prescott could be seen in that light
On working class people going to the opera: the snobbery Angela Rayner met with when she went to Glyndebourne says a lot about class in the UK.
And when she went on holiday to Magaluf (or wherever it was) and went clubbing, she was criticised for that too. Newsflash: adults can do what they like with their own money and sometimes it doesn't fit into people's stereotyped ideas of them.
On working class people going to the opera: the snobbery Angela Rayner met with when she went to Glyndebourne says a lot about class in the UK.
And when she went on holiday to Magaluf (or wherever it was) and went clubbing, she was criticised for that too. Newsflash: adults can do what they like with their own money and sometimes it doesn't fit into people's stereotyped ideas of them.
Anyone would think that the press had some kind of thing against her....
On working class people going to the opera: the snobbery Angela Rayner met with when she went to Glyndebourne says a lot about class in the UK.
And when she went on holiday to Magaluf (or wherever it was) and went clubbing, she was criticised for that too. Newsflash: adults can do what they like with their own money and sometimes it doesn't fit into people's stereotyped ideas of them.
Anyone would think that the press had some kind of thing against her....
They will always target the left-most prominent Labour politicians. Ed Miliband is also a favoured target in a cabinet largely devoid of anyone on the left. Stir in a bit of misogyny and classism and Rayner gets the worst of it. There's a reason Diane Abbott was long the recipient of the most abuse and threats, having had the temerity to be Black, working class, left wing and a woman.
Well, I once had to spend a weekend with Tony Banks and the Blairs (long, boring story) and I can tell you that Mr Banks was by far and away the better company.
I grew up never knowing where I fitted. Clergy father, big house, therefore mocked for being posh. Couldn’t afford heating, all holidays were locums therefore free, all clothes were hand me downs, never able to save - not poor but certainly living month to month.
Same here.
My grandparents all worked in the Lancashire mills. My Dad was a Church Minister. My Mum worked in a jam factory while he trained, my grandma looked after us three children.
I was called 'posh' yet we had no money.
My brothers and I were lucky
- we grew up when university education was free. I became a teacher and my brothers engineers.
Now I'm happily retired and living in a very middle class area in rural Somerset. I find I fit in very well!
@Gill H And another one.
Biggest house in the village, probably the coldest too. Holidays courtesy of a churchwarden with a kind heart and a holiday home.
Salvation came in three forms:
[1] The local teacher training college, and the pure luck that the one warm(ish) room on the ground floor had an adjacent loo that was turned into a shower room (in the 1960s!) and had its own outside door. We had a succession of (mostly) lovely girls who appreciated living off-campus and having the freedom of being able to live without the scrutiny of a landlord/lady imposing a curfew.
[2] Grandparents chipping-in what and when they could, but a mixed blessing.
[3] Local "good" schools with scholarships.
I was lucky in that there were no boys above me in the pecking order; my poor youngest sister not only had two older ones but two even older female cousins - even Liberty print starts to look tired when it is sixth hand.
BUT there were upsides: the vast eight acre "garden" (2 of garden, 4 of fields, 2 of woodland) provided freedom to roam, plus we grew most of our own fruit and veg. And I'm very, very good at mowing.
The UK class system is fascinating to me, as I live in Oz. In times past, and perhaps more recognisable in our country towns would have been a social hierarchy based on the most highly educated and salaried being at the top of the social structure. So, the Doctors, Dentists, Surveyors, Solicitors, School Principals and Ministers of Religion would have been at the top along with successful business owners. As tertiary education has become more accessible, I think this is much less the case and has moved to the income/propertied system.
Though I have heard that depending where you live, the first question asked (and possibly judgements being made), is where did you go to school? I’m conscious too that more families are withdrawing children from government schooling in favour of independent or church-run schools.
