To ask what makes you working class? (Lighthearted)

[MissAlabamaWhitman]

So, the whole 'what makes you middle class' has been done to death hasn't it?

We're all pretty au fair with avocados, elephants sodding breath, the ubiquity of joules et cetera.
And lovely as it is to have such knowledge of the middle classes, none of it applies to me.

I'm working class and I'll explIn to you that which denotes this in just a minute.

Incidentally I heard that there's a few of us about so perhaps we can make our own list of our very own class signifiers.

Who's in?

I shall go first.....

Love of charity shops, this week I picked up a leather Hobbs bag for 3.99 and a couple of Abercrombie & Fitch tops for DD1 1.49 each!

Love of Iceland/Heron foods/Home bargains/B&M. Yes I know I could get everything I need in Sainsbury's but I actually prefer scrabbling around for bargains and topping up at Lidl.

Chardonnay. I love it, tastes fab. I can't be arsed to pretend that I prefer a Beaujolais or Cab Sav. I don't.

One bathroom/toilet in a five bed house.

Regional accent which I take pleasure in.

Children who play football and wear replica kits whilst doing so

Girls who wear pinkI draw the line at bloody Jojo bows though

Getting drunk at barbecues and performing impromptu Karaoke.

Allowing my children to 'play out' in the cul de sac from age seven.

Cleaning my own house.

Holidays at Center Parcs rather than overseas.

Owning a Huskita

Letting my children watch TV and eat crisps in full view of other parents.

Having a 'pop man'

Listening to LBC rather than R4

Not really giving a fuck about trans, one way or the other.

I'm sure there's lots more besides which I'll try to remember.
How about you?
What makes you sit back at the end of a hard day and think 'yep I'm a fully paid up member of the old working classes?'

Not really giving a fuck about trans, one way or the other.

sign me up please.

I always thought I was middle class until I went to university and met REAL middle class people I honestly didn't think real people got inheritance money - I thought that kind of thing only happened in the Chalet School and Charles Dickens. My granny literally left two sets of rosary beads when she died.

And I had only ever seen people called Ben, Emily and Sophie (which I know are all common names now) on telly. At my school, there were about 5 Seans in the year, countless Clares, Liams, Johns, Paul's, a few John Pauls, Kevins, Lisas. But then it was a Glaswegian Catholic school and there was nobody called Ben at such a school in the 90s.

I love Home Bargains and Iceland. And Greggs. I make no attempt to hide my regional accent. I've never been skiing and don't want to.

I literally have no idea what class we are. DH is the operational manager of an IT company on decent money, I'm a nursery nurse on minimum wage. He drives a crappy 10-year-old Citroen C1. We go on holiday to Butlins/Haven but also abroad. We live in a posh area but are the only ones on our street who rent. My son loves McDonald's but also loves cucumber sandwiches and couscous. We watch football and darts and go to 'the club' on a Sunday but we also like going to museums and the theatre/opera/ballet. My son has French and ukelele lessons. I grew up in a middle class area with one middle and one working class parent. I moved out at 17, got pregnant and lived on a council estate and my family history could fill a year of Jeremy Kyle episodes. I'm so mixed up

My naval grandfather always told me that officers have lunch, and the lower deck have dinner.

Live a pretty MC life now but growing up WC i remember

• mr Kipling French fancy cakes for best
• mam 'washing' my hair by spraying it with water/putting talc on roots

-calling the sofa a 'settee' -getting panda pops & no fruit in my packed lunch -tea was potato waffles/fish fingers or nuggets every night with a fruitini for pudding -getting drunk on Maddog 2020 in the park -dad saving up focus points from his fags to buy a knife block -always having brand names clothes and parents having a fit when o wanted a jacket from the army surplus shop cos it wasn't new -full grant to uni

Alabama

No I didn't go to ND, I went to St JB

I'm from Huyton ways originally

I would say I'm pretty much solidly working class.

Buy lager from the supermarket (preferably Stella)
Love a greggs coffee. To the point they know what I want when I walk through the door

I don't really go to fast food restaurants, personal preference.

I shop at Aldi/Lidl. I like Tesco too and Waitrose/John Lewis. But I'm not prepared to travel 40 mins to a Waitrose when there's a perfectly good supermarket closer.

I don't have a regional accent, as I moved around a lot when I was younger. I would probably place my accent closer to RP.

I don't really wear makeup. Would probably describe my dress sense as quite drab in colour. I hate sun bathing. Have never been to Benidorm or Butlins. I don't watch soaps or reality tv programmes.

I went to a grammar school, I have a degree, own my house. Frequently visit charity shops. Went to centre parks often when I was younger. Played the piano and clarinet too.

Cellardoor, do you mind me asking what makes you working class?

