Flirting with the classes

PAV’S PATCH: AROUND six weeks ago I found out something about myself.

This may surprise a lot of you, but I’m not middle class. How do I know? Because I don’t earn enough.

When all the fuss blew up about child benefit no longer being a universal entitlement, I learned that it was being taken away from the middle classes.

And how did they define middle class? Anyone earning more than £45,000 a year. Well that’s me right out of the picture.

My late lamented mother would be most upset. She had such great hopes for me and I’ve let her down (once) again.

So what am I? Do I qualify for any class? It’s hard to know.

I suppose I do a lot of middle-class type things. After all, I wear a suit to work, I read a broadsheet daily newspaper (alongside the Evening Chronicle of course), I listen to BBC Radio 4, and I use a handkerchief. I even have fruit on the sideboard when no one’s ill.

But I do other things too. I drink very strong tea out of a mug, I’ve been known to eat chips out of the paper while walking down the street, I pour the milk into my tea straight from the bottle, I call women “love”, I occasionally drink mild and I eat doorstep butties. And please note that I say butty, not sandwich.

So where does that leave me? Can I be working class even though I don’t have a manual job? There again, I have had all manner of manual jobs. As a student, I used to make custard at Park Cake.

Possibly I have middle-class pretensions, but somehow I always let myself down. Mother got very upset when I once took a girl friend home to tea and made fun of the ceremonial cake slice which was only brought out for state occasions.

There again, mother could make her own mistakes.

In 1993 I took her for afternoon tea at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong and she commented to the awfully posh Chinese waiter who wore a tailcoat and had a cut-glass English accent: “Nice place you’ve got here love.”

But I’ll leave you to ponder this. One of my friends is a woman who was brought up on a Stalybridge council estate. In fact her parents still live there. Yet what did I find her eating the other day? Sushi.

Now, I reckon that’s a bit posh to say the least. Not bad for a girl from Ridge Hill. I wonder if she sticks out her little finger when she’s drinking tea from a China cup?