I find the comment about horse racing very interesting – rich people ride them, and that working class people bet on them. Here it seems to me that wealthier people are interested in racing, fashions on the field and working- class people perhaps more involved in greyhound racing (which is being phased out in various jurisdictions due to animal cruelty concerns). A couple of my classmates earnt weekend cash helping at the greyhounds. A couple of memories from my childhood, one schoolfriend’s Dad listening to horse racing on the radio on a Saturday afternoon at home and enjoying a beer, he was a roads maintenance worker. There was a stable about half a block from my home when I was in primary school. I believe the owner trained horses for racing and a couple of girls had their ponies there. The Dad of one of the girls was a Bank Manager and all three daughters rode, the other girl had a Mum with a job outside the home (which was unusual unless your Mum was a teacher or a nurse), They would have had vastly higher incomes than many in our town, which had a high proportion of Indigenous people.
I think now it is more common to stratify people by their ownership of property. Those at the top have expensive homes (perhaps multiple), with the very wealthy in our capital cities and having beachfront property/properties. There doesn’t seem to be an exclusion based on education, it’s based on income, and we have the expression “cashed up tradies”, where tradespeople – plumbers, electricians, builders have a good reliable income, being in high demand and thus if successful have access to higher priced properties and perhaps multiple homes either as investment properties, or a holiday home. Those at the bottom of society are homeless, with the next step up being housed in property rented from the government. The next level up would be renting on the private property market. Then moving into home ownership with a unit/apartment, or a townhouse and then into a small home, there are various configurations of properties, particularly in higher price brackets. One of my observations of change in my lifetime re home values is that a small city not far from me, the homes cost as much or more, than some homes in my city. Previously I’d thought regional centres were cheaper than city properties, but that only appears to hold now if you move to a very small or isolated community.
I see myself as having grown up middle class. Dad had a white-collar job, Mum didn’t work once my sister was born. My parents owned their home, though it was not ostentatious, one bathroom, with a one car garage. Living in a regional area, my sister and I did not have access to tertiary education as the cost of living away from home was prohibitive for our parents. I got a job straight from school and my sister got an office traineeship where she worked and attended vocational education a couple of days a week. Both she and I have worked outside the home, other than taking maternity leave when our children were born. In many ways it was a catch 22 situation, the cost of childcare was expensive, but without having the children in childcare and with no qualifications I would soon have joined the ranks of the unemployable so no staying at home until the kids went to school, then returning to work. I would consider people who are able to do that as either rich or very poor and able to access government income support.
We have managed to purchase our own home, made a bit easier, by both husband and I receiving inheritances in the last 15 years. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of having multiple homes, when there is a housing shortage and the prices have risen to the extent that young people either need huge incomes to access property ownership, or they are supported financially by the “bank of Mum and Dad” who give financial loans or act as guarantors for very high mortgages. We are not able to provide either option for our own children. If we applied the rule we’ve applied to ourselves, don’t borrow more than 2-3 years of combined salary, many would be priced out of buying even a one or two bedroom unit, if you live in a major city. The cheapest new units about 10 minutes from me are 470k for a one-bedroom unit/apartment. An older 2 bedroom home 5 minutes in the other direction is 650k and needs work. If you have a car loan, a mortgage or pay high rent and children in daycare here is not a lot to live on.
The fastest growing group of those experiencing homelessness, is women in the 50+ age group who have often had their long-term relationships end and they have low incomes and superannuation/pension due to caring for children and parents. The development of this underclass is concerning.
I’m conscious of the precarity of the financial situation many people find themselves in, but are completely unaware of. With the normalising of very high mortgages requiring two incomes to service, if one partner loses their job, or a a child becomes ill (as in our situation) or a relationship breaks down and there is only one income on which to draw, people are going to hit a financial wall very quickly and may find themselves falling out of the middle class into a situation of precariousness. No one ever thinks it will happen to them!! Perhaps they think the government system will provide support, but there are long waiting lists for accommodation and are not easy to access.
I’d be interested to know if this is unique to us in Oz, or whether other countries have moved in the same direction.
I grew up never knowing where I fitted. Clergy father, big house, therefore mocked for being posh. Couldn’t afford heating, all holidays were locums therefore free, all clothes were hand me downs, never able to save - not poor but certainly living month to month.
Same here.
My grandparents all worked in the Lancashire mills. My Dad was a Church Minister. My Mum worked in a jam factory while he trained, my grandma looked after us three children.
I was called 'posh' yet we had no money.
