Strive to achieve

         Autobiography wise I have little clue why anyone would want to read much I

have to drone on about. As a person I am very proud to have made it to twenty six,

still alive and with my own teeth. There are so many people out there, a whole race of

humans de-evolving and some of them even succeeding at it quite well. There’re lots

of dead people to read about. Quite honestly the defiant side of my nature wonders

why I should write just to make you feel better about yourself, you can do that

yourself by remembering how brilliant you are, maybe not unique, but brilliant.

People should do that more often. Anyway, you will only ever see yourself in my

reflections and as humbled as I am that you’ve taken the time to nosey into my life in

hope of a connection (you really should get that seen to), this is no time for modesty,

I’ll make a special effort to take you somewhere quite delightful.

         We’ll go somewhere with lobelia and roses, tulips…poppies and sweet pea.

What the hell, we had rhubarb and cabbage and proper tasting - doesn’t come in a

packet - tomatoes. I remember the robins were very friendly and not too long before I

was born the villagers still baked their own bread every morning and my granddad

kept his own pigs. Got the smell of fresh country air? Good, lets start then. Ding ding

- all aboard, coz I’m going home.

         I feel I may have lured you here under false pretences, unfortunately our

village ballooned under the weight of the post war baby boom. It’s the biggest village

in Britain and I haven’t a clue why anyone lives there. We have a church attended by

bored widows and engaged couples both hoping to attract the attention of the vicar.

We have schools, nursing homes and our ant hill is the Kwick Save were we scurry

around exchanging our heavy loads of gossip for food. The pubs are seen as “rough”

by locals pretending to be better than local drinkers, these locals prefer the sanctuary

of a Brewers Fare or lake side inn were the same beer must taste better. No one sees you downing eight pints and attempting to feed a duck pork scratchings before

packing the family in the car and driving home. 

         I sense you’re dying to know what everyone does in Selston? Do we go out on

the fields helping the farmers of an evening? Do we join social clubs and hold charity

fund raisers? Perhaps we get so bored we knit footballs for the starving dogs of

Brazil? Er… no I’m sorry, Selston is a Simms disaster area, the adults watch TV,

decorate and drink tea and the teenagers do drugs, drink lighter fluid and burgle

houses.(Maybe they only sniff the lighter fluid but it’s all about sounding hard, right?)

Of course, I am exaggerating slightly, as a child I do remember my mother once went

to a Tupperware party one evening.

         Still life is always fun when you’re working class, there’s so much to strive to

achieve. Somewhere over the rainbow there is that little haven of Barrett homes with

Ford Mondeos and that dye they put in the grass. You can see the day when you can

afford to shop from catalogues… Yes those will really be the days my friends the

cloud of wanting to be middle class hangs over Selston like the stench of spring

bloom all year round. Even now, at the grand old age of twenty six, while writing my

very own autobiography and packing up my painting by numbers set for the very last

time it feels, I still haven’t got the slightest clue why these people act this way. What I

can do is explain how you too can reach the dizzy heights of being wannabe middle

class.

         First, and most importantly you must remember your roots as not to appear big

headed. Someone slightly posh, or anyone who had money in the family can be

remembered with pride, especially if they lived south of Birmingham. For some

reason dying tends to elevate relatives to a certain unreachable status and this is to be

respected at all times.

         Secondly it is recommended to categorically forget family members dead or

alive that are not in the right profession. Miners can be hailed as gods in Nottingham,

no one ever has ever worked as hard as the miners grafted. Madmen, gamblers,

farmers, drug dealers and bin men in the family are to be forgotten about and it is best

to indicate that they were probably miners or hail them up as great heroes of the

second world war. It is true that only now(in my old age) has my grandma dare tell me

that her dad worked on the bins. I like to believe she truly had forgot.

         Next on the family line it is important to worship the heavenly souls of those

immaculate genius’s that completed the most amazing feat of actually passing their 11

plus. Having a Stephen Hawkins in the family is like a one way ticket to being

wannabe middle class and completely solved Mrs. Bowmers  terrible sleeping

problems. Hard work is good and brains is good.

         The other object of adoration for what people with no money seem to use to

validate their existence is the posh factor. If we were playing top trumps (and

unfortunately I have been coached into many a tough tournament), the posh factor

wins hands down every time. Ignorance in Selston is never bliss. Ignorance is sure fire

proof that you have no brains and may have a great granddad that worked on the bins.

The posh factor widens your eyes and puts yearning in your belly. The posh factor

breeds in you until somehow you find yourself telling everyone you meet that Mrs.

Hill’s son is working for the council. He may be making the tea (or doing the bins) but

the posh factor is clever, it preys on the poor wannabe middle class brain and explodes

it. Before long Mrs. Jepsons daughter is hoping to join the council and Mrs. Gregory

has a cousin on her mothers side who has worked for the council for 82 years. Driving

past the council building my grandma will remind me that Mrs. Hills son works in

there, she will survey the area, imagine the decent, hard working, share owning,

middle class people inside, frantically typing and taking files out of cabinets and she

will look at me hopefully. I will politely ask what job it was that he was doing…

         Middle class people are also perfect, they behave in a perfect fashion. I can

only liken this to the housewife manuals of the 1950’s were keeping everyone happy

involved baking many pies, having perfect children and ironing a crisp newspaper(I

recommend The Express) for the breakfast table every morning. I have heard that

middle class people also float as to ensure they don’t scuff they’re shoes.

         To recap, just incase I’m going a bit fast (though you will have to understand

it’s not my fault, if you look into the history of the Selston parish you’ll see I come

from a family of gypsies), you have your place in society, you strive to look richer

than you are, sound more brainy than you are and you have to be more perfect than

you are. Your house should be spotless, poor people are filthy, and your not poor

right? Finances should be tended to correctly and this is shown by attending the

orderly queue outside the post office that reaches the moon at precisely 8:49 on

Monday mornings.

