The Definitelies

Jilly Cooper called social class D the Definitely-Disgustings because they’re often outraged: “Definitely! It’s disgusting!” They use overstatement, rather than the restrained understatement of the upper classes (if a duke is severely ill, his friends will say he’s “feeling a little sorry for himself”). But I think I'll just call them the Definitelies.

They’re the working classes, who toil in shops, factories and old people’s homes, clean houses, drive buses, sweep streets, sell fruit and veg. They listen to Radio 1, Heart and Magic, and shop at Lidl, Iceland and Chapel Market, Islington. They watch Sky on a huge plasma TV. They go to socials at their kids’ school and to see Country and Western bands in biker pubs. They have tattoos. They hang St. George flags out of their windows. They live on an estate that won a lot of architectural awards in 1971. They want to blow it up -- the Upwards want to List it. Their children, Sharon and Dave, go to movies in multiplexes and eat boxes of popcorn bigger than their heads. (The movies have lots of CGI and explosions and are very LOUD.) The kids don’t do very well at school but may excel at music or sport. Both generations wear a lot of bling. Mrs D is a granny at 38.