Reginald D Hunter On Social Class in Britain
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00:00What a beautiful sight.
00:03In this series, some of Britain's favourite stars
00:06explore uniquely British obsessions, from weather...
00:09We love to love it, but we love to hate it as well, darling. Yeah.
00:12..to pets...
00:13That's a nice-looking python, actually. She's very handsome.
00:16..World War II...
00:17Never underestimate the Home Guards. They knew what they were doing.
00:20..to class...
00:21Capitalism requires a lot of poor people for it to work.
00:24It requires a lot of poor people to keep buying s***.
00:26..and pubs...
00:27Oh, God bless beer.
00:28..to humour...
00:30Probably my favourite German joke is...
00:37This bunch of borderline national treasures
00:40will guide you through the history of these British preoccupations.
00:43Now, you're probably wondering why I've brought you all here.
00:46To try to understand why, even after all these years,
00:50we're still so obsessed by them.
00:52What's the first thing that comes into your mind
00:54when you think of the word pub?
00:56Don't you like the unpredictability of the weather?
00:58Would you open my mind towards maritime history?
01:01Is it a thing peculiar to the British?
01:04This is Britain's Greatest Obsessions.
01:11Hi, there. Reginald D Hunter here,
01:14and today I'm looking into something the British are obsessed with,
01:18and that is class.
01:20With a bit of royalty thrown in.
01:23I'm a stand-up comedian
01:25and have adopted the UK as my home for almost 25 years.
01:29And class always seems a hot topic and a great British obsession.
01:33And I want to know why.
01:35Maybe it's time for a revolution. Who knows?
01:39We had one of those across the pond a couple of hundred years ago,
01:42and things haven't worked out so bad.
01:45I say that, but then again.
01:49With the help of some experts,
01:51I want to find out more about this obsession.
01:54And with these folks, get a discussion going about what class means to them
01:58and why they think Britain is so obsessed about it.
02:01What type of British person will I meet today?
02:03An accountant? Or an angry communist?
02:08But first, here's a little something I've noticed with you guys when it comes to class.
02:12I was asked in an interview once,
02:14there seems to be one word you can call black people that will upset them.
02:17She says, but in this country,
02:19what one term can you call white people that will upset them?
02:22And I said, middle class.
02:26Y'all lose your **** when y'all get called middle class.
02:28Especially if you come from working class.
02:30I'm not. My father worked in a factory.
02:32See, it's very divisive, isn't it?
02:34Absolutely.
02:36Very true.
02:37Why are we still defining ourselves by these terms?
02:40And why does it matter so much?
02:42What is it about this obsession about class
02:45that it still matters even to this day?
02:49To help me find out why it matters so much to the British,
02:52I got to hang out with legendary comedian Alexei Sayle.
02:56He came up through the alternative comedy scene in the 80s
03:00and is known for his riffs on society and politics,
03:03often referencing his early roots in communism.
03:05It was one of the central planks of the communist Soviet system
03:09that all industries and all farms were run as cooperatives.
03:13Everybody knows the co-ops, don't they?
03:18Hey.
03:19Oh.
03:21What do I call you, Mr Sayle?
03:30Well, as soon as we're inquiring into class,
03:32perhaps we could refer to each other as comrade,
03:35because that would remove all status.
03:37Comrade.
03:38We're immediately freeing ourselves
03:40from a wealth of oppressive class forces.
03:42Wow.
03:43Or not.
03:44Let's do it. Comrade Sayle, comrade Hunter.
03:46Now, you immediately are removing a lot of the titles
03:49that I've used all my life, that I've relied on.
03:52Sir, ma'am.
03:53Yeah. You feel free?
03:55I see the logic, but I'm from the Deep South
03:58and we get off on deference.
04:00LAUGHTER
04:02Wow.
04:03One of the things that people think about Britain
04:05is that there are these minute gradations of class.
04:08I'm middle class because I've got a flat-screen telly.
