Not having a university education- watching the show "Lewis"- is it almost that bad in the UK?

[Evangeli]

I'm watching and really enjoying the TV show "Lewis"- I used to love Morse, and I'm a sucker for that kind of British murder mystery.

I used to live in the UK but haven't done so for at least twenty years. I live in Canada.

What really strikes me is that almost every 5 minutes there's some reference to Lewis's lack of university education. Just now:
The doctor says: "It's "Merchant of Venice"
Lewis (looking really confused and clearly making an effort): "That's the one about the pound of flesh, right"
Doctor smiles and rolls eyes "Yes Lewis".

And this is constant with his educated sergeant.

I get the show is set in Oxford and the running set-up is they're surrounded by academic types, and also it's a tv show and not real life. But still. This kind of thing would be really bad manners irl! and it is constant throughout each episode. I remember the difference in education and class between Morse and Lewis from the originals, but looking back, I feel it wasn't so blatant- I mean it was clearly there, but wasn't being openly referenced every five minutes.

I guess my question is: if you don't have a university degree in the UK, are going to be reminded of it continuously by your colleagues? Or are the writers completely fictionalizing?

I know this is anecdotal but honestly anybody with any real world experience says similar…

@lomoloko what field are you in if you don’t mind me asking? It’s not tech is it

@lomoloko Thanks for sharing :)

@madisonbridges " I was just trying to say that just as the murder rates aren't real neither are the attitudes portrayed!"

i guess that is where we differ. The plots aren't real- but I think the attitudes are based on reality- otherwise we simply wouldn't relate to them to the extent we do.

One of the 'selling points" of Downton Abbey is the author comes from that aristocratic background himself and portrays them very convincingly- in fact he says about the evil head-woman-servant (can't remember her proper position) that she was based on a real servant of his mom or something. Obviously she didn't cause an abortion with a bar of soap (or did she??) but those interactions have to "feel real" to us, the audience, otherwise we simply wouldn't get drawn in.

@Evangeli. I guess you're right then and everyone is constantly reminded when they don't have a degree. It's just that I worked in education with no degree for years and no one ever questioned, mocked or talked down to me. I was a bloody fab teacher. So I'd thought I'd know a bit more about it than you do but obviously not. 🙂

@madisonbridges It seems to be sector-dependent. As different people's experiences are showing. In fact it was explicitly mentioned upthread that teaching is one of the professions where until more recently a degree was NOT required or expected, and therefore it is entirely understandable that you would NOT have been subject to mockery etc for not having a degree.

I have a first class degree and a masters, I’m yet to ready Shakespeare or the usual classics, I hate ‘old’ books.

No one has a university degree where I work. I barely have GCSEs. Factory work.

My ex husband has no university degree and he earns £60k driving trains.

If anyone spoke down to me for not having a degree in any situation they'd be told to fuck off.

I work with all sorts of people, degrees PHDs, left school with barely any exams and never known anyone give a toss about qualifications. Very odd relating a drama to real life as well!

I worked in a field where very specific qualifications were required to do my job and everyone basically had the same, so it never really came up. What school I went to on the other hand was a talking point until I retired. I guess when qualifications can't be used as a proxy for class something else will be. It's not intellectual snobbery, just the old fashioned standard type.

@Evangeli. Then I don't see your point. If it's to be expected that no one would mock a teacher for not having a degree, then it's even less expected that a policeman would have one, so the mocking would be even less. No? So any mocking of a degreeless police detective would not be realistic, ergo Lewis is not realistic. Which is sort of exactly the opposite of your argument....The plots aren't real- but I think the attitudes are based on reality

This is Morse/Lewis/endeavour you can’t just be a murderer has to be based on a Greek book or play with each person being killed with same letter name and device as in some opera!

Also it’s not a reference to university education - more of class, and what’s called ‘cultural capital’.

Morse, did attend Oxford. I think the 'Oxford' element of the show is quite prominent but look at it this way, with his lack of uni credentials Lewis always gets his man which probably irks his academia peers.

I don't think it makes sense to ask people who have degrees this question.

@lomoloko

I don't think it makes sense to ask people who have degrees this question.