My brothers and I were lucky
- we grew up when university education was free. I became a teacher and my brothers engineers.
Now I'm happily retired and living in a very middle class area in rural Somerset. I find I fit in very well!
Free university education was a great boost for people like me who grew up on a council estate with parents who were employed in unskilled occupations. I became a teacher as well as a church musician and now live in a very pleasant area. I really don't know what class I am and I don't much care.
The door of free university education is now shut. I saw it in the inner city kids I taught. For them university was out of the question financially. Their horizons were limited because of it. Meanwhile they were subjected to a curriculum that seemed tilted towards academic subjects and university entrance.
Agreed. My parents could never have paid for me to go to university (and I was literally the last year of students to get a full grant - not that it paid for very much by then) - there are so many occupations where people will never earn enough to be paying that loan off. We had our front room floor levelled by a son of a friend - working as a builder, with a degree in fine art (I think - art, anyway).
I've ended up rubbing shoulders with Fellows of the Royal Society and people who hang out with Nobel Prize winners, and I often wonder what the flip sort of world I've found myself in, my roots are resoundingly working class, but here I am - WTF?
Free university education was a great boost for people like me who grew up on a council estate with parents who were employed in unskilled occupations. I became a teacher as well as a church musician and now live in a very pleasant area. I really don't know what class I am and I don't much care.
The door of free university education is now shut. I saw it in the inner city kids I taught. For them university was out of the question financially. Their horizons were limited because of it. Meanwhile they were subjected to a curriculum that seemed tilted towards academic subjects and university entrance.
But it wasn’t a boost for me and the rest of the 80-90% of the population who did not go to university. I wanted to be an English teacher but my working class background held me back. In 1990 I had to pay for my part time OU degree whilst other people went full time to traditional universities for free, because part study was not funded.
I teach a degree in health and social care now and almost all my students are working class.
The door of free university education is now shut.
There have never been as many students from deprived areas going to university as there are right now. The claim that the UK student loans system forms a barrier to participation in higher education is simply and demonstrably false. In fact the truth is the exact reverse of that claim - by removing all but a rump of direct government funding, and therefore enabling the scrapping of government-imposed student number caps, tuition fees have actually been a key factor in widening participation in HE!
I defer to those who know more about the current situation. My comment was based on 15+ years ago when I was still teaching and finance was the most often quoted reason for not going to university .... in my experience.
From the abstract: "We find that the growth in HE participation amongst poorer students has been remarkably high, mainly because it was starting from such a low base. However, the gap between rich and poor, in terms of HE participation, has widened during the 1990s. Children from poor neighbourhoods have become relatively less likely to participate in HE since 1994/5, as compared to children from richer neighbourhoods. This trend started before the introduction of tuition fees. Much of the class difference in HE participation seems to reflect inequalities at earlier stages of the education system."
Although the class trend pre-dated the introduction of tuition fees, the imposition of tuition fees has done nothing to improve relative access for the poor.
The upper-class action with greyhounds was legal hare coursing. It was almost impossible to get into legal hare coursing as an owner if you were outside the elite. For one thing, you had to belong to a coursing club, and most of those made the Royal and Ancient or the MCC look positively inclusive. Secondly, for many events, you needed a 'nomination' for your dogs to run, and the right to nominate was in certain people's hands.
At one time I had greyhounds lodged at a coursing kennel - not that they were used for coursing! I would sometimes take other people's dogs for a walk on Sunday though. One was owned by the then Countess Fitzwilliam. And the other coursing owners were all, at the very least, 'landed' or very well-heeled indeed. One lived in the same block of apartments as Ted Heath.
So, if class is a factor, it's a little odd that the very upper-class sport of coursing was made illegal, while the very working-class sport of greyhound racing is still tolerated. There are issues around greyhound racing for sure. What it boils down to is that a fair proportion of the owners and trainers are absolute ****s. But what is really killing it is that the racing tracks are generally more valuable as sites for housing than they are as dog tracks. That's just an economic fact.
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The Banwen Miners Hunt was kennelled in the old lamp room of the colliery, and at least initially was entirely the result of Banwen villagers. It had horses. ‘Has’ might be more appropriate given they’re still with us.