04:11What Marx said, essentially, was there are only three classes.
04:14There's the people who own everything, the bourgeoisie,
04:16the ruling class.
04:17There are the petty bourgeoisie,
04:18those who own their own means of production,
04:20which is me and you, and sell them to the highest bidder.
04:23And then there's the working class,
04:25the people who make everything, essentially,
04:27the people who, you know, are responsible for creating all wealth.
04:31Everything else, when people talk about class,
04:33what they're in fact talking about, I think, is caste.
04:37They're talking about minor gradations of, you know,
04:41of allegiance, of social definition, of tribal definition.
04:45It's not class.
04:52I look down on him because I am upper class.
04:56I look up to him because he is upper class.
05:00But I look down on him because he is lower class.
05:04I am middle class.
05:06I know my place.
05:08LAUGHTER
05:09The idea of the people splitting themselves off into different classes
05:13is a way to get people to co-operate in their own oppression.
05:16But if you just see it as caste,
05:18if you see it as just kind of tribalism,
05:20and you understand that the only thing that really matters
05:23is people's economic relationship with society.
05:27You either work for a living or you employ people.
05:30That's all there is.
05:31And then that provides a clarity, really.
05:33My sister told me once, she said, in the late 60s,
05:36she said, we were allowed to win the moral war.
05:39Yeah.
05:40And in that time, they've amassed so much money
05:42that they've come back for everything they left the first time.
05:45Yeah, I think that is exactly it.
05:47They left for a while.
05:48They left us a few areas where they're, you know,
05:51where we could, you know, kind of pretend that we had some control.
05:55And then they just decided, no, we're having that...
05:58LAUGHTER
06:00This is a...
06:01We're class bears pretending they're free.
06:07I think land ownership is one of the pillars of the class system.
06:12If we could just call Mr Bessos and say,
06:14you know, sending all these people up in space,
06:17would you come and buy all our common land back?
06:19And the reason that I'm speaking so grievously about this
06:22is that I need land as a conservationist to do my work.
06:25But who would own it under your system?
06:28We don't have that option because, frankly,
06:30I'm not up for a bloody revolution because, you know, we don't...
06:34That sort of turmoil would be disastrous,
06:36particularly at this point in time.
06:40So, Comrade. Comrade, yes.
06:43Where do you see things going?
06:45Like, the state of class now,
06:47does this period resemble any other period you've studied in history?
06:52No, I mean, it's...
06:54It's hard to know, really.
06:56It's very difficult to predict the future.
06:58I mean, certainly what I've seen is that, you know,
07:00revolutionary politics are themselves very problematic, you know,
07:04and whether you can bring about a new world
07:06through violent revolution is, you know, is a complex question.
07:11You can do that, but it just seems to me, history points out
07:14that when you try to use violence
07:16against the oppressor or the bourgeois or whoever,
07:18their guns are always longer.
07:20Yeah.
07:21Or the only way that you can really be successful
07:23is to become them, really.
07:25You know, I mean, capitalism does provide us
07:27with some amazing things, doesn't it?
07:29It's like a church with little eagles on it, you know.
07:32But on the other hand, it's destroying the planet, you know.
07:34Well, one, it destroys the planet,
07:36but also capitalism depends on a sense of permanent dissatisfaction
07:41because you've got to think, you know,
07:44this T-shirt with the eagle on it, fuck, I'm going to...
07:47You know, it's last year's.
07:48Capitalism requires a lot of poor people for it to work.
07:51It requires a lot of poor people to keep buying s***, really, as well,
07:54and to be permanently dissatisfied with the s*** they've got, really.
07:58One of the things I'm putting my hope in
08:00is a kind of post-apocalyptic dystopia.
08:03You know, kind of walking dead kind of situation.
08:06Where we're all living underground
08:07and fighting each other for a can of tuna fish.
08:09That's one way to go.
08:10Or it might be that we will find new ways
08:13to co-operate with each other and love each other.