If Center Parcs is for working class, we must be lower class

I might get flamed for this. I grew up upper middle - landed, money 1960s. We holidays in South of France - Juan Les Pins, Nice, Cap D'Antibes, had fabulous Christmases with lots of presents, went to the races and hunted, ate at good restaurants, etc (and Wimpy). I had really nice clothes and my mother took me to the teenage section on the top floor of Harrods and Biba.

DH's parents were originally working class - think servants/miners but his mother became a deputy head teacher and his father an engineer. They had a 30s house up North, packet food which they counted, rationed tv with no colour until 1982, limited clothes including 2nd hand and were awfully worthy, bookish and a bit grubby. Fecking miserable existence but MIL thinks she's rather superior to trades people. I think she's lower middle class and has never enjoyed herself.

I worked with lots of working class people from Essex, families originally from the East End when I worked in the City. They were much more like my people and knew how to have an unselfconscious good time and good laugh down the pub. They worked hard and played hard and had as good a time as they could and made sure their children had as much as they could give them.

Who doesn't have land though? or a Barbour? Come on now

I grew up in a mining town in Derbyshire. We were 'proper working class' by any standards.

I may have been the first in my family to go to university and on to a professional career, but my family are still very much working class.

They say 'ay up me duck' non-ironically.
They live in council houses.
They drink wine regularly, every Christmas Day.
Since the pits closed, the men work in factories and warehouses, the women in shops.That's the co-op btw, not JL.
They think people who go on holiday to the Costa del Sol are posh.
Ditto people who own caravans.
The only time they have ever been to the theatre is for the panto.

OhTheRoses Your DP's parents probably understood how tough it can be being really poor. And did not want for their DC.

Your post sounds very much like "they were poor, but they were happy". Of course you can be poor and still have fun. But you have no bloody idea of the work and struggling that goes on behind that.

This thread is fascinating. I think about these class boundaries/ differences a lot more now I have kids and mix with mums at the school gate etc... I have a theory that there is a tendency for people to dislike the class directly 'above' them and to aspire to something above or other than that. mc lefty types definitely dislike the class above them, who they think of as over privelidged etc, and consequently they dress down to show they aren't aspiring to be aristocracy... In my experience it's much rarer for people to mix socially across social classes than across racial boundaries.

I have working class grandparents on one side, mc on the other, for me wc is an accent (regional) and an outlook (don't get above yourself, don't take yourself too seriously) also a particular cultural outlook... and I agree with a pp that there are many substrata. I can see why the British class system is unfathomable to foreigners

Morris My family are from a working class background, so I identify myself as such.

My parents earned a good wage when I was growing up, I had a lot of luxuries that I know a lot of my extended family probably didn't have.

I'm in a minimum paid job now, through choice (mainly a confidence thing) but that's a whole other thread!

I forgot one.

The don't even knows R4 exists, never mind listening to it...

I think they stopped being poor though brasty and started looking down on people who went to the Costas, and to the pub and spent money on clothes though. MILs parents were poor but they enjoyed themselves. MIL looks down on people like her hairdresser. My mum has lunch with hers. .

Not RTFT cos it might influence me, but I am def working class cos:
I know how to make dripping, and do, even though I am (yikes, it's a bit middle class!) veggie
I understand the offside rule but know nothing about cricket or rugby.
"Have clean nets or have no nets". I have no nets.
Friends can walk straight in through the back door, no notice needed
Brown sauce. Marmite
Union - and would never cross a picket line.
Know all my neighbours and choose which ones I'll take parcels in for.
Use and pass on hand-me-downs
I don't think it odd that I'd have to clean off inches of fat from cookers etc when moving into a new house.
Ditto feet sticking to carpets, drawers full of toenails, snot stuck to walls etc. It's life, innit? It's why I have arms to clean.
Full grant for Uni. Oh, forgot.... no magic money tree like there used to be.
Reasons why I'm NOT working class (or is it scutter class?):
Dental insurance not Sky TV
Would eat my own arm before going to 'Maccy Ds' or KFC
No brand labels
No fillers, botox, tanning or mad brows.

OMG, now reading the thread. All the 'never heard of R4' - what did your mum listen to when doing Sunday dinner if not The Archers Omnibus? Still listen now.

Is saving up for things WC?

NC4now - I was wondering that too - I tend to save up for stuff, the only thing I have that I don't own outright is the house.

I was always brought up with the idea that should the shit ever hit the fan you have stuff to sell (rather than stuff being on HP).

Yer a long time deed as we say in wc Scotland.

(Also Scottish) my granny & grandad used to say "there's no pockets in a shroud".

Save up for actual stuff that you want/need, but there's no point saving just for death when you could use it for life instead.

In Liverpool we say 'you can't take it with you' which is exactly the same sentiment.

christmas my mum listened to Queen and T Rex on vinyl whilst cooking Sunday dinner. She now listens to R2. None of us have ever listened to the Archers.

We listened to the Archers in the car hiding from the rain on camping holidays. Also, the shipping forecast. I find it really soothing.

Is botox working class? Main reason I have it is because it means I look better without make up (and I'm lazy).