To ask, if you grew up working class or not well-off and have done well for yourself?

[TheHouseOnTheLane]

Do you ever get a weird longing for the past and the way it was even though you know the reality wouldn't please you?

Do you ever feel a sort of guilt if you left your home town?

DH and I have done ok...we're not rich but have a lovely house in a very lovely town. Blah blah...DH is from a middle class family but I grew up in a steel town during the 70s in the UK...my memories are probably tainted but I sometimes hanker for the close community that was my home town...I feel guilt for leaving....or something...what IS it?

I didn't find growing up WC on a council estate in the 70s and 80s that grim at all. But people were quite varied, even estates were different from each other and some estates had good and bad reputations. There is no one size fits all. Looking back, we were one of the richer WC families - had a car, went holidays abroad since mid 70's. Me and my siblings and many of my friends never went to uni but we are all doing well with nice lives and that all mostly have good jobs in the civil service, banks, offices etc so we are still close to our old friends and families even though we are the only ones to move away and are financially much better off - so different from what some have described here in feeling their families don't support or understand them.

Bamb me too...it wasn't that MY life was grim...both parents worked full time and we had a car and holidays but it was rather the people around us that were often in poverty...my friends.

I saw and experienced dire poverty through those around us really. I remember kids knocking on the door...usually after dark...saying "My Mum said to ask your Mum to borrow 50p for the meter"

And my Mum always gave it...because we were better off...I remember kids with shoes which were basically more hole than shoe...and kids coming to ours for tea every night for weeks because their Dad had been laid off and there were no tax credits then....I also remember my Mum used to pay a lady over the road to make all our clothes....we never had anything bought...because this lady was a lone parent and that was how Mum helped her.

It's interesting how our take on "Working Class" varies. In my own memory (back in the 60's) everyone was either working class or of working class origin (South Wales, so mining). My parents were "white collar" and although there were genuinely poor families, and life was spartan (outside toilets, no central heating) I can't remember life in general being all that difficult, as there was full employment (or as near as dammit).

Now days working class is not grim as so many of you are making out. I am working class as are my parents and siblings, we all can afford a holiday once a year, afford to pay our bills and buy food, do leasiure activities. None of us have much in savings or own our property but we aren't living in misery or need middle class pity.

I am 26 so maybe it's the age gap? I would say now days your talking about people that solely rely on benefits who are in poverty.

I suppose I've done okay but because of where I now live the money doesn't go as far as you might expect. I really miss everyone knowing who I am (even if I don't know them!) and asking after other relatives etc. I miss the stories, the Christmas cards, people just popping in. I know a few more people where I live now, but they are DH's friends. I can't make friends at work so easily as many of my colleagues are foreign and like to stick to their own communities. Also, they all have great English but I can't really speak in my native dialect at work or at home, as no one understands the words!

OP your first post has struck a chord with me.
In answer to your questions:
Yes.
Yes. I moved from my home city to a town on the other side of the U.K.

Your final question was 'What is it?' I agree with previous posters about belonging. I'm struggling to feel at home in the town I live. I feel like people hold me at arms length - and I know I will never be viewed as someone who belongs here. I'm a black person living in a good, low crime, mainly white area with good schools and I feel this doesn't help my efforts to fit in as I can literally see people looking at me as if I'm 'different' (sometimes like I'm some kind of alien). I know now, after many years of trying, that this will never change. My husband thought it was all in my head until I asked him if he thought it was any coincidence that, with very few exceptions, the only people who respond to me, or want to befriend me, in this area are black or Asian.

This Christmas I returned to my home city, saw family and old school friends, and it felt great to belong. There was none of the constant struggle to integrate which I've become accustomed to. I haven't laughed so much in ages and it great to be myself and to be accepted.

I'm just relieved that my kids seem to be accepted by their peers despite their obvious cultural differences.

I think it can be hard moving towns (especially smaller towns with less incomers) in the UK though. In some respects i'd rather move to another country with an expat community who tend to be more open and welcoming.