08:16Comrade, I hope I get to spend some more time with you down the line.
08:19That would be brilliant, yeah. Thank you.
08:22LAUGHTER
08:26Working class dance, just...
08:30The worst thing to be is middle class. That's right.
08:33Because there's no dignity in it, you're not highborn.
08:37George Orwell had this idea that the upper class
08:39and the working class have more in common.
08:41They like shooting things. Yeah.
08:43Really plain food.
08:45Cardigans with holes in them.
08:47Thrifty, yeah. Thrifty.
08:49There's really no moral responsibility to anybody else.
08:54I have got innate breeding, but I have not got any money.
08:58So sometimes I look up to him.
09:01I still look up to him, because although I have money,
09:05I am vulgar.
09:09But I am not as vulgar as him.
09:12So I still look down on him.
09:15I know my place.
09:19Working class, middle class, what's the difference?
09:23Some have argued it's the evolution of capitalism
09:26and the emergence in the 20th century
09:28of the new wealth creators and entrepreneurs.
09:31It's enabled consumer products and brands
09:34to become the status symbols of our era.
09:37To find out more, I'm going to meet historian Robert Opie
09:41at the Brands Museum.
09:43He's spent his life collecting things we surround ourselves with
09:46that shape and define us.
09:49Let's get Rob's take on this.
09:51Mr Opie. Do you call me Robert?
10:00Can I call you Reg? Yes, sir. Brilliant.
10:02You know I might call you sir every now and again.
10:04It's a habit from the South.
10:06I understand you have some things to show us today.
10:08Yeah, this is our time tunnel.
10:11And we're going to go for a glorious adventure.
10:13OK. You up for that? I like glorious.
10:15Ah, brilliant. Let's do glorious.
10:17OK.
10:21Welcome to the Victorian era.
10:25Based on what I know, Queen Victoria, she governed over a boom.
10:28You're right, this is a moment of terrific change.
10:31The middle class was actually a burgeoning new phenomenon.
10:37Now all these products were being packaged for the first time.
10:40Sir, am I to understand it's the beginning of the establishment
10:43of the class system as we know it today?
10:45It wasn't the beginning, but it was the moment when
10:48suddenly things became kind of crystallised.
10:51Suddenly life was worth living, not just for the upper classes,
10:55but for the middle classes and perhaps the working classes as well.
10:59I remember the other day I was on the train and I bought a sandwich.
11:02I mean, I had bread, I had cheese, I had ham, I had tomato and cucumber
11:07and it still tasted like nothing.
11:09How is it possible to have all of those ingredients and it tastes like nothing?
11:13Oh, dear.
11:15Reg, look at this.
11:17OK, what era are we in?
11:19We're in the 1930s.
11:21Rolo's was in the 1930s?
11:23It was, absolutely.
11:24I thought that was the 70s invention.
11:26Kit Kat was in the 30s?
11:27Yes.
11:28What?
11:29Yes.
11:30But Kit Kat's American, isn't it?
11:32No, no.
11:33No.
11:34Very British.
11:35You see, we all think that those brands that we love are produced for us.
11:41Well, I see myself the partaker of generational arrogance.
11:45A lot of these sweets cost tuppence.
11:47Now, that was affordable, so the king sitting on his throne
11:51could obviously buy whatever he wanted.
11:54But you as a child in the 30s could buy something that the king could afford
11:59and that somehow makes you feel much more equal.
12:02In fact, in many ways, you might think that it did more of a levelling effect
12:06on society than even Karl Marx would have done.
12:10Now, in the 50s, we were all getting a bit more affluent.
12:14So, in a sense, the class system is disintegrating.
12:18Well, I think many would say today that the elimination of the middle class
12:22is just leaving to making it seem like there's less, more of a class system.
12:26Some would say that.
12:28Others then wouldn't, presumably.
12:30Yes, yes. Others would say something very different.
