Top of the Class

When I wur a lad, 40 year ago, in t’ north of t’Kent (where we didn’t speak like that) “class” was a concept that was often bandied arahnd and abaht (which is far more like wot we used ter speak like). Upper class people owned Sevenoaks, Middle Class people owned shops or were accountants, while most of the rest of us were working class. Then there was the Isle of Sheppey. I won’t quite say we all knew our place and were glad of it, because the 60s had already started to alter society’s perceptions of the class structure in the UK (or at least England. Goodness knows what they thought in West Lothian). But it was still the general case and it existed.

But as the years moved along, and Thatcher in particular did her best to disrupt the norms that had kept English society in place since feudal times, all those lines get very, very smudged. Home ownership was no longer the preserve of the middle class – the upper class owned OTHER people’s homes of course anyway – as every Tom, Dick or Harry bought their council house and Wimpey gave up cooking burgers and instead built multiple estates of identikit Cornflake boxes to sell to the empowered working classes. A last bastion of middle class preserve was removed almost in one fell swoop. Ironic, then, that names such as “Tom, “Dick” or “Harry” (in particular!) should become very much “middle class” names today… 

The grocer’s daughter moved aside for the music hall performer’s son who continued the path of turning sons of the sod into property owning tycoons. The City’s Big bang blew open the ingrained old boy network that was “The City” and wide boys from far and … well… wide streamed in to fill their Gucci and BMW 3 series’ boots with lots of luvverly moolah. Not to mention multiply boost the sales of red braces overnight.

Then came Blair. And any pretences that some may have held to the old class structure disappeared totally. Fifty per cent of the population were to gain degrees; if ever there was a middle class preserve this was it. It soon became apparent though that there was a reason why 50% of the population didn’t go to university – because they weren’t clever enough! And still weren’t clever enough to study Law, or 19^th century French Literature, or Chemistry – so “Lady Gaa-Gaa Studies” at Louth University (née Louth College of Art and Humanities), burgeoning opportunities in “Health and Sports Recreation” at Loughborough University (which had always been a university of course and always offered sport related studies, but was now actually heard of outside of Leicestershire) and multiple Media Studies courses sprung up to take the influx of 18 year olds that couldn’t get a job, couldn’t get the dole so had to go to uni instead.

And so the old fashioned class structure died. And a good thing too we may feel. Except… this last month we have been reminded by the popular meejah that the class structure does exist still in the UK in the 21^st century. Or it does if you are talking about Tory members of parliament. With Andrew Mitchell and Plebgate, and now George Osbourne and “1^st Class train ticket gate” (doesn’t quite roll off the tongue that one) it appears that the upper classes still rule over us – but now embarrassingly so. But aside from Conservative party members making pubic misdemeanours – and let’s face it that is hardly news anyway, from Profumo to Parkinson – where DOES the class structure in the UK stand in 2012? There are the historically rich, bemoaning the costs of living in houses the size of Daventree. There are the nouveau middle classes bemoaning the lack of decent schooling in Wessex having reached financial nirvana through Wayne having landed a big one in Dubai in the mid 1990s. And there are the working classes… much of whom arguably are no longer actually working but – if you believe the Daily Wail – living off the benefit state. So these are hardly representative of the historical meanings of the class system so what has replaced it?

Today the system seems to have moved its boundaries from a horizontal plane to a vertical one and the old distinctions seem redundant. “Anyone” can own a house – and “Anyone” can become homeless. “Anyone” can run their own business and “Anyone” can be out of work totally. “Anyone” can find riches galore and “Anyone” can lose them.We seem now to have a situation of old money, new money and no money. Allied to social pretensions…  of Celebrity, Snobbery and horror at what we have become.

Maybe to put it another way, what we have in 2012 is …

The Chavs and The Chav-nots?

(c) Ian Diddams 2012

Coffee, Cheese, Thrift and Retro...

Devizes is a fantastic town. Great architecture, friendly people. And unlike many of its neighbours, it managed to avoid the 1970s and 1980s pretty much with regard to its town centre, so it isn't just "high street anywhere"with rows of franchises and chains and nothing else. It enjoys many independent stores and services run by the genuinely self employed.

As I stroll around the town centre things are a little ..  odd. I suspect these are not solely the preserve of Devizes in 2012 and that these trends are replicated throughout the land, but nonetheless a quick thought as to the demographics of businesses in town throws up some interesting figures.

It has many pubs still, as befits a brewery town. That includes a Wetherspoons, which is one of the franchises in town, but we don;t have a Moon and Slug, Or Carrot and Harvest, or any such chain style pubs. It has a Subway, mercifully located way away from the centre and a Greggs, but also has several owner-run sandwich shops as well. We almost have the full range of supermarkets, just "missing" Asda, though there is one you could build a 747 in just a few miles away in Melksham if you need to slap your back pocket. Two independent butchers of excellent quality.

But...  when you start to count things up...  there are 7 Coffee Shops within a 50 metre radius. Two of them are franchises, possibly three but I don't drink enough £2.75 a cup coffee to know to be honest. And this number doesn't include other outlets where coffee is also available - a chain bakers serves coffee out the back, there are a couple of cafes, Morrisons has a cafe (if that doesn't break the Trades Description's Act) and Wetherspoons sells coffee. But places that say "coffee shop" number seven.  In a small area.

Then there are also three delicatessens in a smaller radius - all of which incidentally also sell coffee though one of them somehow doesn't fit the coffee shop nomenclature - personally. Go figure.

And of course the thrift/charity shops which are burgeoning. Goodness alone knows how many of them there are but my wife would as she is the charity shop queen - great deals constantly at bargain basement prices., kitting herself out for a fraction of buying new clothes, and when they were younger our children. Many of the clothes having hardly been worn - if ever. As for me I get the occasional item of clothing from them too of course.

And finally yet more shabby chic type and "domestic antiques" shops...  half a dozen of them, full of tastefully renovated (or distraught!) furniture and twiddly bits. Stuff that your grandad threw away and are now worth £45. Bet you never knew you needed a enamel bread bin with a big rust hole in it to have the postman deliver to instead of a letter box did you?  Mind you, the kitchen tables are at least a decent size and don't look as if they will fall apart after 18 months. And are only 50% more anyway.

We live in what we are told are tough times - not that the cuts have started and there is a lot of pain to come. people.  generally people haven't; a clue as to what needs to happen. But even so, prices go up, salaries and wages don't - and yet people can spend enough on drinking coffee and eating Venezuelan Beaver Cheese (with thanks to Monty Python) before going home to sit on their distressed sofa to gaze at their Edwardian fireguard to keep fourteen or so businesses going

Maybe its because they are buying their clothes at the charity shops and saving money that way? (c) Ian Diddams 2012