The Colne Valley Beagles (no horses) used to stagger their meet times to accommodate the change of shift in the mills.
Meets at Woodford Halse of the Grafton Hunt were heavily supported by the employees of the Great Central Railway.
Ok, but why is that ‘inauthentic’? Why are you ‘calling him out’ for something he obviously genuinely enjoyed?
Why does it have to be ‘in a middle-class and ironic postmodern kind of way?’
I’m really confused here, I thought we’d dropped that verse of All Things Bright And Beautiful.
If a working class man wants to go to the opera does he get called out for inauthenticity? I’d hope not. And yet go ‘downmarket’ in your enthusiasms from a ‘higher’ class and get judged.
And there, for overseas readers, is why this thread, in the 21st century, is necessary.
The problem with UK class prejudice, is that it assigns a moral value to these differences - and also to to having preferences outside your class. Not unlike gender roles in some ways - it is about how you perform your social role.
I feel let down. Betrayed.
These things are irrational but they are there. I'm middle-class, had a professional job, but catch me at the wrong moment and I'll become as Bolshie as any old-fashioned miner from Blaina.
Some of my best friends at university went to private schools. They don't have two-heads.
But when the hwyl and my blood is up you might hear me ranting and raving in class-war fashion.
I'm sure Sewell did genuinely enjoy stockcar racing. I enjoyed the wrestling matches I attended. But they weren't my natural milieu any more than stockcar racing was Sewell’s.
Of course we can enjoy things in an ironic postmodern kind of way. That's part of the fun.
As a Freemason you'll be aware that many 18th century toffs attended the early Lodges in order to slum it a bit. Ok, there was more to it than that but it was part of it.
The bottom-line for me if I were to wear my Bolshie hat would be, yes, it's perfectly fine for a working class person to enjoy opera. No, it's not fine for a toffee-nosed git like Sewell to enjoy stockcar racing. It's cultural appropriation and he should fuck right off out it ...
😉
I jest of course ...
I'm not knocking that.
But neither am I going to join my local Lodge even in an ironic postmodern kind of way.
But neither would I try to dissuade anyone else from doing so.
If a working class man went to opera yes he would be seen as trying to be posh. A working class woman not so much but still a little. There can be a lot of reverse snobbery. My dad got a middle class job eventually but still remained working class at heart.
For those above a certain class anyway. Otherwise they simply won't get invited. My paternal grandfather, lower middle class tory that he was, was unsurprisingly a Mason. My grandma was well-served by Masonic Widows, but my dad never joined and I think likely associated it with the nastier aspects of his dad's character. I, equally unsurprisingly, have never been invited.
Except it’s overwhelmingly lower middle class/working class, and you have to ask to join (inviting people is actually technically forbidden).
We've both got far too many books, and are too intellectual, to fit in with our working-class friends. On the other hand, we weren't brought up with a middle-class culture. We aren't narrow-minded Tories and we'd be even more uncomfortable in a golf club lounge than in a working man's club.
As it is, neither of us has kids. (My mate has never even married.) I suppose, if we had, those kids would be middle-class. But I can't see myself obsessing over getting them in the 'right' school or wanting to keep them away from the nasty working-class oiks.
I wonder if this social dislocation is a factor in the mental issues (severe depression) I have suffered? Not that it matters, really. It is as it is.
My working class family have openly referred to me as ‘posh’ for decades, probably from when I moved to London in my early 20s and certainly since I married a middle class man and moved to Cambridge. It’s no big deal.
You misunderstand, Hugal. Betting on horses is a working class thing. By and large owning them and riding them is a middle or upper class thing.
My mother always said that the Masons were the most corrupt outfit going in a South Wales known for nepotism and political corruption of all kinds.
Her uncle was a Grand Master in Bristol though and she always felt he was in it for the right reasons. I have no reason to doubt that nor what she said about Freemasonry in South Wales.
In my experience it's a drinking club which largely attracts aspirational lower middle class blokes who think they are going to hob-nob with the great and the good and that it's a sign of them having 'arrived' socially.
I'm sure it varies from place to place. My Dad eventually conceded it was a load of bollocks but that could be because he didn't get the contacts he was hoping for.