12:33So was it really the consumer boom of 1950s Britain
12:37driving middle class prosperity,
12:39which made people think class barriers were coming down
12:42when, in fact, they were as sturdy as ever?
12:45I'll have to keep going to find out.
12:47Sir, thank you, and I hope you don't mind me coming back to visit another time.
12:51Please do.
12:52Mr Robert, another time.
12:54Cheers.
13:01I certainly think that being working class and coming from
13:04the gorgles of the east end of Glasgow has held me back.
13:07Or I've held myself back.
13:09It's given me... It's made me sort of fight.
13:12When I was told I'd never make it because of my accent,
13:15it actually made me go and do something about it.
13:18I went and got another job somewhere else,
13:20which was fantastic and has worked out incredibly well.
13:23But I hold myself back.
13:25I think we're constrained, you know?
13:27There's some things I won't go to because I think, oh, I can't do that.
13:32It seems that the fight for equality in the early 20th century
13:35was all about championing and liberating the working classes.
13:39Why, then, was it the middle classes which seemed to come out on top?
13:44I'm going to the People's History Museum in Manchester to find out.
13:50Miss Jenny, head of collections, People's History Museum.
13:53I think you're supposed to be my guide today.
13:55I am. Welcome.
13:56MUSIC PLAYS
14:02Let's have a look round. Lead, now follow.
14:04Jenny is going to show me how class has affected British attitudes
14:08and behaviours over the past 200 years,
14:11which was after us troublesome Americans had already revolted.
14:15So I thought it was all plain sailing over here.
14:18So we start here at the very start of the 19th century.
14:21Very, very few people had the right to vote.
14:24They were generally just really wealthy landowners.
14:27Here you see the Peterloo Massacre of 1819.
14:3060,000 people who had no representation
14:33came together in the centre of Manchester,
14:36not far from this museum, to demand representation.
14:39The authorities were scared, fearful, and the cavalry were called in
14:43and indiscriminately chopping their swords.
14:46Women, children, men were killed.
14:48So in 1832, there was what was called the Great Reform Act.
14:52So people thought, amazing, we've got the vote.
14:55Then they read the small print.
14:57How many percent do you think could vote following the Great Reform Act?
15:0180.
15:02Eight. What? Only 8% could vote.
15:05The kind of fallout from the 1832 Reform Act
15:08is what gave rise to the Chartist movement.
15:11So the Chartist movement was really a working-class movement
15:14and it was demanding the vote for working men.
15:17They put together a list of six demands, which we've got them up here.
15:21At their time, the Chartists were unsuccessful.
15:24But of the six, how many are part of our democracy today?
15:27All six.
15:28All but one.
15:29Oh, which one?
15:31The bottom one, annual election of Parliament.
15:33Wow. You look through history,
15:35when the powers that be have to give over some power,
15:38then they often make rules that come from their group.
15:42Like, you know, well, you have to own land.
15:44If you don't own land, you can't vote.
15:46Well, how do you own land if you're poor?
15:48I mean, they did that to poor black people after slavery.
15:51It's like Martin Luther King said, power concedes nothing.
15:54Yeah, exactly, and that's what you see through the Reform Acts from 1832.
15:59Still no women had the right to vote.
16:01So that's the, you know, it's gone from it being a property qualification
16:06to then being about women.
16:08But it also said that it's from the middle classes
16:11that your revolutionaries come from.
16:13Yeah.
16:14It's your Miles Davises, your Che Guevara's, your Martin Luther Kings.
16:17They all come from middle-class families.
16:19The Clash.
16:23When punk started, it was middle-class kids.
16:25It was only the working-class punk that came in with bands like Chelsea
16:29and The Lurkers and those sorts of things.
16:31Everyone thought that the punk was a working-class movement.
16:34It wasn't initially. It became partly that, didn't it?
16:37Thank you there, Miss Jenny.
16:39When people think of the women's suffragette movement in Britain,
16:43we often think that it's a middle-class woman's movement
16:46that started in London.
