People around Liz Truss's age

[mintywinter]

Who also went to a Comprehensive school, did you travel on a plane as a kid? I didn't and I was thinking about the bit in her speech where she says she got an air hostess badge, and thinking that anyone in my school who'd been on a plane would have been thought of as posh? In my school people holidayed in the UK if at all.

I’m with the payer who said stop questioning peoples lived experience.
Air travel was huge long before the likes of Ryanair and EasyJet came along. I should know I worked in the travel industry. I can confirm air travel was not just for the elite. Maybe it started that way but by the 1980s lots of working class people flew. I’ve known people fly rather than travel by train because it’s cheaper. I also know middle class people who travel abroad by coach due to a fear of flying.

Indeed...

(I'm 54, went to a Comp, air travel was fairly unusual, my 1st air trip was age 18)

Also middle class people maybe didn't want to fly to the Costa Brava on a cheap package holiday, I don't think they were the target market, and it would have been more fiddly and pricey to organise your own trip. So they might have preferred to drive down to France or Cornwall, which to me seems quite a middle class thing to do.

I'm 50 went to an inert London comp and flew on planes from age of 6 months old. We often went on holiday.
Most of my friends did too.
Single parent family, living in a housing association flat

I'm 3 years older and went to a comp in Nottinghamshire

Very mixed intake though - some mining villages, some posher places

Went on a plane every other year and most of the more well off kids did similar

Worked in a travel agent from 1988 in a north Notts town and loads of people went on a plane every year - lots of big groups from miners welfares and British legion etc too!

I am 47 and went to a comprehensive school

I didn't fly til I was 18 but we did go abroad a few times as a family (on ferry to France). I certainly had school friends who went to places like Spain and Cyprus on family holiday and wouldn't have considered them to be posh

Not going to private school doesn't make you working class. Plenty of middle class families send their DC to state school.

I'm 42, only once as a kid and that was because my mum hadn't been back home to see her parents in 13 years so we all went one summer

I'm almost 10 years older than her and I had friends at the local comp who went on planes. Not everyone who attended a comprehensive school was a "council house kid", some lived in 4 bed semis....the rich bastards. 😄

Thanks for all the posts I've really enjoyed reading them and seeing everyones different experiences.

I'm a similar age and first flew at 19, first train at 18! Never been abroad with the parents.

Roundhay school BTW doesn't have a solely wealthy intake. Its catchment is equally spread between posh Roundhay and poor Gipton. The poshest houses in Roundhay are actually a tad closer to Allerton Grange school (not as well regarded), which I always find endlessly amusing.

45 - yes, because my grandparents took me. Our holidays were to Butlins and eventually to all pile in the car to France and stay in a static caravan. I went to the roughest comp in town. There'd have been a huge range of incomes there, however, but sending kids to private school would have been a. Not necessary or b. Impossible for an average sized family without also missing out on said holidays.

42 so a bit younger, but grow up very working class, and my grandparents took me to America, plus I think we flew to Spain, although may have driven. Loads of kids at school flew though, and it was pretty common that kids would be invited into the cockpit to meet the captain and “fly the plane” for 5 minutes.

I'm 12 years older than Truss, and went to a much less sought-after comprehensive. In my first year in secondary school I was only aware of one person who had been on a plane. However, there were about 25% of the year who I didn't know personally, and many of those lived in much more affluent areas than the one where the school was. (Just how catchment areas worked in those days.) The first time I went on a plane was 3 months after my 20th birthday, and it wasn't with my parents.

That's a good point too lots of schools were doing exchanges then so children were going abroad with school if not their family.

My school had a trip to Iceland and we were a very rubbish comprehensive 🤣

I had a look to see if there was any ONS data about this, and low and behold there was. 25m overseas trips by UK residents in 1986. So about half of the population travelled overseas that year.

There was an increase in numbers over the past 40 years, but it was by no means uncommon.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/timeseries/gmax/ott

“Lo and behold” - bloody autocorrect

Changechangychange

Is that air travel or would it include ferries? Really interesting, thanks.

I’m 41 so LT is a few years older than me, but I went abroad every year since the age of 3. Mainly European destinations, but also went to Florida too. We weren’t poor but definitely not rich or middle class. Both parents left school at 16 and worked. Many of my friends also did the same so I don’t think it was that unusual.

It includes both ferries and flights - it’s taken from the IPS (international passenger survey) data.

I’m not claiming 50% of the population all took a flight in 1986. But the situation in your school, where most people didn’t go on holiday at all, and if they did it was only in the UK, and only very posh people had ever been abroad or on a plane, definitely didn’t reflect the UK as a whole.

I'd have been classed as middle classed. State school, mum was a SAHM and dad worked for our late queen in the west end. We were relatively well off. However our holidays (yes I know) were either UK or European touring holidays. I didn't fly until I was 18 in the late 90s. I'm 3 years younger than Truss.

im 45, went to an average comprehensive in Sussex and yes I travelled by plane on holiday a couple of times. We mainly travelled round mainland Europe in our caravan in the summers or Scotland.

we weren’t out of the ordinary or particularly rich, nor poor. Just average really.

my dad was an engineer and my mum a secretary.

I'm the same age as her, I went to a normal, rural comprehensive. We holidayed abroad and lots of my friends did. It really wasn't unusual or the reserve of the wealthy.

I went to Roundhay at the same time (don't even remotely remember her) however it was very mixed. You had the relatively rich kids and then poorer Chapeltown Harehills ones.
It was a good school though - we had a swimming pool which was rare at the time.
Incidentally we also had Laura Parker of momentum.
Liz Truss could have made this her strongest feature- comprehensive made good as opposed to the Eton lot.
Also Jimmy Savile used to jog past most days.

But the situation in your school, where most people didn’t go on holiday at all, and if they did it was only in the UK, and only very posh people had ever been abroad or on a plane, definitely didn’t reflect the UK as a whole.

Yes this thread has shown that it wasn't as unusual as it seemed to me based on my own experiences/friends and more posters went abroad than didn't, and thought it normal to fly.

Roundhay in Leeds is bloody posh. Stupid woman.