Day 72: ‘The middle class bubble’

SOME people live in a middle class bubble. A life where they move in lovely circles, have lovely friends, live in lovely houses, and have jobs that expose them to little else but the middle class-ness of a lovely life.

The closest they come to a world outside their bubble is the trip between the car park and John Lewis, where they may bump into someone on their way to Primark.

To try and understand where I sit in the whole class system - I genuinely wasn’t sure - I did the BBC’s Great British Class Calculator. Clearly a definitive way to decipher my position in society.

I’m joined by 25% of the population in being Established Middle Class. Not a bad place to be, but I wonder how many of my fellow middle classers live in a bubble, and how many of them truly understand the society we live in?

Thanks to my career, I’ve been very privileged to mix with a broad range of people. From having tea with Earl Spencer (while I interviewed him, he didn’t invite me to Althorpe or anything) to spending hours on building sites and visiting people who are struggling to live on the breadline.

Unlike the predictable middle class, the 15% of the population that make up the lower class, are to me the most diverse. 

Some of the most genuine, kind and generous people I have ever met would be considered lower class due to their income, home, social life and career choice. But they’re rich in everything else. They’re always turned out immaculately, their homes are clean and tidy, their gardens are neat and cared for, and they do everything they can to provide for their family.

Sadly where there’s good, there’s almost always bad. Those who have more rubbish at the side of their bin, than in their actual bin. Those who choose to have more furniture outside their front door than there is in their lounge, and those who seem to neglect their children’s chance for an education, just so they can stay at home and watch Jeremy Kyle. 

Thankfully they’re in the minority, but sadly these are the people most represented on reality TV and in the press, the people we notice when driving past their houses, and those who shout the loudest on the street. If you’re in a middle class bubble, you’d have no reason to believe otherwise. 

I feel privileged because I’m lucky enough to know different.

But that calculator..Established Middle Class? My arse!