Working class vs middle class

[George 1978]

Do you think that celebrities wearing NHS glasses increased their popularity with the British public? Was there any correlation between NHS glasses for children and social class?

NHS glasses ceased some time in 1986 and were replaced by a voucher for privately manufactured frames. It resulted in a near demise of frame manufacturing in Britain as almost all frames nowadays are imported.

Interesting question - I think that most people simply wore glasses because they needed to - back then, for most people it wasn't a fashion accessory but the fact that their sight meant that they needed to wear them. We don't have hearing aids or walking sticks which are fashion statements, do we?

On the other hand, have a look at celebrities such as Christopher Biggins (who stopped wearing his by the 1990s), Timmy Mallet, Su Pollard, Dennis Taylor (fair enough, his was for his snooker), Mike "Radio 1" Read, Steve "Pyramid Game" Jones, and even soap characters like Reg Holdsworth, and all those 1980s celebrities who used to wear stylish designer frames which were a fashion statement - the same with the Yuppie stereotype of the late 1980s with executives wearing matching red braces and red glasses - compare that with Shaw Taylor, Ronnie Corbett, some Thatcher-era MPs like my own back then etc, who wore NHS glasses. Notice that they were not "adult youngsters" and were born in the 1920s and 1930s, compared to those who wore stylish frames who were born after the War. The only youngsters who wore NHS glasses were those who were seen as being unfashionable - Roland Browning from Grange Hill and Tristram out of George and Mildred for example.

The fact that NHS glasses ceased in around 1986 coincides more or less with when I stopped wearing them - I was the only person in my class until comprehensive school to wear them. One good thing about wearing them was that I had the odd Monday afternoon off school at my local Dolland and Aitchison's. NHS was not about fashion at the end of the day.

[Arran]

I had NHS glasses because my sight was not too good (or so indeed what line of the the Snellen chart that I could read back in 1981 when I accessed my medical records). My parents were not very rich for reasons that I won't go into on here - my late father used to wear them as well. I think that back in the day, NHS glasses were the norm especially in the 1970s and early 1980s - even celebrities like Ronnie Corbett, Denis Norden and Eric Sykes (who used his as an hearing aid) also had them as well. I would rather not wear glasses at all even if I could choose some designer frames as in those "made in an hour by Vision Express" type of glasses.

Do you think that celebrities wearing NHS glasses increased their popularity with the British public? Was there any correlation between NHS glasses for children and social class?

NHS glasses ceased some time in 1986 and were replaced by a voucher for privately manufactured frames. It resulted in a near demise of frame manufacturing in Britain as almost all frames nowadays are imported.

[Cartimand]

If you buy a bottle of wine - and don't drink it the same day, you're middle class!

[George 1978]

Did you have NHS glasses because your parents genuinely couldn't afford decent looking glasses, or because they were too stingy to buy decent looking glasses, or because they wanted something in return for the taxes that they had paid?

I had NHS glasses because my sight was not too good (or so indeed what line of the Snellen chart that I could read back in 1981 when I accessed my medical records). My parents were not very rich for reasons that I won't go into on here - my late father used to wear them as well. I think that back in the day, NHS glasses were the norm especially in the 1970s and early 1980s - even celebrities like Ronnie Corbett, Denis Norden and Eric Sykes (who used his as an hearing aid) also had them as well. I would rather not wear glasses at all even if I could choose some designer frames as in those "made in an hour by Vision Express" type of glasses .

Anyway, in around 1987 I switched to metal frames and since the mid 1990s I stopped wearing them altogether - mostly to be incognito to anyone that I used to go to school with that I might bump into in the street - and it worked.

[Arran]

Unfortunately, the manual vs non-manual jobs is no longer a reliable demarcation line. As I previously stated, tradesmen are making tons of money these days despite their jobs being manual, whilst a new working class with low skilled low paid jobs has emerged in the service sector.

[Cartimand]

According to The Guardian, the majority of us have identified as middle class since the year 2000.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/dat...lass-2000-data

I guess that is because most of the blue collar "trouble at' mill" jobs have long since gone.

[Arran]

My parents had really "primary industry" occupations such as bricklayer and machinist - as I said before, I did wish that they were tertiary industry people

Tradesmen are making tons of money these days. Plumbers and electricians are known to earn as much as £50k a year, and even plasterers can easily earn over £30k.

On the other hand, most service sector jobs pay lousy salaries.

[Arran]

I just remembered, when Dad moved up in employment we did get slightly more expensive eye wear frames and regular dentistry.

and so can National Health glasses, even if it meant that one was not popular enough at playtime.

Did you have NHS glasses because your parents genuinely couldn't afford decent looking glasses, or because they were too stingy to buy decent looking glasses, or because they wanted something in return for the taxes that they had paid?

