Middle Class Heroes

Last month I posted a comment on Sam Jordison's blog about the English middle classes, Organic Peas and Orderly Queues.

I argued that Lewes was one of the most middle class towns in Britain and cited two examples, one of which was this quote from an interview in local magazine Viva Lewes:

Question – “What did you have for breakfast?”

Answer – “I had baked millet and quinoa with steamed chicory and seaweed. And a cup of sage tea. My daughter had blueberries, yoghurt and nuts.”

That is only Exhibit A. I can produce a lot more evidence to prove that Lewes is a strong contender for the top spot, including the following signifiers:

• A market town with a Liberal MP
  
• Mainly pre-1900 buildings
  
• No branch of McDonalds
• A local currency
• At least two classical concerts per week
  
• A higher than average number of Lesbian couples
• A lack of chain stores
• Tasteful, subdued Christmas lights in the town centre
• At least half a dozen "lifestyle" shops selling overpriced clothes and kitcheware
• A high proportion of graduates
  

Sam has responded with this excellent post about Lewes, which certainly lends support to my campaign. But it can only be a matter of time before the citizens of Southwold or Hebden Bridge make their own claim, so I'll have to keep compiling evidence.

I tried to find a YouTube clip of one of my favourite Lewes activities, the Dance of Disobedience, during which a group of local people celebrated the life of former resident Tom Paine through the medium of dance. Sadly, I drew a blank.

However I did find this:



If you're still not convinced, check out the website of one of the most popular independent shops in Lewes (so popular, it now has three branches), Wickle. You'll find no nasty plastic children's toys in Wickle and if little Bruno wants a fire engine for Christmas, they probably have a tasteful one made from responsibly forested Norwegian spruce (actually, I love Wickle and I'm the proud owner of one of their very reasonably-priced wooden toy castles).

Wickle is the quintessential Lewes shop.

I could go on, but instead I'd urge you to join in the debate at Organic Peas and Orderly Queues, where you can become a middle class traitor! You don't have to live in Britain. I've witnessed the same phenomenon in the USA.

I know some people who have read this blog before might wonder, why do I keep banging on about class? Does it really matter?

Well, no and yes. On the one hand, this blog post is just a bit of fun, gently mocking the fact that we all too often express our individuality by slavishly imitating people who seem to share the same values. But there is also a more serious side to this debate, namely the fact that even in 2010, every newborn baby's destiny is shaped by a postcode lottery.

Visit any class of infants and you'll be struck by how bright and curious most of them are, regardless of their social background. Return six years later and the disparity between the middle class children and the poorest can be dispiriting.

As much as I make fun of certain aspects of Lewes, it comes closer to my vision of how life should be lived than most places, although I draw the line at quinoa for breakfast.


The Divine Comedy - the ultimate middle class band.

Clogs and Shawls

If someone had told me that my mother would be staying with us for six weeks this year, I would have shuddered with horror. As much as I love her, we are very different people and have little in common. However, it has been remarkably easy.

I have had to make some sacrifices, including watching Wycliffe every evening, enduring the public humiliation of buying the Daily Mail and eating a diet of bland, garlic-free meals, but I can live with these.

The one thing I am having a problem with is my mother's addiction to romantic novels.

My mother is the perfect guest in many ways and demands very little, but there is one exception: when it comes to books, she is like a crack addict. She has a ten-a-week habit and starts to become nervous if she is getting near to the end of the last new book.

I am having real problems keeping pace with my mother's addiction. How do I know which titles she hasn't read before? There's no point looking at the blurb, as most of the books seem to have the same basic plot:

When Kitty Grindstone's parents drown at sea, she is sent to an orphanage where she is beaten daily. Then, at 16, she meets the handsome squire's son, Jasper Cadman, who promises to show her the love that she so desperately craves. But when Kitty reveals that she is pregnant, Cadman cruelly disowns her. Alone in the world, without a roof over her head, Kitty climbs the snow-covered Yorkshire Dales to join her beloved parents in Heaven. Little does she know that her salvation may lie with a simple farmer's son called Jeremiah Ingleby...

Or something like that.

Luckily, there are so many books to choose from, I'm in little danger of buying the same book twice (how does my mother manage to remember what she's read, when the plots all seem to follow the same pattern?)

