The Communist Manifesto
As regular readers of my posts will know, when I was younger, my family was poor. Not poor as in short of a bit of bob but Poor. Poor as in no money at all. Poor as in my mum giving up food so me and my bro could eat. Poor as in the Department of Education giving us vouchers for clothes so that we would look decent-ish at school. Poor as in my mum pretending to play hide and seek with us when the baliffs came round.

Our (black and white - in the 80s) TV was donated by my grandad, and the stereo was a christmas present from my mum to all of us. They were our only luxuries.

But, if there was one thing we weren't, it was that we were not common.

Not being common meant:

Using the back, not the front door to the house (a routine that still exists).
Watching BBC and Channel 4 instead of ITV.
Eating at the table.
Shoes off when you entered the house.
It wasn't a coalhouse (yes, we had a coalhouse!), it was a storeroom.
Never having the 'big light' on - using the lamp instead.
Toys were educational.
Going to Sunday School.
Working hard at everything at school - because common folk just did the minimum.

So despite the fact that the main constituent of the family diet was potatoes; that we didn't have carpets, or central heading, or a shower, or a car, or holidays abroad; that our clothes had to be so worn you could read through them before you got new ones; that my haircut was the one done by your mum in the front room in front of the Antiques Roadshow on a Sunday night...

We were not common.

I am very proud of this fact.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Thu 16 Oct 2008, 21:26, 4 replies)

You should be proud of your mum too.
It would have been easier to let her standards drop and blame it on having no money.
The fact that you can have a struggle like that and still hold your head high deserves a click.
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Thu 16 Oct 2008, 21:50, closed)

I feel like a less extreme version of this
My mum claimed income support and we listened to radio 4.
( rhebus ac201fd270c3b96beab24f2829780ab2, Thu 16 Oct 2008, 23:17, closed)

Spot on.
Are you my brother?

K who lives in M?
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 10:35, closed)

We were all poor in my family
We were all poor in my family, I was poor, our gardener was poor, our cook was poor ...
(karnuvap, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 16:56, closed)