Polly Toynbee: what my privileged start in life taught me about the British class system

It wasn’t just luck that steered the Guardian columnist to Oxford and into a media career ... She reflects on the subtle mechanics of class (and an early encounter with a naked future PM)Children know. They breathe it in early, for there’s no unknowing the difference between nannies, cleaners, below-stairs people and the family upstairs. Children are the go-betweens, one foot in each world, and yet they know very well from the earliest age where they belong, where their destiny lies or, to put it crudely, who pays whom. Tiny hands are steeped young in the essence of class and caste. In nursery school, in reception they see the Harry Potter sorting hat at work. They know. And all through school those fine gradations grow clearer, more precise, more consciously knowing, more shaming, more frightening. Good liberal parents teach their children to check their privilege – useful modern phrase – but it swells up like a bubo on the nose. There’s no hiding it.I can summon up the childhood shame at class embarrassments. Aged seven like me, Maureen, with her hair pinned sideways in a pink slide, lived in a pebble-dashed council house by the water tower. They were at the other end of Lindsey, more hamlet than village, half a mile down the road from my father’s pink thatched cottage set in the flat prairie lands of Suffolk, where I spent half my time, the other half in London, shuttling between divorced parents. I envied Maureen for what looked to me like a cheerful large family... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2023-05-20 12:00:56 UTC ]
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Book Culture stores in life or death battle

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[ Crains New York | 2020-01-08 19:57:16 UTC ]
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HarperCollins signs 'life-changing' Ramoutar freezer cookbook

HarperCollins has wrapped up a deal for the "life-changing" freezer-filling cookbook from Shivi Ramoutar. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-08 12:50:12 UTC ]
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In ‘Such a Fun Age,’ Kiley Reid takes aim at race and class in America

In her debut novel, Reid weaves together the story of a babysitter experiencing a quarter-life crisis and the tale of her privileged employer. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-01-07 00:07:56 UTC ]
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The Digital Media Industry Is on Track for a Jolt to the System

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[ AdWeek | 2019-12-30 14:28:27 UTC ]
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The financial system is supposed to serve the economy — not harm it

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[ The Washington Post | 2019-12-27 13:00:00 UTC ]
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Benji Davies | 'Most of my stronger ideas start fairly small, but they stick in my mind'

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[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-25 06:16:49 UTC ]
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£3m investment will improve 'clunky' system, says head of Essex libraries

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[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-23 00:45:10 UTC ]
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J.K. Rowling started 2019 with wizard poop. She’s ending the year by stepping in it

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[ Fast Company | 2019-12-19 12:15:49 UTC ]
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Entries open for British Book Awards 2020

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[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-12 04:47:19 UTC ]
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Clifford Starts a New TV Adventure

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A Literary Way of Life: Spotlight on New England

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Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

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Trump’s legal strategy: If you can’t beat the case, beat the system

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[ The Washington Post | 2019-11-22 13:00:00 UTC ]
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PRH staff to start Embassy Gardens move in April 2020

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National Centre for Writing seeks working class writers

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[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-15 00:58:56 UTC ]
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A new biography dishes about Carrie Fisher’s tumultuous, bittersweet life

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Entries open for the British Book Award for Export as prize returns for second year

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PRH joins forces with Sandhurst to publish 'inspirational book of life lessons'

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[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-13 12:52:30 UTC ]
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