That's not that far off my situation - in fact, so is most of your post. It's not quite looking in a mirror, but definitely wondering if there is a mirror. Thankfully my sport of choice is cricket, so if we go out for a shandy, there's all manner of different backgrounds represented. I wouldn't have a clue where to send the kids we don't have as I went to a special school for six years, then two years as an assisted place at a private school, while my other half (who I think I am safe to reveal is from a far more academic background) went to local comprehensives.
I think it fair to say that I don't really fit anywhere except round the cricketers.
As Karl said above I have no idea where I would fit into the various definitions already given.
I too had a working class upbringing in a council estate, but now people see me as middle class.
Just on the tangent, as (nearly) the only Freemason left on here* that’s basically it. Not so much of a drinking club as a dining club - there’s rarely a bar outside the dining room, and that typically shuts once dinner has started. And these days most people are driving.**
I don’t doubt favours have been done in lodges, but then equally so they have in rugby clubs, Women’s Institutes, Rotary, the local pub - it’s natural anywhere like minded people gather. I can well believe @gamaliel ‘s mother on the subject in South Wales, though tbh I suspect that even there the local rugby clubs probably had the actual crown for nepotism (where it wasn’t just the same people at a different bar!)
What I will say about masonry these days is that there’re a lot fewer people joining for a leg up - you can do that on LinkedIn without the apron.
I think it’s more like a ‘man cave’/repair shed set up that just provides a bit of fellowship and some amateur dramatics. I feel much calmer in a lodge meeting with all the ritual (as someone with ADHD and ASD) than I do anywhere except a church service.
*I can think of I think 2 others, but I’m not outing them.
**standing line is with so many people thinking the police are masons, the police tend to lie in wait outside Masonic halls just so they can prove they aren’t by nabbing them, so drivers tend to be towards the colder end of stone cold sober in reality.
I've related, but not identical, suspicions that very few of those who have protested over the years about hunting, have rejoiced when it was banned and are still making a noise with allegations that it's surreptitiously still going on are really driven primarily by their charitable concern for the welfare of foxes rather than their resentment towards people in pink coats who have more money than they do.
Unless you've got evidence for your suspicions, I'd keep them to yourself, unless you're quite casual about the possibility of inadvertently bearing false witness, or at the very least Bulverism.
The "easy target" isn't, however, only going to be based on class. It will also reflect the number of dog races compared to horse racing - in Scotland where there is also a campaign to end dog racing this will affect only one track (Thornton, Fife) as all the other greyhound tracks are now closed, compared to five horse racing courses.
This made me smile and remember a conversation I had with a friend who is a lot more of a countryman (not difficult) than me, about the costs of horse ownership. It struck me then that unlike old Fords (a working-class pursuit where I came from) it is tricky to keep half a horse for spares under a tarp in the corner of the garden, or to make a good one out of several which are knackered.
I should also add that I had an uncle who was a big hunt fan, a lorry mechanic who lived (and died) in a council house. I don't think he was very unusual in the west country where he lived, but then neither were his deference and xenophobia.
It seems to me that historically there was also a strong tradition of the working class auto-didact in the Anglo-sphere, although it tended to be connected with working class institutions, and perhaps in an earlier era with certain strands of non-conformism (the phenomena of 'lift' has come in for comment across multiple time periods).
Angela Rayner and John Prescott could be seen in that light
And when she went on holiday to Magaluf (or wherever it was) and went clubbing, she was criticised for that too. Newsflash: adults can do what they like with their own money and sometimes it doesn't fit into people's stereotyped ideas of them.
Anyone would think that the press had some kind of thing against her....
They will always target the left-most prominent Labour politicians. Ed Miliband is also a favoured target in a cabinet largely devoid of anyone on the left. Stir in a bit of misogyny and classism and Rayner gets the worst of it. There's a reason Diane Abbott was long the recipient of the most abuse and threats, having had the temerity to be Black, working class, left wing and a woman.
Talk about damning with faint praise...
Same here.
My grandparents all worked in the Lancashire mills. My Dad was a Church Minister. My Mum worked in a jam factory while he trained, my grandma looked after us three children.
