I come from a working class background, small village in the North West (as a kid, we didn't even have a flushing toilet for several years and used a bucket instead, money was very tight). But my parents (my mother especially) encouraged me to read. A lot. My mother (and her mother too) was incredibly bright but too poor to stay on education and had to get a job as soon as she was old enough. My father (a manual worker) was never encouraged by his parents to do anything and is still quite bitter even now. They wanted me to have the opportunities they never had. And I think that's how it started.
My school was rough - we made regional headlines at one point for the fighting at lunchtimes with another school "terrifying local residents". My A level college was mainly known for it's work with prisoners in the local prison. I was the first in the family to go to university (I worked 4 part time jobs to fund myself). Most of my family thought I was "up myself" and I still remember one aunt asking my mother why she was encouraging me to do A levels. As a girl, my only aspiration should have been to get married and have kids. Clearly I had ideas far above my station!
I went to university as far away from home as I could get - not because I'd had a bad childhood but because I wanted to spread my wings. After university, I got a place on a grad scheme with one of the (now) Big Four in London. And that really opened my eyes. I remember sitting in the office and this (awful) posh woman a year ahead of me asking about my background and saying "what on earth is someone like you from a Northern comprehensive doing in a place like this?" Seriously. 
And I just thought that with all the benefits of her expensive private education yet to be in the same job as me, I wasn't the stupid one. 
It was the first time I'd come across people working in the City. Previously it was just something you saw on the news. And I wanted a piece of it. It took me a couple of years but I got there. I worked hard. I took risks. I made a lot of sacrifices. Now I earn 6 figures in banking, have travelled the world and am well respected. For years most of my family thought working in a bank meant me sitting behind a counter while someone paid cheques in to me. Now they know enough to understand that they have no idea what I actually do at work. Except it seems to involved a lot of stress, long hours and at times fancy travel/living overseas.
My life is polar opposite to my childhood friends. My best friend has never lived more than 3 miles away from her parents. From my secondary school year of approx 200 pupils, there a handful of us (less than 10) who moved more than 50 miles and/or did anything particularly "bold". As adults we stay in touch and support each other - because we know we don't fit in "at home", we're the "outliers", the deviants who thought there was more out there than the small provincial town we went to school in.
I was lucky, if you can call it that. My parents pushed me hard (probably too hard - it's taken a lot of expensive therapy to deal with how it impacted me) but I was bright and I do well under pressure. It could have easily been a different story. Without that pressure, I'd probably be on my 4th divorce by now and be as miserable as hell. Life in a small Northern town was never going to enough for me. I don't know why. Sometimes I wish I could have just been satisfied with what I had rather than always wanting more. But then where's the fun in that?
Note to PP: I was also brought up to "speak properly" (i.e. not have a really broad accent) and clean my shoes. You wouldn't catch me dead in unpolished shoes - and yes, I am judging other people for dirty shoes. 