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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Scheffler blasts Brexit in British Book Awards speech

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[ The Bookseller | 2018-05-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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British Book Awards: Pullman and Honeyman dominate

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[ BBC News | 2018-05-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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British Book Awards Include Political Commentary Amid Celebration

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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2018-05-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Insights From the Foreign Rights Specialists Shortlisted for Tonight’s 2018 British Book Awards

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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2018-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Vermont Life Is Shutting Down After 72 Years

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[ Folio Magazine | 2018-05-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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NBF Starts Petition Process for Noncitizens

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-05-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We need to know if there is life on Mars before we send humans there

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2018-05-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Terminally ill British toddler at center of legal battle dies

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2018-04-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Digiday | 2018-04-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Report finds £23k 'class pay gap' in publishing

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[ The Bookseller | 2018-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Glossies so white: the data that reveals the problem with British magazine covers

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[ The Guardian | 2018-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2018-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2018-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-04-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2018-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-03-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2018-03-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2018-03-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Will Self on the cartoon strip that set him on the road to writing – The Start podcast

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[ The Guardian | 2018-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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British Library reveals 6.2% gender pay gap

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[ The Bookseller | 2018-03-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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