Classy Quotes 14

Parents would speak softly, vaguely about influences, friendships and the social environment as children move into adolescence. (A Guardian writer explains why she and her family are staying in the city – and why so many friends left. 2013-10-26)

‘“Don’t fuss; don’t ask personal questions; don’t touch the teapot (this was reserved for the hostess); tea in first, milk after; understatement and stiff upper lip.” But there was also something unnatural in the resolutely unspoken nature of English communication, and a patronising element in the controlled superiority… an unshakeable belief – unshaken to this day, even by the loss of an empire – in their self-evident superiority.’ Refugees Hilde and her husband Peter “in all that time were never invited into a single English household there or involved in the social structure”. She had been a literary and social star as a young woman in Vienna; she ended up being frozen out in Wimbledon. She later wrote about her experiences: “The narrator is bemused by the formality of her host family. The four children, all younger than twelve, speak with the same decorous, joking expressions as the adults, with any regression into baby-speak frowned upon by their demanding parents.”(Writer Hilde Spiel on the English during WWII, quoted by Lara Feigel in The Love-charm of Bombs)

An upper-class hostess in a family where emotions were rarely discussed or prioritised and were secondary always to manners. ‘It seems so gauche,’ [wrote Mrs Graham Greene. She] pretended that any unpleasant events were not actually occurring and concealed any negative emotion behind a manner of ‘the most brilliant feyness’. (Lara Feigel, The Love-charm of Bombs)

It is sickening that vulgar, middle-class virtue should pay. (Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage)

All post-16th-century English art contains a sub-text concerning class… modern readers find it unforgiveable. (Angela Carter)

Bourgeois values: independence, perseverance, forethought, circumspection. (Angela Carter)

One important function of bourgeois fiction is to teach people how to behave in social circles to which they think they might be able to aspire. (Angela Carter)

We settled into a curious kind of deviant middle-class life, all little luxuries and no small comforts, no refrigerator, no washing-machine, no consumer durables at all, but cream with puddings and terribly expensive soap and everything went to the laundry. (Angela Carter on the 1950s)

One might also say that anyone bemoaning middle-class decline is really just complaining about a loss of privilege. (David Thomas, Daily Telegraph 14 Oct 2013)

It’s always a difficult line for MCs of either gender to tread – showing you’re fun and spontaneous without going too crazy. (Middle Class Handbook)

MCs often feel under huge pressure to be "interesting" – to talk about exotic travels, fascinating books and esoteric pursuits. (Middle-Class Handbook)

Lesley Bright came out of her O-level practical to find her teacher, Sister Claudia, who had been praying to the Holy Ghost that Lesley would put on her carrots in time. “My task had been to provide a nourishing meal for manual labourers, and I’d been praying that my Cornish Pasties with vegetables were equal to the task, as I had no idea what a manual labourer was,” recalls Lesley. (Daily Telegraph, Sept 2013)

The author describes her subjects as “ordinary people”, and ordinary here seems to mean lower middle class. (Revew of The English in Love by Claire Langhamer Obs Aug 2013)

40 years ago I overheard this at the (state) school gate:
Mummy A: I’m going private, she’s bright and I want her stretched.
Mummy B: No you don’t. You want her to get two A-levels and marry a chartered accountant!
(Writer-in to the Guardian Aug 2013)

They are so busy preserving their status that they can’t enjoy it… “The status of one’s child and your own reflects and builds on one another, it has become mutually defined,” says [anthropologist Wednesday] Martin… [Getting your kid into the right school] requires Olympian displays of school fundraising, donations, coaching and lobbying (The Times on very, very rich women, Aug 2013)

The saturation of the high street with boho meant of course, that the look couldn’t last for long. (Linda Grant, Guardian, June 13 2007)

432 people own half the land in Scotland. (Independent, August 2013 And they don't want to sell it to small farmers.)

More here, and links to the rest.

How to Bring Up Children

"Our society is child obsessed" said The Observer, Aug 10 08 - meaning that we don't ignore, neglect or abuse them quite so much as we used to. The English middle classes can only stand so much being nice to children (abolition of corporal punishment in schools, children being given rights) before they fight back with dangerous activity holidays.

