How do you define someone as common?

Marianne Faithfull was a convent girl!

I joined my English secondary school in the 4th year and it was a girls school being merged with a mixed secondary modern school. Only the 1st year and 6th form were amalgamated, all the other years were kept separate. I was in the girls school wearing a uniform and the other school did not. I'd always worn a school uniform before, but I was so glad that the uniform rules had been relaxed and I didn't have to wear the daft hat, the indoor knickers over my own(!), and indoor shoes to reduce the noise in the corridors. The teachers nearly had kittens trying to keep 'their girls' away from the 'others'.

I cannot remember my mother or grandmothers ever describing a person or habit as common, although I heard others using it. There were things that one did or didn't do but it was a case of good and bad manners. Eating in the street; that was seen as bad mannered, but the individuals that did it were not themselves castigated for it.

Four of the ten schools I went to were convent schools

SpringyChicken you mean to say women went into betting shops? faints. My Dad would put a little bet on the Grand National for me and I would never have had the courage to do it myself!

I don't think Donald Trump is common. He's not 'right' though. I don't think Meghan Markle is common either (that's never even crossed my mind).

I think a lot of reality show celebrities are common as muck though.

Daddima I love Girvan! I miss the Chip Inn for a white pudding supper to eat on the beach watching the sunset. I'll probably be there next month or a bit later in the year. And I lived on the east coast which has brilliant beaches, but it can be so cold. And of course, the west coast gets the famous Gulf stream - just not very often when we were there!

I too was a convent girl and can relate to the no eating in public rule, the hat and gloves on when in uniform outside (white gloves in summer, navy in winter). And absolutely no cavorting with boys while in school uniform, very unseemly. Our school careers advice, such as it was, largely amounted to warning us off becoming shop assistants or hairdressers, both considered very common . Far more suitable were teaching or nursing. (Or better still, entering the convent!)
My mother had a thing about pierced ears, thought they were dreadfully common. As was wearing lots of makeup (particularly bright red lipstick), having bleached hair, going into public houses unaccompanied by a man. Oh, and I was never allowed to wear the rubber 'jelly' shoes because they were terribly common and people would think we couldn't afford proper shoes

Jalima that was Dustin Black and he's married to Tom Daley which is why he lives in the UK. I really liked him, but he is a bit of a Hollywood lovey. He's a director/producer and an Oscar winning screenwriter.

Well, I had no idea, I didn't recognise the name at all! He was quite a lovey, but very good - it was just the use of the word 'beautiful' to describe something abstract, which Trump does too.
So - he's married to 'our Tom from Plymouth', I didn't know.

and btw did we all go to the same nun run school with an 11 th commandment of ‘thou wilst never, ever remove your school hat/beret whilst travelling to and from school’?
no, mine was a girls' grammar school - the convent girls did have rather a reputation though.

Did anyone else have to wear the panama hat in the summer which went all wrinkly when it rained?

I always got the feeling that the state of someone's washing had something to do with being common or not.
The ideal was a line full of snowy white nappies on the line by 7am, and the baby bathed and outside, well wrapped up, in the pram.

Oh yes.
I never managed it, they were probably still slopping around in the Napisan bucket at 7 am.

Oh, and also peoples net curtains and door steps.

Is it possible that rather than ‘common’ a lot of the hates on here would be referred to as ‘chavvy’ by the younger generation? More a change in language than attitudes. But that would cover such things as feeding your children fast food or effing and blinding in the street.
Mine wasn’t a convent school, but a girls’grammar. Yet eating and drinking in the street in uniform was not allowed and hat detentions (wearing your hat in school all day) were handed out if you were caught without this essential item between home and school. And they call it the Swinging Sixties.?

My mother was really judgemental, practically everything and everyone was common. Peirced ears, being catholic! smoking/eating in the street, chewing gum, tattoos, too much make up the list is endless. Here is one her favourite sayings “whistling women, a crowing hen frightened the devil out of his den” I thought it was mainly an older generational thing until one day while visiting my very modern sister in law she said she thought her new neighbours were common because she hung her knicker crutch facing out on the washing line. Honestly

I saw a bride arriving at the church a few weeks ago. She looked beautiful from the front. As she walked past there was a lovely view of the back, scooped nice and low to show off her full back tattoo. I really do appreciate that tattoo's can be thought of as art but I thought it looked terrible. That would most probably be my idea of common. I was a bit disappointed, I love to see a beautiful bride

I was not allowed to take my school hat off as I walked the mile from the school bus just so everyone could see I was the only girl in the village who had passed her 11+ but that was my mum - noone from school would have seen me in our out of the way village.

Sounds like we went to the same school Wilma I remember the indoor shoes & knickers also wrap round games skirts along with striped blazers and big hats.
One advantage to it being a boarding school was the cocoa and buns we had at break time in the winter before being forced outside whatever the weather.
Why so many schools MOnica or shouldn't I ask.

Mine was a girls’ independent school, but the rules about hats, eating and so on were exactly the same as the ones you convent girls mention.

Like M0nica, I never heard the word ‘common’ used either at home or school. I read it in books and have heard it more often since I grew up. I knew from an early age what was and wasn’t considered socially acceptable, though. We just didn’t use that word.

As regards Betting shops- definitely not common for my family. In fact a little bet was my gran's favourite past time. She studied form and betting shops were a bonus. Before that she relied on the little man who stood next to her back gate and to whom she passed hers and her friends bets. Every now and then he would disappear for a bit when he was arrested because off-course betting was illegal. He was known as a bookie's runner. (does this mean my family is common?)

noone from school would have seen me in our out of the way village.
kitty teachers (or rather 'mistresses') were like mothers - they had eyes in the back of their heads.

does this mean my family is common? Oh definitely trisher - I don't think I would have been allowed to play with you

Apologies to all the convent 'gals' on here - I am sure you were all perfectly behaved - it was just the ones in our town who had the reputation of 'going off the rails' when let out of school

#footinit

My uncle used to bet on the 'gee-gees'
My mother used to scold him when he called round on a Saturday lunch-time after work. I can still remember him shifting from foot to foot in front of the fireplace as mum (gently) scolded her 'little brother' - "you've been wasting your money on the gee-gees again, haven't you'.

But, being a man, it was not common.

Aww Bathsheba I'm so sad My gran was a Catholic and all the priests liked a bet as well. Can priests be common?

I remember a priest egging me on once on the arcade machines in Ireland, never met him before but he must have been lucky because I won a fiver (a lot in those days).

ChristineFrance My DF was in the army, so we were constantly on the move. This is why army children still are usually sent to boarding school at 11. Mind you 10 schools does not compare with the 21 'permanent' home addresses in my first 21 years when he retired.

I am not sure how or why convent girls got this reputation for wildness. There were some, but no more than in any other school. Unreasonable expectations that we would some how be patterns of virtue, I assume.