I was called 'posh' yet we had no money.
My brothers and I were lucky
- we grew up when university education was free. I became a teacher and my brothers engineers.
Now I'm happily retired and living in a very middle class area in rural Somerset. I find I fit in very well!
Biggest house in the village, probably the coldest too. Holidays courtesy of a churchwarden with a kind heart and a holiday home.
Salvation came in three forms:
[1] The local teacher training college, and the pure luck that the one warm(ish) room on the ground floor had an adjacent loo that was turned into a shower room (in the 1960s!) and had its own outside door. We had a succession of (mostly) lovely girls who appreciated living off-campus and having the freedom of being able to live without the scrutiny of a landlord/lady imposing a curfew.
[2] Grandparents chipping-in what and when they could, but a mixed blessing.
[3] Local "good" schools with scholarships.
I was lucky in that there were no boys above me in the pecking order; my poor youngest sister not only had two older ones but two even older female cousins - even Liberty print starts to look tired when it is sixth hand.
BUT there were upsides: the vast eight acre "garden" (2 of garden, 4 of fields, 2 of woodland) provided freedom to roam, plus we grew most of our own fruit and veg. And I'm very, very good at mowing.
Though I have heard that depending where you live, the first question asked (and possibly judgements being made), is where did you go to school? I’m conscious too that more families are withdrawing children from government schooling in favour of independent or church-run schools.
I find the comment about horse racing very interesting – rich people ride them, and that working class people bet on them. Here it seems to me that wealthier people are interested in racing, fashions on the field and working- class people perhaps more involved in greyhound racing (which is being phased out in various jurisdictions due to animal cruelty concerns). A couple of my classmates earnt weekend cash helping at the greyhounds. A couple of memories from my childhood, one schoolfriend’s Dad listening to horse racing on the radio on a Saturday afternoon at home and enjoying a beer, he was a roads maintenance worker. There was a stable about half a block from my home when I was in primary school. I believe the owner trained horses for racing and a couple of girls had their ponies there. The Dad of one of the girls was a Bank Manager and all three daughters rode, the other girl had a Mum with a job outside the home (which was unusual unless your Mum was a teacher or a nurse), They would have had vastly higher incomes than many in our town, which had a high proportion of Indigenous people.
I think now it is more common to stratify people by their ownership of property. Those at the top have expensive homes (perhaps multiple), with the very wealthy in our capital cities and having beachfront property/properties. There doesn’t seem to be an exclusion based on education, it’s based on income, and we have the expression “cashed up tradies”, where tradespeople – plumbers, electricians, builders have a good reliable income, being in high demand and thus if successful have access to higher priced properties and perhaps multiple homes either as investment properties, or a holiday home. Those at the bottom of society are homeless, with the next step up being housed in property rented from the government. The next level up would be renting on the private property market. Then moving into home ownership with a unit/apartment, or a townhouse and then into a small home, there are various configurations of properties, particularly in higher price brackets. One of my observations of change in my lifetime re home values is that a small city not far from me, the homes cost as much or more, than some homes in my city. Previously I’d thought regional centres were cheaper than city properties, but that only appears to hold now if you move to a very small or isolated community.
I see myself as having grown up middle class. Dad had a white-collar job, Mum didn’t work once my sister was born. My parents owned their home, though it was not ostentatious, one bathroom, with a one car garage. Living in a regional area, my sister and I did not have access to tertiary education as the cost of living away from home was prohibitive for our parents. I got a job straight from school and my sister got an office traineeship where she worked and attended vocational education a couple of days a week. Both she and I have worked outside the home, other than taking maternity leave when our children were born. In many ways it was a catch 22 situation, the cost of childcare was expensive, but without having the children in childcare and with no qualifications I would soon have joined the ranks of the unemployable so no staying at home until the kids went to school, then returning to work. I would consider people who are able to do that as either rich or very poor and able to access government income support.
