It is hard tiggy, I was that person 20 years ago and still am really.
I had to take a lot of flak from my peers for being bookish and wanting to do well in school. I was in top sets but none of my friends were and I did not feel comfortable with those children who were.
My family were not scathing of intelligence, they were proud of me but did not know what to do with me. There was no quiet place to study, no money for books, no day trips as we worked 7 days a week. I often had to take time off from school as I had to work to put money on the table, some teachers wrote me off as someone who skived school and was lazy.
When I applied to university although my parentswere proud it would have been much easier if I could have just gone out to work. My family didn't need a clever kid they needed someone who would earn money. Money was so short we did not have the advantage of thinking long term. To this day there is a conflict when I go home. My parents saw university as a path to riches, I would meet a rich man who would look after me and possibly study law and become rich myself. I wanted to go to university because I loved learning so I chose an arts subject. My mum was horrified, she was then equally horrified when I became a teacher. And then when I dumped a doctor to settle down with someone from a similar background to my self, well that almost killed her!
However I never really fitted in with the clever kids. I was supposed to go to Oxford, passed the interview and exam with flying colours but I could not handle being that far out of my comfort zone so turned down the place. Perhaps if I had role models, adults from my kind of background who had managed to succeed academically and "play the game" I would have taken that place. That is why I became a teacher and am very open about my background.
In most schools thatI have taught in there has been a huge divide between the outwardly "middle class" kids whose parents have professional backgrounds and those kids like me who come from the estates and would probably be labelled as "chavs" The outwardly working class kids spend their leisure time with their "chav" friends and then lesson time with the kids in the top sets who are from the more "middle class" backgrounds. They often hear people in the top set talking about their friends with contempt and derision, it must be very difficult.
I can remember sitting in my Oxbridge preparation classes being told that I was the Crème de la Crème of the school, that I was different from everyone else who was distinctly average. Everyone else in the room seemed to love it, I felt awkward and like a traitor to me friends.