Working Class

What is 'Working Class' ? Just idle thoughts!. So many people say " Im just working class."My friend always says her parents were 'just working class people ',My parents were 'just working class people ' ,but her Father had a skilled ,well paid job,they owned their own home,my Father was a general handyman on a low wage ,our home was rented, are these two people the same? She and I are good friends, we both enjoy the same ,a comfortable home,peace and comfort to enjoy our retirement.I guess David Cameron /Tony Blair say " My parents were just working class people ,ha ha

Re: Working Class

Well me being upper class One really cannot really help one with this one Dylon.
Sorry.

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Read in todays paper that only 4.4% of Civil Service jobs go to working class applicants, how on Earth do they work that out?

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Pon my word Boozer , one could go far as to say you really take the biscuit.

Re: Working Class

Good one Boozer

My son-in-law started off as a tradesman, started his own business and now has more money than you could poke a stick at, but he would still say he's working class, and proud of it.

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I'm not sure if I'm right on this...
but I think it used to be that if the father's job was manual then you were deemed to be a working class family.
Upper class was when the work involved the brain and middle class a bit of both.
However these days the lines are very blurred. There is old money upper class, benefits families, women in higher ranked jobs, all sorts of things making us the classless society we are supposed to be. To me, class is not about the job or pay or heritage... It's about having the social graces without necessarily having had the material wealth.
My father could not go to Uni like his brothers because his mother died when he was 18. He was as academic as they were but accepted his fate without complaint and made a career for himself, eventually, in the petrochemical industry, as an Industrial Chemist. He helped make unleaded petrol and I was always very proud of him for that.
On paper we were lower middle class and we were really quite poor in comparison to our friends but love and patience and care and attention were things we never went without.
Those things are what has made me and my brothers the successful people we are. We have the ability to remain grounded, empathetic, confident but humble and most of all contented. Love, family, friends and kindness are what make the world go around.
I'm sure any self-made entrepreneur would probably vouch for that!

Re: Working Class

Very eloquently said Rhian, so well said in fact, I suspect you are a writer of words. ...and if you're not - you should be.

Re: Working Class

Gosh thank you but no, I'm really not! I'm Welsh in fact!!!

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There used to be and probably still is petty snobbery amongst the work some people do for a living, in my day labourers were looked down on by tradesmen and tradesmen looked down on by office staff and managers, even labourers looked down on road sweepers and bin men, stupid of course but that’s the way people are unfortunately, they may never admit it openly today but they still think it non the less.

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Don't matter how you make a bob or few, just as long as your few bob is more than the next blokes (after stoppages of course)