Jen Teale calls small children "little people" which makes Samantha Upward want to throw up. Sam calls them “children” because, as Eileen says, “a kid is a baby goat”, and besides it’s horribly folksy to call them “kids”. Gideon Upward can't seem to see that toddlers ARE little people, and expects them to be able to use a knife and fork, remove screw-top lids, "remember" to turn off lights and “get” irony.

Upward infants are given wooden toys. Teale “toddlers” get expensive play equipment for the garden. Definitely kids get Barbie’s Magic Castle.

Sharon Definitely signs her kids up with a child model agency. Jen’s join the sea cadets or play in a brass band. Sam’s poor offspring can’t even join the Brownies.

Teale children go to local schools where they make friends for life who live nearby. If their grades are good, they get a new bicycle or a “fountain pen” (to Teales, a pen is a biro). Upward children go to boarding school and have no-one to hang out with in the holidays. It may take decades for them to realise they’ve been short-changed. They’re given gold fountain pens when they’re longing for a giant cuddly lion. (This is archaic - it's all gadgets these days!)

Thalia Upward moves out of London to protect her children from commercialisation and celebrity culture. Some Upwards go slightly mad when they have children and put them into an exclusion zone. (No child of mine is going to watch Tellytubbies or eat Coco Pops!) Thalia rigidly rations her children’s telly/DVD watching and computer use. She only lets her children watch black and white movies. Her daughter is left out at school because she’s never watched Big Brother and doesn’t have a Barbie.

This attempt to control all input is usually foiled as soon as their kid meets others and hears about Action Man. Maybe the Upwards can absorb their folk devils one at a time - oh, the Tellytubbies are all right really but Coco Pops, never! Or else they moan about how guilty they feel about the rising tide of plastic tat and try to put the blame on someone or something else (“We had to! He said everyone else had got one! I had to do something to shut him up! It’s this terrible consumer society we live in!”) They find the plastic clutter particularly oppressive because they don’t know how to tidy up or store anything. Jen puts big toy bins in the kids’ bedrooms.

Upwards dress their children in special kid clothes. Old-fashioned, cotton, cute, smocked dresses and dungarees. The kids look wistfully at the Definitely children who are wearing designer brands covered in logos. The Upwards also don’t let their kids “play out” in case they mix with the wrong kind of children. But they’re the ones who complain about health and safety gone mad, the nanny state, and wrapping kids in cotton wool, and how we daren’t let them out to play any more for fear of paedophiles. Actually the real danger is cars (many more of them now than in 50s, 70s or whenever you were a child).

If Thalia stays in London, she goes to church to get her children into a CoE school where everybody wears a uniform and is well-behaved. The children like the singing and the family make friends and Thalia appreciates a quiet sit-down in beautiful surroundings and begins to think that Jesus had a point. But she doesn’t think she has anything in common with any weird American sect which insulates its children from the wider culture and dresses them in Little House on the Prairie frocks.

Upwards will tell you that childhood was invented by the Victorians, but all the same they want their kids to stay kids—they’re terrified of their children becoming “precocious”. At the same time they insist that the poor little mites eat and like very adult food that’s strong tasting or impossible to manipulate. They don't want them to let the class side down by preferring white bread and Heinz tomato soup. They give their kids food that has to be eaten with knives and forks and then yell at them for having terrible table manners.

They’re also keen that their children shouldn’t be frightened of dogs. When a large dog thrusts its face at their toddler (tied into his pushchair so he can’t escape), they take the dog’s side and insist it’s only trying to be friendly. The ones who Escape to the Country would really like their children to associate only with animals.

Upwards and Weybridges are very down on fear generally. People should just shut up about the paedophile threat - it’s making us too frightened. (See nanny state, cotton wool etc.) And they whinge in chorus at antiterrorist measures (“We mustn’t let FEAR of terrorists impede our FREEDOM in anyway.”)

Howard woofles that in his day children respected adollts (accent on the second syllable). He fails to understand why parents can't control their children in public (he thinks there must be some way of turning the sound right off).

Manners - say please! What's the magic word! You can, and you may! All groups try to teach their kids "manners" far too young - when the child has only just learned to talk.