Tale guide

I think I might be lower class

In 1965, at the impressionable age of 15, I so identified with Rex Harrison who, at the time, told his close friend Pickering, that “I'm an ordinary man, who desires nothing more than an ordinary chance, to live exactly as he likes, and do precisely what he wants...”

It wasn’t so much the lyrics of the never to be forgotten song, but the way he enunciated them whilst in his immaculate home with its polished floors and sweeping staircase not to mention the entire gentleman upper class image he portrayed so very well. Oh yes, that was my cuppa tea.

I had reason to reflect again on the subject, upon reading an article in the London Daily Mail recently, that set out to explain the differences between upper class and lower class.

The list of obvious differences is too extensive to replicate but the notable ones were that the upper class is distinguishable by a simple doorbell, ordinary loo water, plain white toilet rolls and pours milk in after the tea and coffee. In contrast the lower class uses a chimed doorbell, bright blue loo water, floral or quilted poo paper and pours milk first in tea and coffee.

In terms of greetings, the upper class will greet “How do you do?” with a single strong handshake while the Lower class will say “Hiya,” with a two-handed clasped handshake and, (God forbid), a hug! As far as a gentleman greeting a lady is concerned, a brief brush of her hand with his lips would be appropriate while the lower-class fellow will give the woman a wet kiss on each cheek.

We are told that upper class people like Labradors, Corgis and King Charles Spaniels while lower class folk prefer Bull Terriers, Rottweilers and Dobermans.

Every attempt was indubitably made to raise me as a member of the upper class, starting with the story that being a Phillips from Cornwall, I was certainly from a long line of Spanish Kings who went by the name of Philip., pronounced ‘Phileep’. My direct ancestor was allegedly washed up on the Cornish coast, after being shipwrecked in the great Amada, changed his name to Phillips and started life as a smuggler. (According to Mother).

Given that my father’s lineage were craftsmen specialising in repairing, tuning, and selling grand pianos, by appointment to the Queens and Kings, they must have fallen into the middle-class classification, (not too up and not too down!). My mother’s origins were however, kept rather quiet, leaving me to suspect that she, having received a fine education, was able to slip into the role of lady of the house with aplomb. But encouraged by my father's occassional mischievous reference to us being hoi paloi, she ran all our lives a tad above our station.

So, I started off life being solely cared for by a French nanny and was later sent off to a private school for diplomats and gentlemen. Something went wrong as I strove to escape from that way of life at the earliest opportunity and signed up to be a policeman, very lower class, particularly in South Africa at the time.

But while having been unable to shake the trappings of sophistication, my years on the highways and byways have tempered and shaped me into someone different. Like any true African, I’ll hug my male friends, kiss my girl friends (of which there are a great many), and eat both chicken and fish with my hands, preferably off a smoky braai. And when circumstances dictate, I am comfortably able to turn on the charm and decorum of a proper English gentleman except perhaps the occasional lapse into an Afrikaans “ja,” and a reasonable impression of an African news reader.

I like blue loo water and plain white poo paper. I’ll pour milk into me coffee last and my tea first. I will hug and kiss virtually anyone. I am most at home in shorts and takkies, but I prefer drinking my beer out of a decent glass.

I enjoy taking a 4x4 over rough and muddy roads to deserted fishing spots on the wild coast and not much struck on a Rolls Royce on the highway.

I will occasionally drink a lot too much but only amongst my closest mates and burst into song with a decidedly atrocious singing voice. I am greatly amused by the equally senile or infantile antics of the very same mates under the very same circumstances made worse by the fact that we are almost all septuagenarians and according to our wives, should know better!

So, I guess I’m lower class and quite relieved it never worked out the other way around.