16:47Yeah.
16:48Why is that?
16:49Maybe it's something to do with the South always getting the attention.
16:52I don't know.
16:53But this banner really centrally disproves that,
16:56because this banner you can see in front of you,
16:58you'll see it says Women's Social and Political Union,
17:01Manchester, first in the fight.
17:04It had a lot of working-class women in there.
17:07Many of the leadership were actually middle-class.
17:10But Hannah Mitchell, she was a working-class woman
17:12that was involved in this movement.
17:14And lots of hidden working-class women as well,
17:16who we don't hear about because they didn't have time to write memoirs.
17:20They weren't named.
17:21Often working-class histories are raised,
17:23and it's no different in their involvement in the suffrage movement.
17:27And tell me more about Hannah.
17:29She was born into a poor family,
17:31and so she just really saw first-hand
17:33the gender difference in the home environment.
17:35And I think that probably from a young age
17:37really instilled into her that there needed to be change.
17:41She met her husband, Gibbon Mitchell.
17:43He was a socialist, and, you know, I think she thought,
17:46great, he's someone that will really champion feminist causes.
17:49But as she discovered, even if you were married to a socialist,
17:53you still had to have dinner and tea on the table.
17:55It wasn't this utopian feminist life.
17:58And this banner here, you probably don't allow
18:00a whole lot of people to be touching on it, do you?
18:02Absolutely not.
18:03Our conservator, Chloe, would definitely not allow that.
18:06Maybe Chloe can come and tell you a little bit about the banner.
18:09The main thing about this that you can see immediately
18:13is this round hand staining on the top two corners
18:17and all the way down the side,
18:19and that's where people would have sort of held on to it.
18:21You can just sort of feel everybody's hand touching this.
18:24That's exactly what I was going to say.
18:26Like, a lot of the working-class women that were involved in the movement,
18:29we might not even know their names,
18:31but their fingerprints are probably on the side of that banner.
18:34It took me years of living here to associate accent with class.
18:38It's really interesting that you say that,
18:40cos there's only people on the outside
18:42who just think we all speak more or less the same, but we don't.
18:46I mean, when I first started...
18:48Being in the 80s, I got a job at the BBC, BBC Scotland,
18:52and the boss of BBC Scotland,
18:54after I'd been there for about six months, working my arse off,
18:57thinking, yay, they're going to put me on the telly!
18:59It's so interesting.
19:00No, he actually looked me in the eye and he said,
19:02you will never make it in television with that accent.
19:04You're going to have to go to elocution lessons.
19:07We remember this, elocution lessons, right?
19:09I didn't, obviously.
19:10Was there ever, in America, I mean,
19:12is there anything that relates to elocution lessons?
19:14I don't even know what the word elocution flipping means,
19:17but I can remember people having to go to elocution lessons
19:20to get on the BBC.
19:22My generation of America, that wasn't a common thing.
19:25I do remember growing up in the Deep South,
19:28being able to have your white voice
19:30whenever you are interviewing or dealing with the police.
19:34You need to have your white voice,
19:36and you just instinctually learn how to do that.
19:39Now we'll go on to our first exercise in our series.
19:43Ready? Commence.
19:45We use our word tongues, we do.
19:50The truth is that, even today, we are all judged by our accents,
19:54but is there really still a correct way to talk,
19:57a proper English, or even Queen's English?
20:00Will you, the youth of the British family of nations,
20:04let me speak on my birthday as your representative?
20:08Hey! Rob. How you doing, baby?
20:11All right, good? All right, all right.
20:19Can accent tell us anything about class?
20:22There's a really strong link between social class and accent.
20:25How it's put in kind of textbooks,
20:27the lower down the social scale, the broader the regional variation.
20:31Or put it the other way, posh people will sound the same
20:34no matter where they're from.
