You go away for 24
hours and you come back fully aware that you need to shout it loud and proud.
My kids go to
private school because it never entered my head that there was an alternative. Or
words to that effect.
My name’s Tattie
Weasle and I AM Middle Class.
If there’s one thing
I learnt during my brief sojourn in Town (London for the uninitiated) at the
glorious Britmums Live event, is that to have an authentic voice you need to be
true to yourself.
For years I have
been apologising for being Middle Class. In fact that is one of the traits of
being Middle Class (pronounced “Clarse” as in arse) – forever saying that
you’re sorry for being so.
That being so, I now
humbly beg forgiveness.
If I were Working Class I’d tell everyone to “Foxtrot Oscar” and “What You LOOKIN at” and if I
were Upper Class – well I wouldn’t speak to you anyway, or if I deigned, I
might raise an eyebrow in askance.
I think being Middle Class is very confusing as you vacillate between being very proud for being so
and worrying what others may think of you.
There’s a lot of
guilt being Middle Class.
In fact there are 9.63
million Google hits about it and I
think that is a lot.
Secretly though it’s
not so much guilt as fear; fear of being laughed and derided by the Upper Classes or else beaten up by the lower orders and having everything taken away.
Thus you land up
trying very hard to be invisible by seamlessly blending in to one and frantically
claiming solidarity with the other. One requires expensive shopping trips and
claiming that you know who won this year at Burghley and that yes you do know
your chukka from your bump; and the other renders you incomprehensible to English
speaking nations as you reclaim your Working Class roots (Class now pronounced
as in ass) along with dropping you aitches and hastily adopting a mockney
accent even though your antecedents hailed from Wales.
So it is with a
great deal of trepidation and frantic crossing of fingers that I promise to
speak with my own voice – possibly for the very first time in my life.
And I won’t be
apologising…well, not all the time!