As for the belonging? It's bittersweet. I don't want to live where me and the husband grew up (same place, same background) but i miss that they all have their close family connections (we were just us and the kids for Christmas dinner) and old friends from school etc and that sense that you really belong.

We also have chosen a big really mixed town (socially and culturally etc) rather than one of the very middle/ upper class, very affluent chocolate box towns or villages on our doorstep. I live to visit them for shopping or lunch, but the sometimes overwhelming genteelity and barbour clad, frightfully clipped accented inhabbitants and life - would probably get to me a bit and i'd stick out more than i already do.

Perhaps also one of the reasons we stuck with State rather than Private schooling - though starting to change our mind on that one.

There is far more community on the street I live on now than the estate we lived on. Think back to notorious riots in the 80's and you've got very close to the area I grew up in. You played out but the fear someone (older kids included) would come and rob you/beat you up/touch you up was always there. I know everyone on my street and we all have kids of similar ages. And here's another class definer - last year there was a tv left on the roadside for a week while someone moved out. They had to PAY someone to take it. Unheard of in my previous life, I'd have given it 3.5 minutes on the old estate!

I do sometimes feel slightly frivolous/silly though, and wonder who the hell I am now - when I moan that the coffee machine isn't working or that I need a pedicure because it's been months. But I overcame a lot of shit to get here and there are loads far better off than we are. I just prioritise different things to my family - ie fags, booze and lottery are not on the list!

usual you aren't getting it. It's not going in for some reason. Most of the people on this thread haven't mentioned feeling that they are better than the people they left behind. (Some have implied it, but it's not the overriding message of the thread and they seemed to have been in exceptional circumstances.)

I feel better in myself as in, I feel mentally healthier than I did when I lived in a particular environment. So what?

Lots of the stories on here are either about living in a level of relative poverty or are erroneously comparing standard living conditions in the 60s-80s with now, not about being working class.

Mining families in my town had holidays abroad, some had cars, many chose not to as the pit was in the town and within walking distance. There were people who lived in houses with outside toilets, but if you think back to the 70s that was common in older houses.

Working class folk had an income, my father's income was enough to support us when we were small, families had enough food, but we didn't have everything we wanted all the time. My family lived in a council house which about 40% of the population did at the time. We had a TV and when Mum went back to work we had nicer holidays ( hotels rather than camping abroad).

I don't think you can compare things like frost inside windows, which was common and happened in old houses, outdoor toilets, lack of meals out etc etc because they were far more standard than they would be now, standards of living have risen as a whole.

Oh and also, anyone who uses the term "underm class" deserves to be wheeled out and shot.

Under class. - sorry.

The thread title does specify 'working class or not well-off' longtimelurker

My family was definitely 'not well-off' during my childhood.

Tired Sadly I never picked up the habit on my gap year travelling through Vietnam as I didn't have a gap year because I was working to earn money to live.

Sorry, going to pick you up on that one..! I wasn't funded for a gap year, we didn't go on foreign holidays etc. But I did get to travel in my early 20's. (Left home at 18)
I had a live-in hotel job at one stage, other times I was renting a room and on min wage, living cheaply to put away a bit each week, so I could go off for 3-4 months (on a shoestring budget whilst away too!). I met plenty of people from various parts of Europe who did this regularly - working in Europe in the summer and going off for 3-6 months over the winter somewhere sunny and cheaper.

In many ways it was right place, right time - now the same people are not able to find work back home, but if you're talking about building orphanages on gap years I reckon we're roughly the same age. :) (And those "pay to volunteer" things are by and large a right rip-off!)
I'm only mentioning this cos I was perceived as a trust-fund type by people who actually earnt more than me - very grating when I went without other things and saved hard to have those experiences.

We weren't poor but we lived among and went to school with very poor people and I don't think my primary school aged children have any idea how some people live / lived. Many of the children in my class were living in an orphanage or in foster care. Others were just very poor. Many smelt of wee. I often think about them now when I'm inwardly moaning about all the laundry. It would take an incredible resource (and energy and determination) to own enough clothes and have the time and space to wash and dry them in winter, with no central heating or washer or dryer, for even two children to be clean every day. I often think about the parents or foster parents of maybe 6 children who just couldn't do it. I have never smelt any wee at my dcs' school.

