Things you thought were normal if you grew up working class

[Anycrispsleft]

Inspired by that "thought it was posh, turns out it wasn't" thread, I wondered if anyone else remembers stuff from a working class childhood that you thought everyone did and actually no it was just us?

Mine is playing with stray dogs. I was an adult before I realised that approaching strange dogs is meant to be dangerous. In my estate there were two strays (and one owned dog that would escape his garden) and they would chum along with us when we were out playing. We'd feed them crisps. (Luckily for the dogs I think we figured that crisps were more appropriate food for dogs than chocolate, as they were more salty and a bit like meat.) It would never have occurred to us not to befriend any other creature of the street. There was precious little else to do, why wouldn't we add a dog or two into the pack?

Using words like settee, lounge, tea (for dinner/supper)

@ParkheadParadise

I thought everyone's dad went to the pub straight from work and came home pished every night.

Sharing a room with siblings.

Getting sent to the shop with a note for 10 Benson + Hedges for your mum.

Getting one present at Christmas

This 🤣🤣

I thought everyone went to the laundrette - didn't realise people actually had their own washing machines!

UntamedWisteria

“Plenty of working class people vote Tory. They would never have been elected otherwise.“

Not in the north in the 80s!

@UntamedWisteria

TBF the OP was about being working class, not living in poverty. Not the same thing at all.

I think for many, (thankfully not for me and my family), being working class meant living in poverty so it can absolutely be the same thing. For example, my friends who had dads that worked in mining, were on strike and so there was no source of income for that family. It’s a sad fact but a reality of being a child of the 80’s and living in the North of England.

Being taken to the Kentucky Pancake House up west for my 6th birthday and being told I could choose anything from the menu.

As an adult, I’ve eaten at some of the world’s most lauded (and frequently over-rated) restaurants. Nothing has ever come close to that excitement. Our daily diet was FSM and the original blue and white Tesco best value brand.

allmyarseandpeggymartin There were northerners who voted Tory. I was brought up by my great grandparents in Ashton and they voted Tory. They were retired when looking after me, but in their working life my gran was a potato picker and my granddad was a lorry driver, so defo working class. They bought their council house under Thatcher and were working class, northern Tory voters.

We called it a Candlewick...???

@expatinspain Obviously I know some wc people must have voted Tory, especially if they managed to right to buy.

What I’m saying is that in my experience (ex mining town) and for many kids of my generation (several of who have voiced similar on this thread) the Conservatives and Maggie Thatcher were hated and you wouldn’t ever consider voting for anyone other than labour.

Bread & butter at every meal, and not being allowed a pudding until I’d had at least two slices. It wouldn’t have been so bad but the bread was almost inedible. It wasn’t until years later that I realised why: it was always at least two or three days old. A fresh loaf was never started on the day it was bought; it always went to the back of the queue and had to wait until the older bread had been used up. By the time it got to the front of the queue it had become old itself. I didn’t taste fresh bread until I was 12, and that was in someone else’s house. When I questioned the system at home, the excuse I was given was that fresh bread was indigestible!

@UntamedWisteria

I bet none of you on this thread is younger than 50!

I've been wondering about age. A pp mentioned stuff being normal for the 70s or 80s and got shot down by people saying there were mc people then too.

I wonder if what they were trying to say was that things mentioned were more normal then. So there were more wc people. Or people were pooer. So many of these things were more common.

What are the signifies of being working class in the late 90s or early 00s? Things which seem like luxuries compared to growing uo in the 70s 80s working class.

For example having pay as you go phones and not contract.

A squirt of washing up liquid instead of bubble bath.... only had proper Mr Matey in my Christmas Stocking.

Mam skinning rabbits and gutting trout in the kitchen 🤢
I ate rabbit and loved it till I was about 10, then realised what it was and never ate it again. I had pet rabbits.
I always thought the trout was posh because it was rainbow trout. The reality was it was free food, my uncle caught it and my mum prepared it, and my dad cooked the most wonderful things with it. Hard to believe we ate so well with so little money.

@cfb35

A squirt of washing up liquid instead of bubble bath.... only had proper Mr Matey in my Christmas Stocking.

Haha! And then we would be able to use the empty washing up liquid bottles as water pistols in the summer!

