This obsession with 'class' - is it a thing in Scotland?

[mylittleyumyum]

I'm Scottish myself and it's honestly not something I've ever thought about.

Am I in a minority? Am I secretly being judged by my peers? Or is it predominantly an English hang-up?

Depends where you are. As someone from a rural family who were tenants on land owned by others, class (landowner/laird class, tenant class) was definitely a "thing".

Also grew up in Edinburgh where private/state schools is a huge "thing" in certain areas, which is just another class indicator.

You don't need to judge or be judged to be part of a landscape of class and class indicators. Just because you don't think about it, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, although hopefully it doesn't affect our lives in any meaningful way (although of course it does affect some people, it's just another way of your face fitting or not fitting in certain situations).

I live in Scotland and know lots of people who like to go on about how working class they are.

Yeah in Scotland it’s the other way around😂

Its something i.have found only mumsnet,cares about tbh.

This.

When people say "class doesn't exist", I tend to form the opinion that they only hang out with a very narrow subsection of people tbh.

I work in charities, and there's a strong stereotypical pattern of "led by the rich, staffed by the middle classes, serving the working class" vibe in many.

You don't have to like it or engage much to acknowledge it exists.

I would say in the Highlands (or at least the northwest highlands anyway) it genuinely isn't something anyone ever thinks or talks about. I couldn't tell you what defines a social class in the rest of the UK because I had absolutely no sense of class growing up. I think there is basically no history of it, because it's evolved from the clan system, which although structural was a completely different type of structure which cannot be shoehorned into the English (or wherever) class system, which evolved from a different historical situation.

However when I went to university in the central belt, people did talk about it sometimes. Not obsessed, but it was definitely mentioned. Whether it is native to the central belt, or imported from further south, I have no idea.

In summary I very much doubt the whole of Scotland has one homogeneous attitude when it comes to class, or the lack of.

If it’s not something you’ve thought about then why are you starting a thread on it ?

Of course it is! The UK (in all of its constituent countries) is a deeply class-bound society, and Scotland is no exception.

See Jane Stevenson's novella 'Light My Fire' for a very funny and black comic take on new and old money distinctions in and around Aberdeen -- a snobbish, misogynistic conservation architect, formerly married into the local gentry, marries his LMC oil-wife mistress. Lots of well-observed detail on the class connotations of furniture, clothing, food, interior decor, dinner parties etc.

In my experience it's not a thing outside mumsnet.

Of course it is. Like @ditalini i grew up in a rural area that ran the whole gamut from the aristocracy in the big house to the ‘neds’ at high school in Dundee. My mum was probably a bit obsessed though: she was always very clear on what was ‘common’ and what was ‘upper class’ and which people / behaviour fitted into which category 🙄. I try not to be judgey but I’m very aware of class distinctions.

MardaNorton, just ordered a copy of Jane Stevenson’s novellas.
Thank you for the tip!

As a child growing up in West Scotland, I was never unaware of the different classes. As a student I presumed success was down to hard work and intelligence.
But in moving to England I have become far more aware of how much it matters to many people as to your background, education and connections.
I was so naive as a young student not to know how much coaching, private education and social graces would matter further down the line.

Glad to have been your source! 'Light My Fire' is in the collection called Good Women (as you've probably discovered), but there's another equally good collection by her (well, I think it has four longish short stories) called Several Deceptions, which has a wonderful novella about an Irishwoman who joins a Buddhist nunnery in northern India.

I like those far more than her historical novel trilogy.

She used to have a wonderful blog called something like The Deep North, about an enviable-sounding life living in the depths of Aberdeenshire with flotillas of cats and dogs and a fellow-academic husband/partner, researching Edward Burra and having lots of eccentric friends to stay, gardening, cooking complex things and poking around auctions and antique shops.

I can't see any sign of it now, alas!

I find Scotland more snobbish than England, I dated a Laird and attended balls like the Skye ball. I found all the various clans incredibly snooty and class conscious, very rigid system. Boyfriend was a nice guy with a castle (there are oodles of castles and 1,000 acre estates) but I couldn’t bear the lifestyle.

Christ yes it is very much a thing in Scotland! My dad was from a family of steelworkers in Fife and my mother grew up in Edinburgh as the daughter of a woman who was from landed gentry and a very senior civil servant. My poor dad will certainly be able to tell you that the class difference was "a thing".

It's absolutely a thing.

Towns might be smaller so more of a mix in the secondary schools. But it's still a thing.

Here's some of my experience then to help you out:

• Trustees picking on staff members for having tattoos and praising me for being a "good girl" not having any
• Staff members asking me to do all their videos because I speak "better", and they're worried they sound "common"
• Same staff telling me that they're worried about due process in the organisation, but are too intimidated by the wealthy trustees
• Staff members putting on a posh voice to mimick my phone voice when I received calls from them
• Receiving a truly hilarious Christmas round robin from the titled local landowner who referred to his extensive staff as communists

If you don't see class-based issues at play, then either your life is very narrow, or you're very privileged.

thecatsthecats your experience is exactly that. Yours. Thanks for sharing it but it doesn't change mine. Oh and my life is neither privileged nor narrow.

If you don't see class-based issues at play, then either your life is very narrow, or you're very privileged.

I’ve got to agree with this. And I say this as someone who was born abroad, I consider myself outside these class constraints mainly because I’m neither working class or middle. I notice it everywhere, maybe it’s where I live and circles I’m on the periphery of.

I'm originally from Northern Ireland and have lived in Scotland's Highlands almost as long as NI.

Yes, I've certainly noticed there is a class preoccupation in the Highlands. There is clearly a working, middle and rich class set of divisions here. You certainly see it in Inverness - for example, the Ferry aka Merkinch is looked down upon as its got a serious drug/alcohol addiction issue. Life expectancy is much shorter there than a couple of miles away on the other side of Inverness.

I think it's naive to think class isn't a thing in Scotland. It is a thing in Northern Ireland as well although sectarianism is what grabs most people.

It is human nature to have hierarchies and society is definitely built that way.

My in-laws sent their children to public schools hundreds and hundreds of miles away in England. There was a horror of having any accent that wasn't RP. But at the same time they were very Scottish and proud of it. Supported Scottish rugby passionately, etc. I never fully understood it. But class really mattered to them, though my FIL, when widowed, did soften a lot of his views when he came into contact with the wider world and realised things had moved on.

My husband, who is an extremely good Scottish dancer, having had lessons from the time he was six, was at a wedding with me and was asked by a Scottish girl if he needed her to explain how a very simple Scottish reel worked 'as you're English people'. That English public school accent had really let him down.
😁

Yea it is
People like to boast about how working clas they are

Seems to be an obsession on mumsnet,,can't say I've come across it in real life

I did study class background in Scotland many years ago. Scotland is very different from England in that traditionally there really wasn't a discernable middle class so it is much more difficult to claim a middle class background. Obviously in modern times, there are plenty of apparent middle classes working in professions etc. but they will have descended from either the upper classes or the working classes or moved from elsewhere.

Right - but you didn't state what your experience was, beyond saying that "it wasn't a thing outside of mumsnet". If you'd limited yourself to saying "I've never heard anyone mention it in my personal life", fine. That is your experience.

(which, yeah, is limited, if you've never seen anyone encounter a class difference - my own is limited in many ways which I'm sure you could elucidate, and I won't disbelieve you)