I know my place

I don't suppose Lottery winners for example fit in anywhere really, they'd just be whatever 'class' they originally were - but rich!

and here I was thinking that if you work to earn a living you're working class....and thats just about everybody! The rest is a lot of pretentious nonsense,or as my late mother would have said ...folk who get on a wee bit and get carried awy and think it makes them better then even their parents ...and you know what? In a lot of cases she was absolutely right.If you need to depend on a wage then you're working class.Happy to say that its not a way of thinking that is the norm in Scotland ,this "class" thing is quite new to us and most of us dont accept it as fact

I did go to college with a young (english) woman who insisted she was middle class "because she had a washing machine and a freezer" lo and that was in the mid 80's when I returned to college in my [email protected] rest of us thought she was bonkers

in my 30's sorry keyboard issues

michell Mone had a fantastic career from her poor start BUT she forgot where she came from when she voted to take away £30 a week from the disabled ,thats not "class"

New affluent workers - These people are economically secure, without being well-off. This class group is sociable, has lots of cultural interests and sits in the middle of all the groups in terms of wealth. They're likely to come from working class backgrounds.

This seems to be the group that would cover the many so called 'rich' pensioners we keep hearing about. Economically secure because of their final salary pension, rose up higher up the earnings scale after the war and into the 60s and 70s when jobs that required some skills were well paid with the sociability that came from the background of their parents.

I certainly didn't read it as nouveau-riche as you did Annie but then, if you are concentrating on being another Hyacinth Bucket as you suggested, we might see things differently I suppose.

I am no Hyacinth Bucket GG, my sisters haven't room for a pony

paddyann I agree with you that anyone who has to go out to work rather than live on their investments/the profits arising out of the work of others is "working class".

To maintain a system in which some people sit back and reap the rewards of other people's effort, it is useful to encourage the notion of class. That way people are so busy comparing themselves to, competing with and distancing themselves from other workers that they won't notice much larger inequities.

I don't know where we fit in.

Why worry about fitting in, I don't

When I was younger I used to say that anybody who has to work for a living is working class and you were kidding yourself if you thought otherwise. Upper class was the aristocracy and middle class was anybody in between. I still think that to a large extent, but I'm not ashamed to be working class and never have been.

The only way I could become my version of middle class would be to win the lottery or inherit a lot of money. If that ever happened, my thoughts would be about sharing my good fortune, not paying that kind of money for a handbag. My family and friends would come first, then charity. Of course, I would make sure I would be comfortable for the rest of my life and never have to worry about money.

Mind you, some people buy these extremely expensive things not to say use, but as investments.