         Cupboards should hold at least five packets of Bisto and are packed to the hilt

avoiding starvation incase we are peppered and frozen by similar blizzards to those of

‘76. Saturday morning we pilgrim ourselves to market and on Thursday we eat lamb.

What would happen in Selston if some dim witted idiot decided to pay the milkman in

advance for a month? Or (god forbid) went out for Sunday lunch? I don’t know. I can

only guess that a freak lightning storm may blast down on our little village or perhaps

a plague of killer bees would arrive leaving us locked indoors feasting on Bisto and

HP sauce? Still, I have always felt sorry for Christine who works in the post office,

she must be very bored on Monday afternoons.
         What you should do to prove you aren’t working class comes with it’s own

form of language etiquette in Selston. Since entering the vast beauty of peace and love

that is Blackpool I have fast learned that talking as though I’m at home will result in

one of two things. A hardened Blackpool resident will look at you with a blank stare

and inwardly decide you have escaped from a lunatic asylum, or they will assume you

are the stupidest person they have ever met and proceed to con you out of your life

savings.

         People in Selston listen and they like to talk. Mrs. Almas father may of just

passed away but this is the perfect time to drench the poor woman in sympathy. Not

only may she tell everyone else how nice you are buy she might invite you round to

hers so you can check she’s been doing the cleaning properly and maybe you’ve

always wondered what colour her bathroom suite is? Your allies in gossip are treated

with the greatest respect and a over reaction to all statements is advised. It is also

important to attach the required emotion to show camaraderie. The basics are as

follows… “never”, “he didn’t”, “dead?”, “Oh I don’t know why you put up with it”.

         As great middle class citizens it is expected that when doctors and teachers

have re-decorated their lounges forty two times in a year and perhaps bought a grand

piano for the study they go on holiday to some magical place were they drink wine

and read books. Wannabe middle class citizens must also do this, even if they can’t

afford to. So we would save for the holiday all year by never going anywhere and

trying not to put the heating on. My mother would hoard tinned pies and washing up

liquid in a box under the stairs for our vacation to a dingy caravan park in Great

Yarmouth. I remember spending the whole time walking the five miles past a stinky

canal to the beach, “looking” around shops, having packed lunches and being rationed

to one bottle of Panda cola while we enjoyed  marvelous entertainment from Rory the

tiger. I think my dad came home with more money than he went with.
         
         You can spot a wannabe middle class family on holiday from other galaxies.

They walk in single file, dad first, hunting out the cheapest deals on rock and

postcards while mum keeps the lagging troops in line by promising to do something

fun, soon. The other complete giveaway is that they all dress in the same outfits, they

saw fit to kit us all out in the same shell suit one year. Not believing things could get

worse I was subjected to another “look at us, we are a family” disaster the next year.

My mother dressed us all in the same dress (I was 11,my sisters were 8 and 5).Not

content with that level of embarrassment, my mother, determined to prove our family

status found a very similar dress for herself.

         As if purchasing the things weren’t bad enough she even made us go out in

them. And we paraded. Single file, along the pier to see the Nolan’s. It seems our

strong “we are fam-ma-ly” presence threatened even the recently united Nolan sisters.

As one catty (and ugly) member smiled wryly at my sister she proclaimed proudly,

“Aren’t all your dresses lovely? Did your mummy make those?” As a satisfied look

spread around the Nolan camp my mummy spoke up “oh no” she said hastily “We got

them from C&A” .Oblivion, it seems IS bliss when you want to be middle class. 
         
         On returning home I discovered we had actually holidayed in Norfolk. We

stayed at a lovely little campsite next to a canal, the weather was glorious and all the

stress and moaning from us and my parents was really us having a nice time.

         Finally as my trip home is concluding, I must emphasize the importance of key

communicator within Selston. The invention of the telephone was useless when I was

young, as women could decipher anything they could possibly want to know about

anyone due to the state of their net curtains. No really, I am serious still. My granddad

was never anyone’s fool until the day I told him windows were for letting light into

your house not for gawping out of. The great art of looking out through net curtains

takes years to evolve. By no means should you ever be seen watching the neighbors

arguing across the road, although they will be giving each other looks like will you

shut up the neighbors will be watching, and trying to argue through gritted teeth.

Aligning yourself next to the curtain thus hiding your body from the window and then

stooping slightly sideways from the hip is my dads favorite. A slight bend of

the knee will help with balance issues if the co-op insurance man should happen to

pass the front gate. I have also heard that stooping down to the edge of the window sill

is practiced in some households though that would risk moving the sacred net that my

mother had spent four hours arranging. The correct positioning of the furniture also

works well. The common passer by could mistake you to be merely watching TV.

         Curtain twitching in my grandmas street is big business, how else can you

keep up with the trends in double glazing? A woman once asked me if I was wearing

the new shoes she’d seen me bring home in a Clarks carrier bag. My grandmas finest

hour was when Lila(don’t make eye contact or you’ll never get away) from up the

road announced my grandmas front door to be the nicest on the street. This must have

upset Mr. Shelton who began hoisting up hanging baskets on the front the size of

Noah’s ark. People in Selston do not have hanging baskets in their back gardens.

         So what’s happened in Selston since Sir Tony galloped into his middle class

job, pronounced the liberation of the serfs and the abolishment of the working class?

Did the villagers breathe a simultaneous sigh of relief and throw their minimum wage

slips at his feet? Dare I suggest a street party? Absolutely nothing happened in

Selston, they even moaned when the Kwick Save turned into a Sommerfield. As usual

in history you find out people were happy as they were all along they just like

something to aim for. So, strive to achieve…it’s working class chic.