How the other half lives, what and when you learned

[tomorrowalready]

Reflecting from another thread made me realise it was not until my 20s I found out some people expected to have a private bathroom. I went to university then and shared with another mature student who had been married, divorced and said she found having to share a bathroom with unrelated people unpleasant. I had always taken it for granted as had live in jobs and rented bedsits before. She was a lovely person and also the first person I knew who had a glass of wine every evening and she introduced me to many new things - cooking with garlic, sherry, owning and using a car for shopping for example.

So what did you take for granted that surprised other people you met?

In fact it was @PromisingMiddleagedWoman who raised ski trips

Going to university in the late 1980s, I was extremely lucky to be one of the latter few cohorts of students who still had all their fees paid for them by the govt, and who got a grant. My grant was relatively small as I lived at home and only covered my train fare, to be honest. I had weekend and holiday jobs as well to cover anything else. My parents tried to suggest I should pay rent out of my grant, but as I had no living expenses included IN said grant (because I was at home) then this made no sense, plus I needed it for said train fare.

We weren't poor by most standards, but not that well off either - but because of that grant system, and the full fees being govt paid, many more people on very low incomes were able to access university, or consider it, more easily. It became harder, or more challenging as a concept, as the grants were changed to loans, and fees started to be charged to the students themselves. My era, we lost housing benefit, which was a bit of a blow for London students, as rental even then was more expensive in London than anywhere else. Prior to us, though, housing benefit would have ensured that students had some means of paying for their accommodation as well, even if they were from extremely deprived backgrounds.
The grants were means tested on the basis of what your parents earned, too - if your parents were well off, they were expected to top up your grant, but if they weren't, then you received a full grant.

Halcyon days in comparison!

My "surprise" was finding out that some flats were 2 storey! I did not know such things existed, I just assumed they were all single storey.

Thank you @ravenmum! I thought this was a well-known use of the word 'good'!

@Yrevocsid

I disagree, I grew up in a deprived area and have found that lots of people think it's perfectly fine to take the piss out of my background.

Until I went to university I didn’t know:
That people weren’t working class
That people just bought lunch out all the time without thinking
That other kids went abroad a lot
It was a complete eye-opener

@cakeseeker

I can totally relate to this. The worst part was one of the interviewers seemed genuinely shocked that I could write well and said 'oh you're from [deprived area], I imagined everyone there was still dragging their knuckles along the ground'. It completely threw me. I was relieved I didn't get in.

@Gwenhwyfar

"But you know people keep them now for the gardener don't you know. "

So they're happy with the gardener coming in to wash his hands in their kitchen sink?

Nah, he or she can plunge their hands into the fountain or sprinklers if they are a bit declasse.

I won't mention the bathroom cleaning practices I saw when working in 5 star hotels in London.

@StCharlotte

So I just got everything I needed from Woolies and the slotted spoon only broke 2 weeks ago.

I still have a colander I bought at Woolies when I left home... 37 years ago.

My ironing board was a wedding present, 53 years ago, gone through a few covers though and my cafetiere was bought in 1974 in Gibraltar, again it's gone through a few glass jugs.

I never really knew there were rich people growing up, I knew we were poor but I assumed everyone was poor and I never knew why my mum was so angry at my dads side of the family .

My mum and dad divorced when I was little and when my dad died when I was nine. We went to the funeral in America (the flights alone meant food was limited for months) and the scattering of the ashes was on a 5 story yacht (which was one of 10 that my father and now grandparents owned) and the house well it was like a palace.

Turns out dad and their family had lots of money and didn't ever pay child maintenance due to hiring a shark of a lawyer I. The divorce. And we used to have conversation about cutting holes in my school shoes to make them last longer. As a child I didn't make the connection to that at the anger.

I also didn't realise that our food portions were Uber small until a pal came over and she said that the starter was lovely and what was for the main course. We had just had the main course. I was baffled
She then said she now knew why I was so skinny (I wasn't under weight by any means) but v slim. My poor mums face. She tried so very hard.

Oh I also remember being delighted for getting a ping pong ball for Christmas. I knew we were poor but I never knew just how below the poverty line were were.

Even now I'm so unsettled that my DSC demands pudding after dinner each night and gets on a strop of she doesn't want whatever's offered so that DH tends to run out and get whatever she wants. (I realise this is my issue not hers). It's just the shock anyone would be able to chose to not eat food on the table and order like a restaurant from their parent and then just be able to go get it like it's nothing. Like that's a thing ?!? (I know it's a thing now) Jesus we were so very poor.

And I was considered posh in my friendship circle because of my voice. If only they had known and I suppose as a child I didn't challenge it.

Yorkshire pudding as a starter is all ingrained in its history. It was designed to fill you up so that you wouldn’t be sad that there was so little meat in the main course (poverty!)

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcon

Possibly outing, but I didn't realise until my mid-20s that most people have Yorkshire pudding as a side with their Sunday Roasts rather than served on its own as a starter as it was in my house!
^^^
We did both - not at the same time.
But if it was a starter we did get a pudding (boo).

I went to public school on Assisted Places. We weren't poor or rich.

I couldn't believe when I met people whose parents earned massive wages and only had to work like once a fortnight to justify it. I assumed that unless you were aristocracy, you worked 5 days a week and at least 12 hours a day.

I couldn't believe when I saw people's clothes had labels like Armani. I thought that they were only for film stars and magazines rather than sold in real shops. On the other hand I remember somebody who was a friend but not at school being amazed that my coat was from Next because they saw Next as posh.

I was also shocked to learn that there's two types of rich - old money and nouveau riche and having someone explain how to spot the differences. I had no clue.