It doesn’t make sense to ask older people either - from a generation where most didn’t have degrees and worked their way up…? Of course depends on profession there were never doctors without degrees. Nursing and other allied health professions OTOH didn’t need then until fairly recently (10 years) correct me if I’m wrong

@minervas1

I think it's to show contrast to Morse and also to Hathaway, and also to show what Oxford is 'like'. I don't think it would be the same if Lewis was serving in another city, I think it's supposed to say something about the setting and the characters he is surrounded by. Lewis was always the straight man to the more esoteric characters in the show.

Agree with this, I think it's to keep a difference from Morse.

Morse never got his degree. The dons and his old uni colleagues were sneery about that. But that's very different from today. The books were written in the 1970s and the tv series started in the 1980s, long before it became common to go to university and yet there was still that attitude that Colin Dexter instigated in order to create an us and them scenario. Morse knew all about them because he'd been to Oxford uni, but he was different because he didn't get his degree. They just continue that same attitude in Lewis. It's not really about reflecting today's attitudes more about continuing the tone of the original. Hathaway is important because although he got his degree at Cambridge, he left his chosen career. So continues Morse's situation of understanding the university but still being apart from it.

I read a lot. I have read dozens of books that include bits set at Oxbridge. I went to Oxbridge.

I have read exactly one book with a bit set at Oxbridge that is anything like the place I remember. (And that was written by a friend of mine.) Everything else is about how I imagined it would be before I went. As a result I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who write scenes based in Oxbridge did not go.

(For the record - you spend 20 times more drinking cups of tea in each other’s rooms moaning about your essay / problem sheet than you do going to balls.)

It's fiction. The constant reference to education and class is part of the 'Oxford' based fiction of the programme.

In the same way you never seem to come across professors or academics in the programme with 'working class' accents, which is not the case in real life; well it certainly isn't the case outside Oxford. Perhaps in Oxford all academics actually do speak like 1950s BBC announcers.

One of the things that I found a bit off putting with Morse was John Thaws attempt at a 'posh' accent.

John Thaw the actor, spoke with the same sort of accent he had when he acted in 'The Sweeny'. Hearing him constantly trying to iron out his rough tones and speak in the more 'genteel' tones of the Morse character just didn't work for me.

None of it should be taken too seriously tbh.

It's definitely a highly fictionalised Oxford, as shown by the fictional names of the colleges (Lonsdale, etc.), and Colin Dexter (actually a Cambridge man) took as his basis for this the way it was in the 1970s when he started writing the 'Morse' books. Even though the last one came out in 1999, they still feel quite genteel and old-fashioned.

I agree that a lot of people write Oxbridge in a very stereotyped way and I've yet to see a modern novel which gets it absolutely right.

I always got the impression that Lewis played down his intelligence, almost as if he was mocking those who were impressed with themselves and their qualifications.

My ex husband had an MSc, MBA and a PhD and couldn't follow the plot of the Morse or Lewis, he had to have it explained to him everytime.

You mustn’t take Morse as typical!

It’s part of his character that he’s like this. IIRC the fictional Morse was a student at Oxford but dropped out (and always regretted it) so he is probably sensitive about being thought (by local academics/elites ) to be merely another ‘ordinary’ local (or thick plod) who’s not as intelligent as they are. So he has to make a bit of a show of how clever he is.

That’s how I see it, anyway.

Welp, it's good to know that the constant put-downs of Lewis's lack of university education are completely fictional and "the real Oxford" is nothing like that at all

I am enjoying the show and its murderous dons very much, as I say I just found this bit irritating and jarring- and I think the class difference was handled much better in the original Morse.

Op you need to watch Endeavour about Morse’s life when he first joins the police.You will see that he is arrogant and brusque and if anything he was’picked on’ by others for having been to Oxford.
It isn’t real life- although cousin is based at one of the colleges and says they are literally their own universe there

@Mumoftwoinprimary

I read a lot. I have read dozens of books that include bits set at Oxbridge. I went to Oxbridge.

I have read exactly one book with a bit set at Oxbridge that is anything like the place I remember. (And that was written by a friend of mine.) Everything else is about how I imagined it would be before I went. As a result I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who write scenes based in Oxbridge did not go.

(For the record - you spend 20 times more drinking cups of tea in each other’s rooms moaning about your essay / problem sheet than you do going to balls.)

On the other hand, Dorothy Sayers’ detective novel set in contemporary 1930s Oxford struck me as very, very familiar in the 1990s!