Apart from not being around girls enough in my teens, the other thing that disturbed me quite a bit was the “class” thing. It’s a bit special in the UK and affected my everyday life in many ways. And has anything changed? Well, yes and no. Life has changed so much over the last 40 years that the classes that existed back then have mostly disappeared. In some cases they’ve been replaced by other, new classes.
There are now, apparently, seven distinct social classes in the UK and three capitals have been measured: economic, social and cultural.
- Wealthy elite. A small, privileged group. The super-rich.
- Established middle class. The second wealthiest.
- Technical middle class. Small, new, prosperous class. Socially isolated, culturally apathetic.
- New affluent workers. Socially and culturally active. Middling economy.
- Traditional working class. Low score on all three capitals. Reasonably high house values. Average age 66.
- Emergent service workers. A new, young, urban group. Relatively poor, but high social and cultural capital.
- Precariat, or precarious proletariat. The poorest, most deprived class. Every day is a struggle for this group.
The new classes are the result of an increasingly unequal nation according to the researchers. The above is from a book, Social Class in the 21st Century (2015). *
My family was strictly working class. And except for an uncle or two, not well-educated and mostly doing manual work of some sort. Like both my parents, at least when I was young. Getting an education was a way of climbing out of that pit. So that’s what my parents wanted for us three children. I resisted education but my brother and sister both embraced it and did well. From the age of four and until I left home at 18, we lived in a stiflingly small terraced house. The last years I was there, my brother and I shared a small bedroom, my sister had a tiny bedroom to herself and my parents slept in the living room on a bed-sofa.
Going to the grammar school from the age of eleven introduced me to people from a different social class that I would otherwise never have met. My best friend Paul’s father was a doctor and the head of a geriatric hospital. Whenever we were together, it was always at their apartment, never at our tiny terraced cottage. I think our parents met once, for a Sunday lunchtime drink. But what did they have to talk about? Cigarettes? Beer? Old people?
In my late teens I met Nigel when we worked together one summer. He was a drummer and we started a band (my first). His parents were both musicians, mother a violin teacher and father a violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra. Nigel, a professional musician himself since his teens, introduced me to many other well-spoken musicians. It was a new world and often an uncomfortable one. I always felt at a disadvantage. American guitarist Glenn, whom I met through one of Nigel’s friends, invited me to dinner at his parent’s house in Kensington. One of the most expensive parts of London. Glenn’s father worked at the American Embassy on Grosvenor Square. Naturally there was no common ground between his parents and me, though of course they were very friendly. But they cut their meat into small pieces then ate it with a fork in their right hands. What was this? The devil was alive and living in Kensington!
- Social Class in the 21st Century (2015). Written by Mike Savage, Niall Cunningham, Fiona Divine, Sam Friedman, Daniel Laurison, Lisa Mckenzie, Andrew Miles, Helene Snee and Paul Wakeling.