I don't miss my childhood but it was not a typical working class childhood, it was a dysfunctional and cruel one.

I do miss being surrounded by people who think like me. I will be an outsider for the rest of my life. We see ourselves as working class with cash. I married somebody from a similar background as me and we get one another, I don't think I could have settled down with somebody who did not share my working class roots.

I feel very guilty, I escaped an awful background because of pure luck - for the reason we subsidise my family in particular.

I have never wanted to escape being working class, I would make a very miserable middle class person!

Element funny enough I worked abroad, but it wasn't a "gap year" and it was all european based.
I believe starting in Ibiza then Thailand then australia/teaching in South America was the gap year trail back in "our" day.
I had to work in order to send money home to family. I still went abroad but only where work with a certain income was.
Travel does not need to be limited due to income/class, however travelling without working is something which to date no-one in my family has done, or could afford to do.

TheHouseOnTheLane OMG I had totally forgotten "50p for the meter"! Although we were on a key and lived off the emergency - when that went we'd all have to sleep in one bed for warmth! In a strange way I am enjoying this thread. It's making me appreciate my central heating (mum still doesn't have it) and other home comforts.

Well she has it but won't use it because she's used to having just a gas fire in the front room!

Overall a poor childhood which has shaped my life enormously in good and bad ways and I do think I would have been a happier secure young adult if I'd had a less austere upbringing.

I look at my teen DC and would sometimes love them to have to go back and live a month in my shoes . I've strived to make them appreciate what they have but really unless you've lived like many of us on this thread then how can you

Tired Ah I think we may be different ages, especially if benefits were not enough to support your family. Glad you did get to travel though .

I'm finding all the stuff about money for the meter, using the emergency electric, ice on the windows, sleeping in a coat etc really... interesting, odd, I dunno. All things I didn't experience as a child but did a few years ago as a very poor young adult. It's making me wonder about perceptions of what being poor actually means, as well as wondering if people realise now how other people are living in the UK...

I don't think that we got any benefits...low income wage single parent. Well not that low income but debts from credit cards used to repair the house. Car finance from buying a (crap) used car for work.
My childhood was all 50p for the meter, in fact one family member blew the house up fiddling the meter! Hiding from the gas man and the loan man when they knocked, no central heating, washing your hair with the kettle over the sink. Ice on the inside of the windows. Broken window in winter staying broken for a year because it was too expensive to repair.
On the other hand being an "inner city deprived child" who blagged into a school in a "naice" area I was always getting funded/let off from paying from all manner of school trips and summer activities and was forever at a farm canoeing, swimming, or in the museum and library. There seems to be less of this thesedays which is a shame.

I remember having a meter for the leccy, but a lot of the heat came from coal! I remember trying to stay in bed for as long as possible in the winter, so that the house might have warmed up a bit once the fire was lit.

I remember the rent man coming and mum always having the money in a brown paper packet.

Council house where jack frost painted the inside of the windows on winter nights. No running hot water until I was about 5.
Coal fire lit by a gas poker, shillings and florins going into the gas meter.
The major difference between now and then is that some working class kids had an escape route via the Grammar School system.

Rebecca2014 I am 32, my brother is 29 so there is only a tiny age gap. For us, being poor was just the start of it. The addictions and poor decision making about where to spend what money we had was the main factor. ie We had plenty of alcohol but no electric/gas!

Sadly the grammar school system was gone by the time my siblings and I got there, we went to a bog stanard comp but still got to go to university. The place is still there and sends kids off to uni each year, the area has got worse not better so it must do an amazing job.

Weren't there arguments (around the time of the Comprehensive Act) that grammar schools didn't actually benefit that many working class kids? I know it did benefit some, but many were tipped onto the scrap heap aged 11 in terms of their education.