There ain't no party like a council house party!
The real disadvantage of growing up in a deprived area is not the poverty – although yes I appreciate that truly blows as well – but more than that it's the resignation of that being all there is to life. Shite job in a shite town that you'll never leave, nothing to ever inspire you, better you or expand your mind. I'm very thankful that my parents both left their deprived home towns to join the army. Not only did that cause them to meet but it also opened them to the wider world.

But best of all, coming from where they did it meant that I was raised with no concept of the class society, never thinking anyone else was better/worse than me. When the family left the army I felt no shame in moving into a council house until we settled and my parents were ready to buy a house. I just didn't get what it was to be "common".

That all changed years later innocuously enough when I was in the pub after work with a bunch of mates in St Andrews. Now St Andrews is a very weird place. There's a lot of wealth owing to the university and the golf courses but other than that it's just like any other poor, slightly rural Fife town. So coming back from the bar with a round of drinks and a large packet of crisps I do something that evokes a classic line from my mate Davie that sends one of the girls at our table into a fit of tears fizzling over a fearsome wave of anger and resentment.

Turns out her family were not the wealthiest and lived in a council house when she was growing up. Away from the down to earth upbringing I'd enjoyed, she on the other hand had endured much torment from other kids growing up in this affluent little town. After she explained what she had to go through I understood how the class system is still at work in this country, poisoning people by lacing their opinions with prejudice against people deemed a bit "common". I apologised to her most sincerely and came away from the situation feeling better as I do from most situations where I'm able to understand the point of view of someone else.

But I still say it was a bloody funny line from Davie who stated after I handed out the drinks and split the bag of crisps open to share among the whole table, "Wahey! We've got ourselves a proper fucking council house party here."
( djtrialprice, Thu 16 Oct 2008, 17:28, Reply)