Is ‘shunter for British Rail’ a working class job?

Absolutely not. I usually don't know what they think at all until I've talked to them and wouldn't fall out with them if we didn't agree (excluding some politicians and supporters thereof). But I do know this was the case with my great grandmother, who died just before I was born, because I knew my
grandfather well, and through my sister's extensive research into our family history, so other branches in other locations in this country.. My husband is fanatical about his family history and his research demonstrates this too. What I would say, from research and listening to others, is that historically, large families usually mean continued fertility to a later age than we now see as typical.

It was not as common as it is now, but I don't think it was that rare. e.g. If I think of a certain time in my life when I lived in a house where we knew lots children around my age in the immediate area and my parents were friends with their parents. Say 12-15 children around my age, at least 2 were born to parents 40+ - one was a longed-awaited first child, one was an accident youngest child of 3. And this was in England. It definitely was not uncommon in Ireland for younger children.

I can't find anything easily now on how many children it would have actually been in England. However, I remember reading about years ago that births to older mothers were higher at the end of the 19th century/start of the 20th century. Many women went into service and only married and had children after they'd done a few years work. This changed after the big houses stopped having staff post wars etc.

I've got to get back to work so this is what I've found quickly now
"There is a tendency to think of this as a modern phenomenon associated with the rise of family planning, greater economic independence for women and the development of medical techniques that can increase fertility in older people. But the average age of women at first birth today (29.6) is not very different to what it was in 1938 (29.0), and fertility among women in their forties was higher at the start of WWII and during the 1940s than it was in 2010.
The average age of women at first birth was lower at the end of the 1960s than at any other point since 1938. Before the 1960s, the average age of women both at their first birth and across all births was higher, despite this being a period of higher fertility, lower life expectancy and less economic equality between the sexes."

British Rail hasn't existed since it was privatized in 1997.

You'll struggle to find a job with them now op, no matter what status you think working there would provide...

To add to the age and births debate, I was born in the 1940s when my mother was 42.

I think the fishplates are mainly laid by the heavy machinery now but there are still people involved in permanent way.

What does it matter anyway? She’s just stating a fact - her DP was born when his parents were both 43. So what? Are people suggesting this would have been impossible because clearly it isn’t? I’m not sure why it has any relevance to anything.

What does the pay matter? It was his dad’s
job a long time ago. Are you looking for a man with a good inheritance?

lots of so-called “working class” jobs are very skilled. I’m not sure most people have ever thought they weren’t?

My great-grandmother had her last child in her late 40s - the same time that my grandmother was having her first.

I was a teenager in the '70s and recall several instances of women having 'menopause babies'.

Rubbish. Women have always had babies in their 40s. Maybe not a first baby but it’s always been a thing and not worthy of excessive commentary.

Many working class jobs are well paid.

My dad was a coalminer. The pay was abysmal (in spite of the skewed info given out by some media outlets in the '80s).

My uncle was a plumber who was put through his apprenticeship as a result of his sisters being placed in service. He was very well paid, but would never have considered himself to be middle class.

@Floatlikeafeather2 I have a huge family that has had large families for many generations. I’m aware that contraception was very hard to access right into the 70s for British women and harder still in other parts. I’m also acutely aware of fertility and its fluctuation over a woman’s life. I’m surprised that people think large numbers of children were born to mothers in their mid to late 40s. I’m not sure why you think having a different experience than yours and questioning how common that experience is, is suggesting you are “lying”. Do you usually only talk to people who think exactly what you think?

I guess it's a manual type job so probably akin to skilled tradesman, if he had lots of experience or qualifications. So he'd be a C2.
I suppose that could be 'working class'. Assuming that office based jobs or those that require a degree are more 'middle class'.

Have you never watched Thomas the Tank Engine?

Exactly this.

You can be well paid and working class. You can be poor and middle class.
This is not America.

Just came to you?! What bollocks.

OP what are you actually qualified to do? You’re not going to swan into any of these Working Class Bygone Age of the Railways jobs that ‘just came to you’.

What jobs have you done in the past?

It’s a working class job in a male dominated, heavily unionised industry so will be relatively well paid (train drivers also).

Yep, I had a relative who was a shifter and they were squished dead between two trains

Just saw this. Yet another autocorrect fail. Shunter not shifter. No idea what a shifter would be.

To be frank, they were widely disliked and was not considered much of a loss, and that was also the sentiment of their wife and kids.

"Sounds like a working class job"

😅

This isn't what Working Class traditionally meant at all. It meant people who had no capital, didn't own anything and sold their physical or mental labour in order to live (the workers by hand or brain). They had jobs that didn't involve higher education or membership of a professional body.
They were what Karl Marx referred to as the proletariat and were vulnerable to exploitation by people who did own the means of production.
The people you refer to were defined as the lumpen proletariat or underclass and were treated even more poorly than they are now.
None of it makes a lot of sense now in a largely post industrial society.
The whole post is very odd. Why are you so interested what someone's father's job was and why do you think it correlates in any way with having a shit childhood unless the family were so poor the child was deprived of basics? Why are you considering a physically demanding job working for the railways as a woman in your late 50s?

What are you saying here? That those of us who are not in agreement with you are lying? I know, because I'm interested and also read a lot, that these are my great grandmother's statistics and also that it was a very usual scenario for women who were otherwise healthy. They just went on until they stopped or their husband stopped. For what it's worth, the two children she had that died were quite early in her marriage, so probably no later than 30 ish. Fertility does, as you say, diminish with age but if you are having regular unprotected sex, the chances of conception are obviously greater than if you're not.

Why does this matter? Why set so much based on someone’s occupation? Actually, I find it quite derogatory……..my dad did all manner of jobs but he earned a living, fed us, put clothes on our backs and we wanted for nothing.