Essay: Shame, Success and The Trouble With Social Mobility
Upward movement through society is hard - even when you succeed.
As a former Grammar school boy ( possibly one of the least auspicious grammar schools in London) and son of a greengrocer, I have always been fascinated - no, compelled - by the idea of social mobility.
Compelled for a very simple reason. By the time I was a teenager, I was absolutely certain I wanted what ‘they’ had.
Who were ‘they’? It was hard to say, since my intro to the world of ‘they’ was confined to my visits inside their beautiful homes on a Saturday when I delivered their fruit and vegetables in prosperous Notting Hill Gate. Inside, the houses were full of books (there were only library books on the shelves in my suburban terrace in Southall, as well the AA Book of the Road). The objects in those houses were interesting and elegant. The decor was not in the universal magnolia favoured by my parents and friends. The furniture was minimalist and did not have floral prints all over it. And the people - they were enigmatic. Kind enough, a little condescending, but from an entirely different universe.
A sense of lack was there from the start of my awakening consciousness to the subject of class. But it wasn’t only money and taste that ‘they’ had. They had culture. This, I wanted more than anything.
I have a vivid memory of working in small shop my father was one of three employees in. A man and his son came in, and as I gathered their order of fruit and veg, they talked intensely about classical music in an engaged way, more or less as equals. The boy was younger then me - perhaps 12 - but he was articulate and engaged. And I knew that to him and his father - well, I was just the boy in the rough cotton coat putting their aubergines ( we never had aubergines at home) into bags. I might as well have not existed.
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