20:36Because, of course, if this is the way of speaking
20:39that's used in politics, in the legal profession,
20:42in private schools, all of these things,
20:44then that becomes the kind of prestige model,
20:46and other people going through that system,
20:48they're all going to end up with the same accent.
20:50Hopefully, things are changing.
20:52Rob, can I ask you something? Of course.
20:54Something that's been bugging me for years.
20:56You know when you watch old BBC films,
20:58like in the 40s and 30s and 40s,
21:00London, Flash.
21:02Did English people really used to talk like that?
21:04And if they did, when did they stop and start talking like this?
21:07Fighter pilots from England today saw the Germans
21:10defending their Oder Front against the advancing Red Army.
21:14The Americans were escorting over 1,000 fortresses...
21:18That kind of what's called received pronunciation
21:21is no better than any other way of speaking,
21:23but because it was tied to the people who had the power,
21:26it got prestige because of that.
21:29So that was not primarily the way everyone spoke at the time.
21:32That's what the BBC chose.
21:34That's what the BBC chose, and then it gains this kind of,
21:36like I say, this status and power,
21:38as if that's the best way of speaking,
21:40and of course it's not.
21:42I mean, it's interesting how it has changed,
21:44because in the 70s, watching TV,
21:46the only voices you would hear would be the received pronunciation.
21:50They called it the Queen's English.
21:52Well, the only person who speaks the Queen's English is the Queen.
21:55I mean, no-one I've ever met speaks like that, really.
21:58But now it's gone the other way,
22:00so you never hear received pronunciation.
22:02Very rarely. Very rarely.
22:04And I'll be honest, I kind of miss it.
22:06Do you? I miss it, yeah. Why?
22:08I don't want to hear someone saying,
22:10Oh, and now, Channel 4, you know what we've got coming up?
22:13No offence, Suggs.
22:17But you're right, there are some accents.
22:19I just think it's just nice sometimes to hear someone speak nicely.
22:22But I do miss the accents.
22:24Certainly in the South East, what we now call Estuary,
22:27everyone's just a bit like that, you know, a bit like that.
22:30But that sort of blurring of the accent
22:32seems to be spreading right across the South East,
22:35which is a bit boring, I think, yeah.
22:37Well, accent diversity is alive and well in Manchester,
22:41where Rob records and studies the different dialects in the region,
22:45and where I get an exclusive peek behind the scenes.
22:48Hello. I'm going to ask you a few questions about you,
22:52about where you live and about how you speak.
22:55Tell me a bit about where you do it.
22:57I'm a proper, proper money man.
22:59We call Manchester money, so I'm a proper money man.
23:01I've been all over.
23:02Normally, this would be behind closed doors,
23:05but Rob and these kind folks here have let me listen in,
23:08and there's a range of wonderful British accents on display.
23:11I feel like there's quite, like, a divide
23:13from, like, North Manchester to South Manchester.
23:16You've got everybody here, Iranian, Algerian.
23:19Half of North Africa's here, for fun.
23:21Some people don't take me seriously,
23:23but I feel like I come across, like, a bit more friendly.
23:26If I was blindfolded, I would know which part of Manchester I'm in
23:30every time, just by accents.
23:32Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much.
23:34All right, guys. That's great, CJ.
23:36You're a money guy. Come check CJ, righty, you know what I mean?
23:39We're on it. Always be here for you guys.
23:41I think I became aware of it was my mum answering the telephone
23:46and her putting on a posher accent. A fun voice.
23:49You know, I'm middle class, you know, grew up in rural Kent,
23:52and when I started on the comedy circuit,
23:54that was the last thing they wanted to hear.
23:56You know, you had to... And I roughed it up. I roughed my...
23:59Did you? Yeah. I mean, I wasn't posh.
24:01Go on. How do they sound? Come on.
24:03Never take them off on a candlelit dinner.
24:05No, I'd never do it quite like that, but it was a subtle thing.
24:09Women get criticised for the way they speak more than men do.
24:12People of colour get criticised more than white people.