We have managed to purchase our own home, made a bit easier, by both husband and I receiving inheritances in the last 15 years. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of having multiple homes, when there is a housing shortage and the prices have risen to the extent that young people either need huge incomes to access property ownership, or they are supported financially by the “bank of Mum and Dad” who give financial loans or act as guarantors for very high mortgages. We are not able to provide either option for our own children. If we applied the rule we’ve applied to ourselves, don’t borrow more than 2-3 years of combined salary, many would be priced out of buying even a one or two bedroom unit, if you live in a major city. The cheapest new units about 10 minutes from me are 470k for a one-bedroom unit/apartment. An older 2 bedroom home 5 minutes in the other direction is 650k and needs work. If you have a car loan, a mortgage or pay high rent and children in daycare here is not a lot to live on.
The fastest growing group of those experiencing homelessness, is women in the 50+ age group who have often had their long-term relationships end and they have low incomes and superannuation/pension due to caring for children and parents. The development of this underclass is concerning.
I’m conscious of the precarity of the financial situation many people find themselves in, but are completely unaware of. With the normalising of very high mortgages requiring two incomes to service, if one partner loses their job, or a a child becomes ill (as in our situation) or a relationship breaks down and there is only one income on which to draw, people are going to hit a financial wall very quickly and may find themselves falling out of the middle class into a situation of precariousness. No one ever thinks it will happen to them!! Perhaps they think the government system will provide support, but there are long waiting lists for accommodation and are not easy to access.
I’d be interested to know if this is unique to us in Oz, or whether other countries have moved in the same direction.
Free university education was a great boost for people like me who grew up on a council estate with parents who were employed in unskilled occupations. I became a teacher as well as a church musician and now live in a very pleasant area. I really don't know what class I am and I don't much care.
The door of free university education is now shut. I saw it in the inner city kids I taught. For them university was out of the question financially. Their horizons were limited because of it. Meanwhile they were subjected to a curriculum that seemed tilted towards academic subjects and university entrance.
I've ended up rubbing shoulders with Fellows of the Royal Society and people who hang out with Nobel Prize winners, and I often wonder what the flip sort of world I've found myself in, my roots are resoundingly working class, but here I am - WTF?
I teach a degree in health and social care now and almost all my students are working class.
There have never been as many students from deprived areas going to university as there are right now. The claim that the UK student loans system forms a barrier to participation in higher education is simply and demonstrably false. In fact the truth is the exact reverse of that claim - by removing all but a rump of direct government funding, and therefore enabling the scrapping of government-imposed student number caps, tuition fees have actually been a key factor in widening participation in HE!
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/national-institute-economic-review/article/abs/widening-socioeconomic-gap-in-uk-higher-education/8542A790C70B0D4187D2AC5CFE5EC264
From the abstract: "We find that the growth in HE participation amongst poorer students has been remarkably high, mainly because it was starting from such a low base. However, the gap between rich and poor, in terms of HE participation, has widened during the 1990s. Children from poor neighbourhoods have become relatively less likely to participate in HE since 1994/5, as compared to children from richer neighbourhoods. This trend started before the introduction of tuition fees. Much of the class difference in HE participation seems to reflect inequalities at earlier stages of the education system."
Although the class trend pre-dated the introduction of tuition fees, the imposition of tuition fees has done nothing to improve relative access for the poor.
The upper-class action with greyhounds was legal hare coursing. It was almost impossible to get into legal hare coursing as an owner if you were outside the elite. For one thing, you had to belong to a coursing club, and most of those made the Royal and Ancient or the MCC look positively inclusive. Secondly, for many events, you needed a 'nomination' for your dogs to run, and the right to nominate was in certain people's hands.
At one time I had greyhounds lodged at a coursing kennel - not that they were used for coursing! I would sometimes take other people's dogs for a walk on Sunday though. One was owned by the then Countess Fitzwilliam. And the other coursing owners were all, at the very least, 'landed' or very well-heeled indeed. One lived in the same block of apartments as Ted Heath.
So, if class is a factor, it's a little odd that the very upper-class sport of coursing was made illegal, while the very working-class sport of greyhound racing is still tolerated. There are issues around greyhound racing for sure. What it boils down to is that a fair proportion of the owners and trainers are absolute ****s. But what is really killing it is that the racing tracks are generally more valuable as sites for housing than they are as dog tracks. That's just an economic fact.