In the book trade, this genre is known as Clogs and Shawls. They are bought by female, working-class readers, generally over 50, and are usually written by women (or men pretending to be women, like Emma Blair). Publishers and booksellers can be very dismissive about these novels, but they are the bread and butter of the publishing industry. Without these tales of poverty and illegitimacy, there would be fewer first novels by unknown authors.

My mother likes them because they seem realistic. She has no interest in reading about middle-class people or foreigners (so that's over 90% of fiction out of the picture). She wants to read about the world she grew up in and if the plots of these novels seem melodramatic, I have to remind myself that they're tame compared to my mother's family history.

I couldn't help smiling to myself when, last week, my mother complained that she was running out of books to read, as she was sitting in front of my bookcase at the time. I looked at the shelves of books behind her and wondered if there was a single title that I could persuade her to read. What about the ultimate clogs and shawls novel, Jane Eyre?

And why was she running out of books so quickly? I decided to ask my mother and she sheepishly admitted that she only read the dialogue. She has now agreed to read the prose passages as well, so I should be able to keep pace with my mother's insatiable desire for family sagas until she goes home.

Whenever that is.

Parallel Lines

Yesterday a colleague at work sent me a link to a wonderful website called Europa Film Treasures, which contains a huge archive of films from as long ago as the 1890s. In particular, he highlighted a short 1913 film featuring a tram ride through the streets of Dunkirk.

That may not sound terribly promising, but the key thing is that the film was taken from the tram, not of it, so the viewer is treated to a fascinating glimpse of life in the early 20th century. Our perception of the early 20th century as a rather stuffy, orderly world with polite, well-behaved children, is a far cry from the more anarchic one depicted in this short film.

I haven't been able to embed the video, so you'll have to click on the picture to see the film:

The cheeky lads who dodge in an out of the tram's path and kick a market stall would probably receive an ASBO today. But given that this was 1913, a much grimmer fate must have awaited some of the boys.

The website also includes another tram-based gem from 1908, shot in Barcelona. In this film, a ridiculously large number of people appear to have a death wish and narrowly escape from being crushed under the wheels of the tram. Perhaps these people still dared to think that the streets belonged to them.

You can see the film here:

The website's other gems include an 1899 re-enactment of the Dreyfuss affair, a history of saucy Austrian films from the fin de siecle and this hilarious performance of the Traffic Policeman's Song.

These short films strike a contrast with the stiff, formal world portrayed in many photographs from this period. Suddenly, the past doesn't seem quite so foreign.

The Noble Savage

Although I like to think of myself as a bona fide member of the middle classes, I know that my RP accent, well-chosen wines and tasteful watercolours are a smokescreen. Deep down, I belong to the respectable working class - an extinct species who regularly went to church, didn't drink alcohol and owned the complete works of Shakespeare.

I thought I'd successfully expunged the shackles of my background, but there are still a few vices that remain, including a fondness for net curtains (plain, I hasten to add), a sentimental attachment to the Royal Family and a weakness for crysanthemums.

When I discover photos like these, from a collection that turned up last week, it is as if I have found a lost album from my own family's past:


If you were a member of the respectable working classes, then you had standards to maintain. It didn't matter whether you were in your back garden or on a beach; you didn't dress like the ruffians who frequented the local social club .

There was a good reason for this. My mother's grandfathers spent their leisure time drinking, gambling and siring illegitimate children. If their wives complained, they were beaten. The generation that followed took their revenge by signing the Pledge, going to chapel and assuming the trappings of respectability.

My maternal grandparents died long before I was born, but their photograph albums feature people who look exactly like this:



As you can see, there is a slightly punk rock gesture from the man on the left, but overall, with their waistcoats and watch chains, these gentlemen are the epitome of respectability. Indeed, the man with the large head even went bathing in a full suit:

However, when posing with a loaf of bread, he always wore his best flatcap:

Here is a rare colour shot. The woman in white's skirt features a pattern that reminds me of a pair of curtains from 1990:

This album stopped somewhere in the early to mid 1950s, but in the same box, there was a single, loose photo from more recent times:

They look as if they're having a good time, but now that I'm middle class, I would naturally insist on bringing my own supply of St Peter's Organic Ale and locally-sourced sausages.