@MummyJ12 yessss!! I also learned a lesson about playing on fibre glass rolls on a building site. So bouncy, and yet.....very wrong. You live and learn though :)

I have been pondering since I posted - I knew people (military) at school whose dads were the Wing Commander or whatever. I knew they were different - they went skiing, their houses were big, they defo spoke posh, and one of my friends had a set of carrandache pencils (I bought some for DS last year because I’ve thought about them for 35 years) we were friends in school but I was never invited round. My friends were the people I lived near on our estate - we were all in similar financial situations so everything that happened seemed normal. It wasn’t until I was older and saw people in their homes or knew more than just the stuff you see at school that I realised what we did wasn’t what everyone did.

My dad read the Mirror - I could never vote conservative, it’s so ingrained.

We were not well off, but my mum was prudent and we weren’t hand to mouth poor (even though my dad smoked a lot and was an alcoholic). Working class doesn’t mean poverty - as others have said.

Anyway, now I’ve seen a mention of bread and gravy, I must share that a slice of bread flat in mint sauce laden gravy - soak one side, soak the other, eat with knife and fork. Omg. Best thing ever.

What I’m saying is that in my experience (ex mining town) and for many kids of my generation (several of who have voiced similar on this thread) the Conservatives and Maggie Thatcher were hated and you wouldn’t ever consider voting for anyone other than labour.

In Scotland she was also hated.

@ClearMountain

Never asking for seconds because there wasn’t any It still horrifies me when DH helps himself to seconds, even when there is some left. Like, that’s another meal we could eat tomorrow! And when he touches everything on his plate and mixes it up. I was NEVER allowed to do that because it meant someone else couldn’t eat what I left. You had to eat what you wanted and leave the rest untouched, because your Mum had no dinner for herself and was waiting to eat whatever was left on the plate when you were full.

My dad would save everyone’s leftovers and fry them up for breakfast the next day, it didn’t matter what it was.

@JarvisCockerSpanieI

Taking your own family value tub of ice cream and spoons to the cinema.

Looking down the sides of the settee for any loose change.

Throwing things behind the settee or ''under the stairs'' when doing a quick tidy-up.

Being sent to the chinese chip shop for the occasional fish and chips lateish on a Saturday night when Paul Daniels was on.

Being sent to Spar for shopping after collecting my mum's family allowance.

Dripping on toast as a treat.

Mum pretending she wasn't hungry if she didn't have enough to go round.

No car - walked, bussed or relied on lifts.

Roast dinner at grandma's was height of posh as she had mint sauce AND mint jelly, ribena and ritz crackers.

Corona bottles to shop for the deposit.

Nothing 'foreign' until I was 15 - then pasta. Did not have indian food until at uni.

Britvic 55 was posh. Appletise was posh. My father used to pour cherryade and put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it.

Playing at the park in Summer til half nine.

Pub carpark squabbling with siblings in car with half a coke and a bag of crisps.

Latchkey kids left on our own (7, 9) between 4-6pm term-time and full days in holidays.

I was always a fish out of water growing up - too rough for the posh crowd but considered a snob by the council estate kids as my Mum wouldn't let us play with them.

I forgot about collecting the family allowance. That and cashing my mums pay checks. I remember the first time she asked me to do it, I had to pick the check up after school and take it straight to the bank before it closed, she said to me you’ve been forging my signature on your homework books for years so you may as well start making yourself useful and collect my pay checks for me. Sometimes I’d just walk into the bank in my school uniform and forge her signature on the back, no one batted an eye.

Mugs of tea with dinner

Having dinner at 1pm

Net curtains (always bright white)

Knowing that you had to be extra polite around some people (looking back mc people) I was always polite but definitely more so my
The better matching tea cups and saucers came out only for some visitors

@AliceMcK Can’t beat bubble and squeak!

Im a few years off 50 too

Well I grew up working class but little of this was normal for us maybe we were posh !

@UntamedWisteria I’m 29! Grew up in the NW and resonate with a fair amount (either personally or the lifestyle of my mum / Nan).

Sharing rooms
No central heating
Single glazing
Being cold
No shower - using the rubber hose / a measuring jug.
Nan had a meter for the tv
Home made, well cooked food but definitely meat and two veg.
Buying cigarettes for randomers from duty free.
First in family to go to uni
Not going in certain ‘posh’ shops

All the the above in mid to late 90s

I lived in London

Thatcher was loved by many working class in London and Home Counties.

@UntamedWisteria

I bet none of you on this thread is younger than 50!

I am