The Death of the Working Classes

It’s been a long time in the making but serial miserable bastard dirrrrtyoldman returns for part 6 in the elongated and largely unnecessary, “The Death of . . . . . . Series“. In this episode our anti-hero looks back in a melancholic fashion as to why he doesn’t still live in a bucket of shit back in his beloved Earlestown. Keep it under your hat, but we’ve sussed that the scruffy toe rag is a fraud.

We all know one don’t we? We probably know more than one, if we are able to face the shame of admitting it. The pseudo middle classes, champions of the working class, the bench mark of what we should all aspire to. The acceptance and the status that we crave. Not fucking I!

It’s not people doing well for themselves that I find offensive. After all who doesn’t want better for themselves or their nearest and dearest? And who could decry anyone for achieving it? No my friends it’s the “who the bally hell are you?” attitude and the convenient forgetting of where they came from and having some respect for it that gets on my tits. Some of these fuckers would sell their own kidneys to maintain their new found status. In fact scratch that, they’d sell their own children’s kidneys first. Too fucking selfish to sell their own. In fact ignore that too, they’d sell the kids.

It’s all well and good reminiscing about the good old days and how tough times were, and then in the next breath telling every fucker how they should be going organic when they should know fucking better.

The truth is your pseudo middle classes turn it on and off like a bastard tap depending on what company they’re in. They lord it over those of us who haven’t ticked the boxes of their [enunciate and punctuate with your fingers all you want dickhead] pseudo middle class blueprint. They can’t hide their glee can they, when it comes to indulging us in their favourite topic, themselves. There’s no holding ’em back from comparing themselves to the lad in the factory earning a fucking pittance. You see if you can stop them drawing the parallels of their successes against his. Not a chance, this is the pseudo’s chance to shine. And shine they will, basking in the warmth of the sun radiating from their own super shiny ring-pieces.

Of course it’s always been more difficult for them, they always had to work harder for their piece of the middle class pie. They did it against all odds and don’t we fucking know about it! It wasn’t like they has more opportunities than their 6-2, 2-10 counterparts was it? They just got on their bikes and made it happen.

So here they are, successful legends in their own lunchtimes and attempting to make you feel inadequate because you didn’t aspire to be a prick.

How very different the pseudo is when you stick him in the company of his adopted class. Suddenly the pseudo’s Mum wasn’t the pot cleaner at the local school who plated up left overs to bring home for the kids teas.

“How dare you, Mummy was helping out as a volunteer at the school in between charity events at the Woman’s Guild and took the food with the blessing of the school governors to give to the unfortunate kids on the council estate that their street wasn’t really a part of. A street that was at the bottom end of the estate and therefore wasn’t classed as council property”

Aye, that’d be right, draw for breath you selective memories prick.

What really happens is that they’re never really accepted by the genuine middle classes and then they end up forming a splinter group. A kind of hybrid of middle class meets working class, a cross breed or mongrel if you wish. A deformed Dolly the Sheep breed that has lumps and bumps in all the wrong places. Rejected from all sides and left to form a new identity that is adaptable to it’s surroundings. A social chameleon that shifts uncomfortably in it’s seat that it shouldn’t be really fucking sat in.

And that my dear friends is what is wrong with the our merry little country today. Nobody gives a fuck about anyone else and they are more than prepared to metamorphisize into whatever it takes to make them acceptable to their higher Gods.

The death of the working classes, orchestrated by that old fucker Thatcher. She employed the oldest trick in the book, conquer and divide, and we the clued up nation of idiots that we are fell for it. In a blinded haze we stood open mouthed and in awe of the prospect of owning our own homes and becoming middle class. Meanwhile Thatcher systematically disassembled the unions and privatised everything in sight. Worse still the moral fibre of the working class was irrevocably destroyed and consigned to history.

Thatcher, the woman responsible for beginning the unraveling of our tight knit communities. Miner against Miner, neighbour against neighbour, each person with one thing in mind. Me, me and me some more. Oh and one other thought, to stamp and shit over anyone else who gets in my way.

Some will say I’m looking at things through rose tinted glasses and I’ll concede they probably have a point. But consider these things:

Take a look in the street where you live. Do you know everyone in it? Do they know you? If you had to shoot off somewhere sharpish for an emergency is their anyone you could leave your kids with? Is everyone watching out for each other and making your street a safe place to live and your kids to play? Of course not, too self indulgent to give a fuck about anyone but themselves. Ask anyone of a certain age to name everyone in their road when they were growing up and they can. They can do it in Widescreen, Surround Sound, Sky-Plus , Touchstone Pictures Presents, Digital Quality accuracy. A true working class quality, community and togetherness.

When was the last time your street had a Bonfire Night were one family made the treacle toffee, one bought the potatoes for roasting and each family dragged a sofa out for the adults to sit on in-between taking turns in lighting the fireworks? There’s no sense of community and every sense of one-upmanship that leaves each one of us diametrically opposed.

Anyway I think I’ve made my point and I can feel myself getting increasingly pissed on the cheap wine that I bought from the local corner shop. A defiant but small gesture that reminds me of my roots. So I’ll sign off whilst I’m being quintessentially (put that word in your pipe pseudo) working class.

First published in The Mudhutter online e-zine, can't remember which one !!