Sunday 1 August 2021

Class

It's the reason I don't live in the UK. I never felt comfortable. Always something nibbling away at me. A monkey on my back. Class.

My mum told me that her mother wouldn't let her brother Norman take the 11 plus. Not because he wouldn't have passed. She knew he would. But because she couldn't afford to send him to grammar school. Uniforms an all that. What a waste of talent.

We could barely afford grammar school after my dad died. Without free uniforms and school meals, we'd have been fucked. And my mum being incredibly good with money.

I'm proud to have been born working class. I had to work for everything I've achieved. Unlike the useless, privileged toffs. Who run the UK.

So happy I've escaped.

5 comments:

Michael Foster said...

The English working class gave the world the Beatles and football; the toffs gave us an inbred royal family. I've had a few drinks with both camps, and I definitely will take the working class any day of the week.

Anonymous said...

The US has a class system but we're so much more dishonest about it than the Brits.

We have a ton of elitists like Senator Ted Cruz, who refused to study with anyone who didn't go to Harvard, Yale or Princeton. But because he is a conservative, the elites will fully accept him but repeat his nonsensical claims to be a man of the people, even after he jetted off to a resort to escape an ice storm that hit his state.

Our elites hate being called that, and regardless of their political party, the one thing they can agree on is that the true elite consists of three Women's Studies professors in Massachusetts, a union organizerin California, and some anonymous Twitter commenter with 11 followers. Our elites all agree -- that is the real elite running the country, not them.

Ed said...

Great that The Netherlands are a classless utopia!

Ron Pattinson said...

Ed,

hahaha. It's just no-one can spot my background here.

Anonymous said...

A special one for you Ron:
Q:'how do you recognise a well-balanced Australian?'
A:'the one with the chip on both shoulders!' 'Oi!!'

As I'm sure you know, despite some obfuscatory protestations,the class system is alive and well here in Australia. As an Englishman from the working class, I too (mostly) avoid the labelling.
Wayne of Daylesford, VIC