ProbarGOLD- Free

What my privileged start in life taught me about the British class system

The Guardian Weekly|May 26, 2023
It wasn't just luck that propelled the Guardian columnist into a media career. She reflects on the subtle workings of class (and a meeting with a naked future PM)
- Polly Toynbee
What my privileged start in life taught me about the British class system

CHILDREN KNOW. They breathe it in early, for there's no unknowing the difference between nannies, cleaners, below-stairs people and the family upstairs. Children are the go-betweens, one foot in each world, and yet they know very well from the earliest age where they C belong, where their destiny lies or, to put it crudely, who pays whom. Tiny hands are steeped young in the essence of class and caste. In nursery school, in reception they see the Harry Potter sorting hat at work. They know. And all through school those fine gradations grow clearer, more precise, more consciously knowing, more shaming, more frightening. Good liberal parents teach their children to check their privilege - useful modern phrase but it swells up like a bubo on the nose. There's no hiding it.

I can summon up the childhood shame at class embarrassments. Aged seven like me, Maureen, with her hair pinned sideways in a pink slide, lived in a pebble-dashed council house by the water tower. They were at the other end of Lindsey, more hamlet than village, 800 metres down the road from my father's pink thatched cottage set in the flat prairie lands of Suffolk, where I spent half my time, the other half in London, shuttling between divorced parents. I envied Maureen for what looked to me like a cheerful large family tumbling noisily in and out of their ever-open front door. They never asked me in, so I would hang about the door waiting for Maureen to come out and play.

Maureen and I played fairies in the cornfields, crept about scaring each other in St Peter's churchyard next door, drew hopscotch squares on the road and threw five stones on and off our knuckles. One day we had a cart, an old orange box set on pram wheels. We took it in turns pulling along the rope harness and riding in the box, up and down the flat road outside her house, shouting "Giddy-up" and waving a stick as a mock whip.

Esta historia es de la edición May 26, 2023 de The Guardian Weekly.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,500 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición May 26, 2023 de The Guardian Weekly.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,500 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE THE GUARDIAN WEEKLYVer todo
The Guardian Weekly

Alison's world The graphic novelist faces up to midlife in this playfully fictionalised memoir

Alison Bechdel emerged in the 1980s with Dykes to Watch Out For, a groundbreaking weekly strip that featured a group of mostly lesbian friends. Since then, her acclaimed graphic novels have focused mainly on herself and her family.

time-read
3 minutos  |
June 06, 2025
The Guardian Weekly

I need to drop everything and get on with doing nothing, quickly

I am sitting in my office shed, marvelling that an email from a car hire company I last used six years ago feels entitled to employ the subject line DROP EVERYTHING.

time-read
2 minutos  |
June 06, 2025
Fire starter Springsteen's anti-Trump broadside divides fans
The Guardian Weekly

Fire starter Springsteen's anti-Trump broadside divides fans

As the lead singer of a Bruce Springsteen cover band, Brad Hobicorn had been looking forward to performing at Riv's Toms River Hub in New Jersey last Friday.

time-read
3 minutos  |
June 06, 2025
The Guardian Weekly

A new Syria: sanctions relief gives the shattered country a chance to rebuild

The startled joy that greeted Bashar al-Assad's fall six months ago was shadowed by the fear of what might follow.

time-read
2 minutos  |
June 06, 2025
The Guardian Weekly

I wanted us to finish our journey on a high'

Saint Etienne are calling it a day after 35 years. They discuss their final album, turning down Cher's Believe and a career defined by friendship and invention

time-read
3 minutos  |
June 06, 2025
The museum of absolutely everything
The Guardian Weekly

The museum of absolutely everything

Poison darts, a dome from Spain, priceless spoons and Frank Lloyd Wright furniture... our architecture critic is wowed by the V&A's new east London outpost for 250,000 of its mind-boggling artefacts

time-read
5 minutos  |
June 06, 2025
Over a barrel Shortage of sugar shakes Cuba's rum industry
The Guardian Weekly

Over a barrel Shortage of sugar shakes Cuba's rum industry

It is a crisis that would have sent a shiver down Ernest Hemingway’s drinking arm. Cuba’s communist government is struggling to process enough sugar to make the rum for his beloved mojitos and daiquiris.

time-read
3 minutos  |
June 06, 2025
Whiz up or wing it? Dips worth doing yourself and the ones to buy
The Guardian Weekly

Whiz up or wing it? Dips worth doing yourself and the ones to buy

Is it always better to make your own dips, or can I just buy them?

time-read
2 minutos  |
June 06, 2025
How a tiny village was engulfed by a mountain
The Guardian Weekly

How a tiny village was engulfed by a mountain

It took a couple of minutes for 9m tonnes of rock to obliterate Blatten-but as glaciers melt, such disasters are more likely

time-read
4 minutos  |
June 06, 2025
The Guardian Weekly

Time warp Romance is beautifully drawn in a tale of two couples whose lives overlap, a century apart

Time is layered in Northern Irish writer David Park's latest novel.

time-read
2 minutos  |
June 06, 2025

Usamos cookies para proporcionar y mejorar nuestros servicios. Al usan nuestro sitio aceptas el uso de cookies. Learn more