I remember going to infant school (state) and being confused by the toilet paper being like tracing paper.

I'm also shocked how many adults get handouts from their parents. I don't mean inheritances but house deposits, holidays, cars... I'm not referring to young adults either I mean people who are like 30+.

I remember being surprised to realise other people had different types of drinking vessels for different liquids!

I grew up drinking EVERYTHING from water, to milk, to soup, from a mug.

When I was first given a GLASS of squash at a friends house as a child, I was shocked!

In MY house, the glasses ONLY came out at Christmas, or on the rare occasion that the grandparents visited.

Regularly drinking fruit juice was a revelation to me as well. Again, a carton of orange juice might, occasionally come out for Christmas, and was very much a "oooooh we're fancy as FUCK!" thing.

What a fascinating thread!

“I am just skeptical that anyone in true poverty managed to attend university.”

University is the only time in my life that I have lived anywhere with central heating plus hot water whenever you want it.

I had a full grant and had never had that amount of money. I paid my bills and had £7.50 a week left to live on. I had £200 left at the end of the first year.

My house mate came from a similar background and had had to work all hours around doing her A levels as her parents charged her so much rent. We were probably unusual students in that we grew stuff in the garden and brewed our own alcohol. We literally never went out as we couldn’t have afforded bus tickets.

My second degree was funded by my employer.

My first job after university was reasonably well paid, but even so all I could afford was a rather grotty bedsit in Maida Vale in a rather grim area of London. I worked with several women of my age. One invited me round for a drink at her place — which turned out to be a very nice mansion flat in Chelsea. I asked her who she shared with (there were three bedrooms) and she said she didn't share. I asked how much the rent was (what an oik I was!) and she said she owned it. Turned out it was a 21st birthday gift from her grandmother.

She was a nice woman and it wasn't the first time I'd been around seriously wealthy people but it really underlined the gulf that can lie between two people sitting at adjacent desks. Every penny of my earnings went on paying bills. Her earnings were pocket money.

I’m ashamed to say that im pretty sure throughout my whole childhood I didn’t realise that there were people starving in this county and struggling to make ends meet/not having money to buy food etc. I just thought we are in the UK everyone is rich, and associated poverty with countries like Ethiopia etc. Realise now how privileged I was, and am now 😞

My mum and Marie's mum who both had toddlers would alternate who walked us the two and a half mile walk to infant school and back.
One afternoon, Marie's mum - an abandoned wife with little financial support - gave a Ritz cracker to each of her children with nothing for me. I clearly looked glum as she explained that she was sorry, but the (presumably donated) box was all the food that they had.
It's more than fifty years ago, but I still find the memory harrowing.

At the other end of the scale, a recent mum arrived back in the office looking slim, glamorous and very well-rested. Another harassed mother asked about the night feeds - looking a little baffled, the returnee explained that like all her friends, that was dealt with by a hired wet-nurse.

I had no clue that you could hire a wet nurse in the UK in 2021.

I am just skeptical that anyone in true poverty managed to attend university.

Which just goes to show how we’ve gone backwards as a society. I went in the early 80s. Fees paid, a full grant and we could claim unemployment and housing benefit in vacations. A university education was the greatest step in social mobility you could take. It’s absolutely scandalous that anyone is able to make a comment like that.

Wet nurse or night nurse? Very different things and the former would be very unusual!

"I grew up drinking EVERYTHING from water, to milk, to soup, from a mug."

Me too! We did have glasses, but like you, never used them.

@Blossomtoes

I am just skeptical that anyone in true poverty managed to attend university.

Which just goes to show how we’ve gone backwards as a society. I went in the early 80s. Fees paid, a full grant and we could claim unemployment and housing benefit in vacations. A university education was the greatest step in social mobility you could take. It’s absolutely scandalous that anyone is able to make a comment like that.

Yes, this exactly —and this is why many of us look at what's happened to this country in the name of progress and despair. Because it used to be possible for a poor, bright kid to go to Oxbridge for free and have enough money from their grant and benefits to study really hard and have some money to spend on developing social and cultural capital.

Reading with interest. I had a bit of a bi-polar upbringing, parents from very poor backgrounds who had made good through their business and sent all 5 of us (big age range) to private school. I was frequently non pluses by the way people at school and later University lived and ate.

The references to not knowing about cooking with garlic/pasta/wine in the 1970s, ring true with me. It has reminded me of the BBC comedy series the Kennedy's (memoir of Emma Kennedy's childhood) which covered this exact topic. In the episode the Mum decides to hold a dinner party and stun the neighbours by cooking a lasagne as seen in her Women's magazine . No-one knows what this exotic dish is, so it has to be described to everyone as 'pasta but not in a tin'. Then the quest to buy lasagne sheets begins...

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/oct/02/the-kennedys-review-70s-set-sitcom-stuffed-with-non-sequiturs

@VaguelyInteresting, I know you're not looking for it but I just want to say how much respect and admiration I have for you living through what you have and achieving so much. Also for the love and support you have given to your mother. Honestly it is such a disgrace to this country that in the 21st century families should be made to suffer as yours did due to illness and broken relationships.

Wouldn't it be great if some of the interviewers and pontificators others have quoted throwing out their 'clever' insulting questions and comments about accents and backgrounds could just hear themselves all night long. Surely they'd never sleep again.

I have gone on about being poor but comparitively we had so much and I was lucky to have been born when I was. I honestly think I could not cope with life as a young person today. I have tried to be light hearted (not recognised by some) but now I am crying thinking of so many children suffering so much in such a rich country. And the worst thing is it is entirely unnecessary.