Posted by Alan Hakim on September 01, 2007 at 09:11:55 from 213.166.17.13 user awhakim.
In Reply to: Re: The GA's world view posted by andyb on August 31, 2007 at 16:16:50:
I have been following this discussion about Class and the Blacketts with some dismay. People seem fixed on two fallacies:
(1) the English are completely obsessed by Class;
(2) no other country is.
As for the second, my experience, having lived and worked in a lot of countries, not to mention holiday visits, is that every country has its class divisions. They are just based on different criteria in different societies.
England is in fact a country where it is relatively easy to move from class to class. This was brought home to me this week, when I attended the funeral of a well-respected Havant resident. He died last month at the age of 93. There must have been about 100 people in the church, which is most impressive for someone of that age.
We learned of his life. He was born to a Barnsley coal-miner, and after school, got a job, but lost it in the 1930's depression. (Notice that he was only 3 or 4 years older than Nancy and John, and his being out of work roughly coincided with PP.) So he joined the Navy, and served 22 years, including of course the whole of WW2. On retirement, he became a postman here in Havant, and retired again after 20 years. That gave him about 30 years more to serve our community. Among other things he was a founder-churchwarden of our daughter church about 40 years ago.
His family, down to great-grandchildren, were at the funeral. They have lives far removed from coal-mining.