Very!
son of teachers, Nurse by trade. Speak pretty much received pronunciation
Middle middle tho 🙂
Very
I make my own pomegranate molasses as one can never trust the provenance of the variety available at my local independent grocer
My car is ancient and I do have a television but it was a hand-me-down. Make of that what you will.
finbar
Free Member
My car is ancient and I do have a television but it was a hand-me-down. Make of that what you will.
You're the ex Tory minister for Science?
Eminently.
I refuse to accept any notion that I might be middle class - I shall forever be working class and proud of it.
T5.1|T6
woodburner
Santa cruz
Money rich, time poor
Oscillates between austerity/watches as an investment
what am I missing?
Didn't know what adverts were until I left home. Never had fish and chips until I got my own place.
Mmmmm, love a good cup of hand coffee - as long as you sieve out the fingernails
Never had fish and chips until I got my own plaice
FTFY
Wasn't allowed to watch ITV at home when I was a kid. Too common, apparently. When my dad eventually buggered off it was open season though. Even had our dinner on trays watching, like all the other riff-raff.
I have a boiling water tap.
I thought the key indicator was whether you unwrap your Christmas presents before or after lunch?
Before, but verrrry slowly...my wife's family tradition was tearing into the pile like a pack of hyenas fighting over a carcass, so we had to work out a compromise.
Lower middle, I think.
Dad was a BT engineer who liked to listen to radio 4. Mum was an office temp who thought curry or pasta or risotto were "queer food" and dishwashers were for the type of lad-di-dah ponces who were too up themselves to wash their own dishes. This was mid 90s, mind.
My folks do, now, have a dishwasher. Of course they do.
Before, but verrrry slowly…my wife’s family tradition was tearing into the pile like a pack of hyenas fighting over a carcass, so we had to work out a compromise.
We are exactly the same, for exactly the same reason - I was struggling to find an appropriate simile for the savagery - thank you.
While we're on the subject - when I was younger (i.e. teens, in the 90s), my dad's great horror was the prospect of "Looking like a bunch of yobbos". For instance, walking around eating fish and chips, instead of sitting down to eat them like decent people.
I always thought this was because he was a bit middle class. MrsDoris sees it as working class insecurity, and the middle classes wouldn't have given a shit. What say you?
We surpassed that, we often don't even have presents on xmas day.
We weren’t allowed to watch Grange Hill
Oh, I remember that as a thing. My Mum actually encouraged it as preparation for high school. I guess it inspired us to go to Grammar!
Dad was very much the judge of what comedy was suitably high-brow enough. He went to Ealing Grammar which was next door to the Ealing Studios so he would see the start of the day coming in and out of the studios. Not a great deal of ITV happening in our house.
I always thought this was because he was a bit middle class. MrsDoris sees it as working class insecurity, and the middle classes wouldn’t have given a shit. What say you?
I'm inclined to agree, but I wound prefer to think of it as aspiration rather than insecurity.
I watch a documentary ages ago called "status anxiety" which covers this sort of thing really well - it's really stuck with me, particularly the (perceived) link between success and effort in the US vs class in the UK.
I wasn’t allowed to watch ITV as a child. And I ate avocado yesterday. But I’m solid working class. My children, however, are not (I’m a professional but my father was a tradesman).
Working class:
Son of a Chemical Worker.
Live in the Boro.
Drink John Smiths.
Like Mushy peas.
Ride a Carrera.
Vertically challenged.
Enjoy the delights of social housing.
Work on the Capital markets🤔🤷
Status Anxiety (the book) was written by Alain de Botton - now he's middle class!
And I ate avocado yesterday
It's virtually free where I live - grows on trees don't you know.
I caught the teenager complaining about the selection of couscous we had in the cupboard the other day and thinking she was genuinely hard done by - we’ve raised a middle class monster!
i’d guess I’d call myself middle class now (white collar Finacial services job, drive a sensible estate car, live in the Peak District), but grew up in a fairly poor working class environment and became steadily less poor as my dad got himself educated - started as and industrial boiler fitter at 16, retired as a professor of sociology
Before, but verrrry slowly…my wife’s family tradition was tearing into the pile like a pack of hyenas fighting over a carcass, so we had to work out a compromise.
I'm going to need help with this. I'm very much in the hyena camp and my kids have been brought up to follow the pack. My new partner and her kids are in the slowly camp. I suspect this kills any thoughts of a successful blending of households 😀
Explain how you compromised? If I start now, I may be able to make us look more civilised come December the 25th!
My children are called |Foraand Fauna.
I wasn’t allowed to watch ITV as a child. And I ate avocado yesterday. But I’m solid working class
Stop kidding yourself. I bet they made you watch 'Ask the Family' with Robert Robinson as your only quiz show, just like me...
Explain how you compromised?
Tear into stockings permitted. I was prepared to allow simultaneous opening and forgo the half-hour break for mince pies in the middle of the rest of the presents. Obviously allowed my son to take off his suit jacket and tie for some of it, too.
What is Tesco ?
I’m not sure owning a T5/6 makes you middle class. Quite the opposite, lower middle at a stretch
What is Tesco ?
I wasn't allowed inside a Tesco, or Asda until I was 13. Sainsbury's and M&S all the way.
There's an actual test for your class. Not there are 7 classes. The results are binding of course so you'll have to change your address, career and family if you've been living a lie. No pressure.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm
Not even close! My dad was a toolmaker at Westinghouse, mum worked at the OXO factory in town. We lived in a council house and had a small B&W telly, no telephone, no car, in fact the only cars in my street were at the posh, private terraced houses at the other end of the street. Failed my 11+ and went to the secondary modern like most kids.
During the winter of 1963, I’d wake up in the morning with my bedroom walls sparkling with frost!
Established middle class it seems.
Explain how you compromised?
Tear into stockings permitted.
Indeed. Stockings are from father Christmas and are opened as soon as the kids wake up. The presents under the tree are from actual humans, are opened after lunch, one-at-a-time with a modicum of **** ing decorum thankyouverymuch. It has literally taken us 7 years to establish this running order (which we will call a "tradition"), including the question of which presents are from Santa, and which are from us/relatives. Some families apparently work on the basis that all presents under the tree apparently?!?!?!
Well according to the bbc linky I'm an Elite.
No bloody way.
Established middle class according to that test.
Bit odd really, as I always thought if you needed to work for a living you were working class.
Brilliant childhood in a council house great company of scallywags and ragamuffins 😎The other side of the playing field was all the private houses , I was always intrigued by the one that had it's name emblazoned in huge letters on the wall above the front door. Then when I became a postie I had to deliver a parcel there . When they opened the front door wow I'd never seen such a shit pit of stuff strewn all over the place , my mum would never let our house get like that !
There's 5 of us mates who went to school together, reading this reminds me one of their dads was an industrial chemist he never hid his dislike for me because I lived on a council estate. His son became a BT engineer and is a radio 4 listening coffee snob who reads the New Scientist 😎 Far from trying to emulate him it's been my ambition to bring him down to my level 😁 I got him into MTBing when he retired now he joins me dicking about on bikes and has even done a few overseas trips with me 👍
I'm always referred to affectionately as council house scum , but Im certainly not at the Frank Gallagher level does that make me a council house snob ? Dear old mum thought I was getting ideas above my station when we married and moved 3 miles down the road 😁
