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?

That's really interesting. What definition of middle class were you using? One strand of my family is professional/business owning going back to the early 1800s so I'd have labeled them solidly middle class.

But class definitions are notoriously shady, shifting things which is probably why some people cling on to markers for dear life.

I moved from London to Glasgow around 10 years ago. I noticed immediately that Glasgow is poorer,. But also that working class culture feels more prominent and less marginalised.
There seemed to me to be stronger class divisions.
To give an example:
I was initially staying with my now husband in Hamiltonhill/Possil Park and heard a great deal about how snobby and up itself "The West End" is. And how uncomfortable anyone from a scheme would feel walking about the West End. I imagined somewhere a little like Kensington.
When I took a walk down Byers Road, it felt closer to, say, Stoke Newington Church Street, somewhere I couldn't afford to live but would feel comfortable socialising.
I found it quite telling that this area was 1. The poshest thing Glasgow has to offer and 2. Outside of many people's comfort zone.

I was born in England and lived there for many years I now live in very rural west/south west of Scotland and I agree in England IME people do seem to place more emphasis on background education connections etc. although I do accept that might be because of where I came from in England. That is one of the many many things I love about living here.

That is interesting and it is my experience. I work in a profession but come from a very middle class English background my colleagues junior and senior to me generally come from what many English would see as a very traditional working class background and often had a very poor upbringing.

Byres Rd is absolutely not the poshest area Glasgow had to offer 😂

My DM was brought up working class English and was always very sensitive to how she might be perceived in the area of rural Scotland that we lived. I wasn’t nearly as aware as she was because my life didn’t seem much different to anyone else’s but when I went to uni, my new good friend who had grown up in a poorer urban area of Scotland said she thought of me as posh and would often mention it. A different friend (with a sort of boho-posh background) started going out with a double-barrel who owned a castle. We were introduced and she said afterwards (once they’d broken up) that he’d said me (and another friend who had been there) were the wrong sort, that basically we weren’t posh enough for him to associate with. He came across like a massive creep though - I haven’t met many castle owners and he may be atypical.

Byres Rd is absolutely not the poshest area Glasgow had to offer

After 10 years, it's still the poshest bit I've been to!
Excluding, I suppose, residential areas which you would sort of walk through rather than actively spend time in.

My point is: People in more working class areas seemed to regard it as uncomfortably posh. Darren McGarvie has written about feeling discomfort walking through that area, as a younger man, so not just people I know, either.

Trying to think of people on a comparable housing estate in London feeling similar about a comparable London shopping street.....I can't really imagine it.
So my impression is far more class division. Particularly at the lower end of the scale.

I was in Ladbroke Grove the other day, I felt rough as nuts.

Harrythehappypig
Yes!
WC English here and very much get where your Mum is coming from.
I have been asked "Are you posh or English?" before.
And, in general, I'd say people perceive me around half a social class higher than they would in England.

I’m in the SE of England and TBH I only ever see or hear it mentioned on MN - where some people do seem obsessed. It’s dragged into so many topics.

@DinnaeFashYersel , I don’t know where they’re all from, N of the border or not, but I’ve noticed quite a few MNers saying they’re ‘proudly’ working class. Why proud? It’s not as if it’s down to anything they’ve achieved. Anyone would think they’d been asked before conception what class they’d like to be born into: ‘Ooh, working class please! I couldn’t bear to be middle class!’

I think when people say they are proud of being WC. They mean they are proud of their parents and their work ethics.

Never heard (or read) anyone say they couldn't bare to MC.

Although WC have a habit of calling people snobs - or in Glasgow a half boiled snob.

Saying you are proud of being working class is usually saying you are proud of how you and your family, including parents, have navigated life in spite of being poor.
It is a shorthand.
It is difficult being both poor and having people looking down on you because of that.

Can you link to this book? I was intrigued but can't find it.

@unlimiteddilutingjuice fair enough, but that absolutely blows my mind!

I grew up very working class, from what would be considered a deprived area and went to school just off Byres Rd in a school that took in from all areas in Glasgow and we all spent time in Byres Rd. It's basically a glorified shopping precinct full of charity shops, a greggs and pubs/restaurants (and a Woolworths and Safeway back in the day, but that's a Waitrose now!) It would never have occurred to me that people feel out of place there.

Maybe I've always just had ideas above my station

I've never really felt there has been a class divide, or class has been a 'thing' in Glasgow. Religion is the big thing.

MardaNorton The stories (novellas) are in one book called Good Women.
It is available on Amazon mostly second hand copies.

The individual story 'Light My Fire' is in a collection called Good Women, as @Fergie51 said (also has a brilliant story about an elderly widowed gardener being forced out of her beloved Kew Green house by her son and DIL and making a new life via plants).

I also recommend Jane Stevenson's other collection, Several Deceptions.

I'm not sure in Scotland but I don't think it's really a thing in Wales. We don't have grammar schools and only a very limited number of private schools so I assume it's not as evident?

Yeah I've said exactly the same thing on threads before. I think it does make a difference if 99.9% of kids in the local area go to the same school (particularly in rural areas) rather than being split up into 10% private, 15% grammar, 5% church school, 30% "naice" leafy comp, other 40% academy etc.

Come to the New Town in Edinburgh and tell me class
isn’t a thing! It’s definitely a thing in Edinburgh and in the Highlands, where there’s a sort of landed gentry clique that spend a lot of time having very complicated balls! There are posh people in all parts of Scotland that I’m aware of, and a lot of public and private schools.

I live in Glasgow (West end) and class is definately not as big an issue here as it was when I lived in England. I think its more difficult to tell someones background unless they are proper rough in Scotland.

Of course class is an issue in Scotland.
Look at who actually ones the land in Scotland.

I grew up in an area were a Laird owned nearly all the local farms, he didn't actually live in the area much. He certainly didn't send his dc to the local failing school.

Read Darren McGarvey...

@ditalini Middle class (as opposed to working class) would usually be defined by home ownership (probably mortgaged until retirement) and a profession. Some professions such as lawyers/clergy were often taken up by second or third sons of landowners so historically these would have been classed as upper class professions. Likewise, only the landed gentry would have educated their daughters sufficiently to become teachers if they failed to marry or fell upon hard times so teaching was considered a much more upper class profession than today. These younger siblings have been housed in an estate property or remain in the family home so no mortgage would have been required.

Anyone in trade was considered working class. The middle class grew as home ownership became more common and wealth could be generated other than by ownership. The tradition of primogeniture in Scotland ensured that property and wealth did not get dispersed in the same way as it did in England where children are more likely to inherit equally.

For an interesting and detailed read on the British class system I can recommend David Cannadine's book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Class-Britain-David-Cannadine/dp/0140249540

I live in Scotland too, though am not from here and see this. Even at my child's private school, most people think they are working class.