24:15The Speaker of the House of Commons, he has a really Chorley accent,
24:18I think he's from Chorley, and you often see it as a good thing.
24:21It's nice, it's kind of democratising the whole process.
24:23So there's just different pronunciations,
24:25but because that one pronunciation is seen as prestigious and correct,
24:30that's the one that everybody is judged against,
24:33and it's completely unfair.
24:35I feel like I'm changing listening to this.
24:38I've misjudged people all these years.
24:40Criticism about the way somebody speaks
24:43is almost always about more than language.
24:46Thank you, Rob. That's beautiful, mate. That's great. Thanks.
24:52From the way we work, to the products we buy, to how we speak,
24:57class seems to still be a factor in so many areas of British life.
25:02We all know our place, but what do we get out of it?
25:05I get a feeling of superiority over them.
25:08I get a feeling of inferiority from him,
25:12but a feeling of superiority over him.
25:15I get a pain from him.
25:19I get a pain in the back of my neck.
25:24I remember when I first got in the country
25:26and I was going to acting school,
25:28one of the things that they used to often say,
25:30nobody's more royal than the king's butler.
25:32Yeah.
25:34And it's the people who aspire to a certain level that...
25:37Well, that's the problem.
25:39I mean, this is why we have a class system, I believe,
25:42is because we have a monarchy.
25:44You know, it's so ingrained,
25:46because everyone is constantly, you know,
25:48craven to this idea of the, you know, lord of the manor,
25:51or the, you know, who's then answering to the...
25:54Bettering yourself. Yeah.
25:56You know, doffing the cap.
25:58But is the working-class aspiration to better themselves sufficient
26:02to break the mould, or not enough?
26:04I made myself get into Downton Abbey for a bit
26:06just to see what the hub was about.
26:08And by the second or third series, I thought to myself,
26:11it seems that this series is saying that it is just as much,
26:15if not more so, the servant working class
26:18that are the upholders of class division
26:21than it is anybody else.
26:23I think that's true.
26:24Yeah. No, you're absolutely right.
26:26I know my place. I know my place.
26:28Those very same people would fight
26:30or take a bullet for their masters.
26:33Mm. Yeah.
26:34Which I find interesting.
26:38Film and television often heavily romanticise class divide
26:42in the early 20th century.
26:44A world of lords and ladies, servants and strict etiquette
26:48in which everyone apparently knew their place, until they didn't.
26:52Someone who makes their living continuing
26:54these traditional establishment values today
26:56is going to give me a lesson in etiquette over afternoon tea.
27:00Good morning, sir. Hello.
27:02My name is Reginald and you are...
27:04MUSIC PLAYS
27:11And what are you teaching me today?
27:13I'm teaching you about afternoon tea and etiquette and class
27:16and how those three things all intermix.
27:19You look thoroughly qualified to teach such a thing.
27:21Well, that's very kind of you. Thank you.
27:23I mean that. I'm American, so I don't have any subtext.
27:26OK, good. OK, for you.
27:28Although, from a class point of view,
27:30really, calling it afternoon tea is not correct.
27:33Oh, wow. No, it should just be tea.
27:35In the north of England, as you may know,
27:38tea is their sort of evening meal,
27:40what we in the south would call dinner.
27:42Good afternoon.
27:43Separate from the drinking of tea to the eating of dinner.
27:46Yes.
27:47That's the clearest explanation I've gotten of that in 25 years.
27:50Thank you, sir. Knowing you's paid dividends already.
27:53We can go home. Thank you. Keep going.
27:55This is all going terribly well.
27:57Or so I thought.
27:59OK, if you'd like to pass me your cup, please. Thank you.
28:02Do you have milk? No. No? OK.
28:04So I shall just pour it like so.
28:06Very good. Sugar there if you want.
28:08I know British people who are very particular
28:11about having milk in it or not.
28:13We have no bigger social issue in the UK other than...
28:16Can I stop you right there? