What does middle class mean to you?

My daughter once asked me what class my parents were. I replied 'working class', changed it to 'unemployed class' and then changed that to 'unemployable class'. I also remember remarking to my ex that 'both my parents had married beneath themselves'. I often wonder where I'd be now if I hadn't passed the 11+ and, much as I believe in all children having an equal education I'm terribly grateful that my grammar school education helped me to escape from my background [which was real back to back slum property with outside loo etc].

I think gnomes are now ironic so they are probaly middle/upper middle with a hint of post modern interlectual/lower but made good

Perhaps it's a an old gnomes home?

We have a gnome, if that helps. He was given to us by the people next door when they moved as they couldn't bear to throw him away and, now, nor can we.

HELP!

The new neighbours are moving in next door and I've just seen a container full of coloured gnomes go up their drive.

Does anyone know if gnomes are middle-class?

I'm worried they will bring down the tone.

Thank you baubles Its a long time since that was on the box - same with the Rev I M Jolly whose video is on the same page, along with a lot of other gems. I shall bookmark it

Try some 'parliamo glesgae'

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0rgETg2Hoo

annodomini Scotland seems to have very diverse accents. Some are charming, some are, to a Southern lug, incomprehensible. Actually I quite liked the 'Morningside' style - 'Ai must awa' now to the benk...' - it could be quite amusing! I'm going to miss Karen Gillan from the Doctor Who cast, in part for her contralto speaking voice and her very pleasant accent (despite the odd glottal stop).

How dull it would be if we all spoke the same way!

Another scathing comment much loved by an old neighbour of ours was 'Fur coat and nae knickers'

Great Nan, I remember that wonderful put down comment too!

My mother's favourite was:

Huh, net curtains at the window and white bread and marge on the table.

Great post soop - like your style. .

Can't abide 'labels'. From a sociological point of view, it's useful, I suppose, as a form of shorthand to identify others/groups of others, but of course it's what lies beneath each individual, and who they are, not what they are or where they came from, that really matters.

nelliemoser Working class was also infinitely divided by those who belonged to it into subcategories of whether someone wanted to work, what job, how much skill or application needed, whether it was permanent employment or casual labour, whether wages were wasted on drink/horses or put by when possible, were they openly promiscuous or "respectable", was the house kept clean and the garden tidy or was it all a midden, were the children kept clean and polite and sent to school or roaming the streets unchecked.

I lived in council estates until I married and we put down a deposit on a tiny house. Most of the neighbours on the estates were lovely people, whatever their financial position or personal foibles, and only a few were antisocial.

My mother's favourite comment on her aspirational sister-in-law was 'I knew 'er when she 'ad nowt!.

It wasn't until I was an adult and reading an Enid Blyton story about The Famous Five to my gc that I realised that I had always seen myself as one of them, but of course I would really have been the cook's daughter! Like the racism in John Buchan, we simply accepted that that was the way things were. I loved Just William books, and was not at all put out by the Browns having a cook, maid and gardener. Now, there is nothing to stop anybody joining a library, if there is still one left, which has books, in their area, and gaining all the knowledge they need. It won't give them a posh accent or get them a professional career, but it will give them a lot of enjoyment. I got most of my knowedge of history, geography, politics, literature and poetry from reading, not at school.
Fortunately, most of my gc are readers although they tend to read fantasy novels, such as Discworld by Terry Pratchett. I have given up trying to get some of them to read my own favourites - Austen,Eliot, Hardy and Trollope. They say the archaic words put them off. Perhaps they will come round when they are much older.

For me I think I still see Middle Class as "old money." (Anyone else now living at those standards are Nouveau Riche.)
Its Country cottages, old inherited furniture and family heirlooms. Private boarding schools. (Perhaps I studied E M Forster's Howards End for too long at A level!)

Education has changed a lot of things.

My father was born out of wedlock in 1915 to an 18yr old from Liverpool. Her father was chief cashier in a shipping company and had enough money to have one live in maid in 1911. My PGF had worked his way up from being an office boy and his father was a carpenter. There was no really old money there.

My dad was raised by foster parents, a factory warehousman and wife who did domestic work. He was a grammar school scholarship boy who eventually through "night school" studied to qualify as a mechanical engineer and just post war, trained as a teacher.

Now, a teacher might be regarded by profession as being middle class, but despite that career path, my father never acheived what I would regard as middle class values or lifestyle. So I am puzzled about how his social position would be described.

I don't think if one is trying to define a person into these demographic boxes you can do it without such terms as lower, middle and upper middleclass.

I have never understood why the very posh schools are called "public" schools rather than just "private". Suppose there must be an historic reason.

Gacesmum I was once told that in my case ' A kent her faither' was a recommendation rather than a put down - a lovely tribute to my much loved Father. Anno - it was my Father's Scottish accent - un*class*ifiable to an English ear, combined with the fact he attended a 'Public' (rather than a 'Private') school which led to him being deemed 'Officer material' during his wartime interview with the Royal Marines. Conversely, it was his working class credentials as a qualified electrical engineer that led to him being conscripted to essential (secret) war work and thereafter a blue collar worker for the rest of his life.

aaaaaah Mallory Towers now that was a favourite read of mine in junior school, along with all her other books, it certainly made me want to go to boarding school, all those midnight feasts! I think I went straight from Enid Blyton to Agatha Christie who also wrote about a similar class of person. Both these writers were of their time, and I remember when my children were young Enid Blyton was somewhat frowned upon. I think J K Rowling's Hogwarts may have also evoked a desire to board for many of the present younger generation.

My Nana worked as a housemaid, became pregnant, was sacked and turned out of the family home. She raised my mother on next to nothing [no hand-outs in "those days"]. My father's parents died before he was five. He was raised, in poverty, by sisters, left school at 14, and worked in a factory until he joined the army and rose to the rank of Sgt Major. We lived in a council house which my parents kept spic and span. My Nana died at the age of 84. She worked as a domestic help until she went into hospital and died. In the meantime, my parents moved into a lovely home [my father having worked his way up the ladder of a well known company manufacturing chemicals.] Throughout my life I've been employed in the Civil Service; as a proof reader in the advertising dept of an American company; as a Nanny/housekeeper; manageress of a boutique; and general dog's body in a hotel. I've cleaned the lavatories/library/swimming pool in a private hospital, to which people with drink/drug problems paid a fortune for treatment. I've worked in a nightclub, as a cashier on the gambling tables. I've also worked alongside an ex boyfriend assisting him with "odd jobs" - small house removals, garden maintenance and the likes. Now I'm retired. I paint portraits [not expertly] and I still help a friend with ironing/polishing silver/dog sitting. SO, to which "class" do I belong...to be honest, I don't give a damn!

hard to say about classes nowadays. Moral standards in my opinion are the important things and how you life your life and treat others.

I do know that who you mix with tends to affect your attitude and even vocabulary.

I personally cannot bear people who use four letter words as everday talk, must admit I do when in temper, strange that I can never ever remember my mother swearing like that even if in temper.

Sad that standards have declined in that extent.
Always going to be people better off and worse off that yourself, just enjoy who you are!!

I like that one, Gracesmum. Seem to have heard it somewhere... I find that a Scottish accent, is far from a disadvantage south of the Border. Not the 'Morningside' accent adopted by Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie, nor Rab C Nesbitt's Govan accent. Mine is Scottish but not definably regional... I think.

My great aunt, a mill girl from Lancashire, met and fell in love with the son of a solicitor in 1913/14. After he was called up she found herself pregnant. He promised to marry her and told his family but was then killed. His family agreed to care for the baby if she had nothing more to do with it. She was sent away by her family, in great shame, to have the baby which was then collected by it's 'other' grandparents. Despite being one of 9 children, only one of her sisters knew about her fall from grace.

My great aunt suffered from Alzheimer's disease and, at the very end, she wandered around either looking for a baby or nursing an imaginary one.

Nothing to do with class, really, but the previous post reminded me and I posted with tears in my eyes. I didn't like that Aunt a lot as she was loving one minute and nasty the next and argued a lot with my Nan who I did really love.

Another Scottish saying I remember well is "Ah kent (knew) his faither" which cut anybody who fancied themselves down to size especially the sort who re-invented themselves as "posh". With the surname Thomson, we truly were "A' Jock Tamson's bairns" except my grandpa was Guthrie, not Jock!

Thanks greatnan.

I agree it's not just where you got to but your starting point that counts.

That's a sad story. Marelli. We've thankfully come a long way from the days when 'unscheduled' babies were adopted and then swept under the carpet.