[George 1978]

My parents had really "primary industry" occupations such as bricklayer and machinist - as I said before, I did wish that they were tertiary industry people, but I wasn't descended from Royalty, I am afraid. When it comes to fashion, school uniform are often seen by the working classes as a life-saver, and so can National Health glasses, even if it meant that one was not popular enough at playtime.

[beccabear67]

We were lower middle class, Dad drove a delivery route for a bakery for much of my childhood before becoming the produce manager at a supermarket. We were always a little behind in getting the 'luxuries' that some children from the nicer houses got. Vacations were being dumped off your grandparents mostly, knew kids with push-button phones and colour tvs long before we had either. But we did have our own home thanks to my mother being set-up with no-interest payments through a godparent to take over their house which was just a few doors down the street from where she grew up. They moved in in 1965 a couple of years before I debuted at the Royal Jubilee Hospital nearby, and this is also the house I am typing this from right now.

I never had the 'cool' brands of clothing or spectacles but didn't much care. When I got a morning papers round I started having what seemed like real money for the first time and I really spent! Made up for all those years of comparative deprivation, but not conspicuous consumption to show off, though now I could go with others to see lots of films instead of more rarely.

I just remembered, when Dad moved up in employment we did get slightly more expensive eye wear frames and regular dentistry. My Mother worked in a school for a couple of years teaching home economics to girls; they presented her with a gift at the end of each year (the girls I mean).

[Arran]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been more discussion on the topic of social class, especially matters relating to trade unions and the changes in the economy over the decades from #22, and home ownership from #25.

[Arran]

Here's something: has any working class person who has won the National Lottery jackpot since 1994 been financially recognised as being middle class because of how much they had won?

Nouveau riche. The sort of people who sport a gold Rolex and have a Rolls Royce in the driveway, but still eat corned beef and brown sauce sandwiches and watch trash on TV like X Factor.

Money doesn't (in the short term at least) buy cultural capital. Culture is really what seems to separate people from different social classes nowadays.

A fee paying independent school had an entrance exam with a general knowledge test that included questions about which wine to pair with particular meals. This was to help to differentiate between children who come from families with a high level of cultural capital and the academically clever council estate kids (who can ace the maths and English entrance exams) but usually lack cultural capital.

Some home educating parents from less well off backgrounds think it's a good idea for their children to learn cultural stuff known by families from higher class backgrounds, and a bit of Latin as well, as it will help them with career development by making them appear to come from a higher class background than they actually do.

I'm of the opinion that successive governments have failed to notice this cultural capital dimension when carrying out educational reforms.

[George 1978]

Here's something: has any working class person who has won the National Lottery jackpot since 1994 been financially recognised as being middle class because of how much they had won? - a hypothetical question of course. I doubt that it has (or ever will) happen to those who gamble, visit their local Ladbrokes on Saturday afternoons when the Grand National is on in order to bet on Red Rum, or get all the numbers while playing Bingo. Those who win the WWTBAM jackpot seem to be well-heeled in any case and so any chance of gambling and taking the plunge wouldn't do them too much harm in the long run.

[Arran]

A hard demarcation line between the 1920s (possibly earlier) and the early 1950s was home ownership. Being a homeowner was almost a prerequisite to being a member of the middle class whereas renting was the norm for the working class.

Starting in the late 1950s, home ownership became increasingly affordable to the masses, resulting in a rise in the number of working class homeowners during the 1960s and 70s, and the appearance of DIY shops in towns. The council house sell off in the 1980s created even more working class homeowners. By the early 1990s, it had reached a point where home ownership had become the norm for both the middle class, and much the working class, with only students and the poor still renting their homes.

A significant number of working class folk who became homeowners in the 1980s and early 90s turned their nose up at Labour and voted Conservative in the 1992 general election, even if they were quite poor and didn't have a very good job. The number, and geographical locations, of such voters may have been enough to result in a Conservative victory in that election.

[George 1978]

Liverpool was once a staunch Conservative city. The Conservatives controlled the council in the 1960s and had more MPs than Labour did. Liverpool Walton - now one of the safest Labour seats - wasn't won by Labour until 1964.

The Conservatives haven't had a single councillor in Liverpool since 1995.

It's almost like Nottingham City wards - apart from Wollaton and Clifton, all the wards are Labour. However there was a Conservative landslide in 1977 - someone my family used to know was a Labour councillor from at least 1973 and had lost his seat very marginally. By 1981 most had gone back to Labour.

This was around the same time as the 1977 Ashfield by-election, the last Nottinghamshire constituency to have a by-election of the 20th century until Newark in 2014. Conservative Tim Smith was elected in Ashfield; lost his seat at the 1979 General Election, and was elected again at the 1982 Beaconsfield by-election where he defeated the Labour candidate, Tony Blair, and future Lib Dem MP Paul Tyler. And to think that Sedgefield is Conservative now...