Clinging On...the middle class declines on Tuesday 3rd Feb

[ardcarp]

I get a pain in the back of my neck.

Anywhere else?

[Anna]

Bingo! I felt that was the sole important point - which makes no allowance for people being retired and on (relatively) low incomes - but also having lower outgoings (mortgages, children to support &c).

Exactly - or people who are content to earn enough for their needs and live simple lives! If I tweak my finances/property value, and whether I use facebook, I can be a social climber and end up as a Technical Elite! David Beckham is enormously rich - but isn't he still working class?

Anyway, it's a quiz not to be taken seriously and, to quote Margaret Thatcher: "Class is a Communist concept. It groups people as bundles, and sets them against one another."

[ardcarp]

There was a very well put-together talk by Byron Criddle [?] on Broadcasting House, R4, this morning....approx 32 minutes from the strart. It was about Welsh mining communities, but touched on educational and social aspiration.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050y8v6#auto

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Anywhere else?

Young maaaan!

[Beef Oven!]

Exactly - or people who are content to earn enough for their needs and live simple lives! If I tweak my finances/property value, and whether I use facebook, I can be a social climber and end up as a Technical Elite! David Beckham is enormously rich - but isn't he still working class?

Anyway, it's a quiz not to be taken seriously and, to quote Margaret Thatcher: "Class is a Communist concept. It groups people as bundles, and sets them against one another."

Regarding David Beckham, this begs the question of where super-rich sports stars fit into the usual class definitions. Using soccer stars as an example European, African, Muslim or a combination of all three, are a diverse group and essentially of working class origin.

And then there's the basketball stars of the USA - mainly working class in origin and mainly Afro-American.

Do soccer players/basketball stars peer groups change? Do they become more educated? Do they listen to opera?

They all have considerable control over their employment, particularly when they finish their playing days.

But somehow, it's not difficult to view David Beckham as a working class bloke.

[french frank]

There was a very well put-together talk by Byron Criddle [?]

I knew him (slightly)! At Aberdeen.

[french frank]

Do soccer players/basketball stars peer groups change? Do they become more educated? Do they listen to opera?

They all have considerable control over their employment, particularly when they finish their playing days.

But somehow, it's not difficult to view David Beckham as a working class bloke.

Comes back to my point about culture. There are so many ways young people (i.e. mainly young men) can earn fortunes before they are in middle age - sport, popular music, internet/software based businesses. Some academic disciplines (notably maths) have young 'prodigies' - but they don't usually make much money ...

[Anna]

There was a very well put-together talk by Byron Criddle [?] on Broadcasting House, R4, this morning....approx 32 minutes from the strart. It was about Welsh mining communities, but touched on educational and social aspiration.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050y8v6#auto

Just listened to that (presume it was aimed at me because of family's past as coal miners?) Apart from Chapel assisting in education there were the Working Men's Institutes, we have one here - no longer used for that purpose - founded by the local gentry in late 1880s to provide a library and help with reading for the working class. A song which was sung at each general meeting was:- "Hurrah for the men who work!"

According to our local historians some of the lectures may have been hard going with a programme of 1892/3, a selection being: Drink Work & Wages, The Queens English, The Family Circle, The Solar System, French Salons, Fossils, Egypt, The War of The Roses and Cathedrals In Britain. (sorry, very off topic)

[Beef Oven!]

Comes back to my point about culture. There are so many ways young people (i.e. mainly young men) can earn fortunes before they are in middle age - sport, popular music, internet/software based businesses. Some academic disciplines (notably maths) have young 'prodigies' - but they don't usually make much money ...

Indeed, the point about culture returns. However, being 'uncultured' (not that you say that) can't render these superstars working class when they have such control over their work/employment, appoint agents, personal secretaries, personal coaches, legal teams, marketing teams, etc.

I think that your reference to gender is instructive in understanding this subject properly.

[french frank]

Just listened to that (presume it was aimed at me because of family's past as coal miners?) Apart from Chapel assisting in education there were the Working Men's Institutes, we have one here - no longer used for that purpose - founded by the local gentry in late 1880s to provide a library and help with reading for the working class. A song which was sung at each general meeting was:- "Hurrah for the men who work!"

According to our local historians some of the lectures may have been hard going with a programme of 1892/3, a selection being: Drink Work & Wages, The Queens English, The Family Circle, The Solar System, French Salons, Fossils, Egypt, The War of The Roses and Cathedrals In Britain. (sorry, very off topic)

And at the beginning of the Victorian era, there was the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge which was aimed particularly at the working classes. In fact, since the radicalism of the late 18th c. was not that long past, it was also 'improving' the working man's mind and deflecting it from more dangerous pursuits.

I have, in the same vein, a 2-vol work from the Library of Entertaining [sic!] Knowledge entitled The Hindoos, published in 1834 [Chapter I: General Description of India] ...

There is a list of the committee members, headed by The Right Hon.The Lord Chancellor.

[ardcarp]

Just listened to that (presume it was aimed at me because of family's past as coal miners?) Apart from Chapel assisting in education there were the Working Men's Institutes, we have one here - no longer used for that purpose - founded by the local gentry in late 1880s to provide a library and help with reading for the working class. A song which was sung at each general meeting was:- "Hurrah for the men who work!"

According to our local historians some of the lectures may have been hard going with a programme of 1892/3, a selection being: Drink Work & Wages, The Queens English, The Family Circle, The Solar System, French Salons, Fossils, Egypt, The War of The Roses and Cathedrals In Britain. (sorry, very off topic)

Not off-topic at all. The WEA (Workers' Educational Association) is a thriving nationwide organisation today, and when you think about it quite remarkable in still having the unashamed word 'Workers' in its title.

http://www.wea.org.uk/about

[jean]

I wouldn't say the WEA was 'thriving' at all - and sadly it has not had a worker anywhere near it for many years.

[ardcarp]

Tell us more......

[jean]

I used to do an Italian class but they messed it around so much - changing venues, not advertising it properly, mistreating its staff - that eventually we decided to get our own room and go it alone.

They seem to have very few courses locally now.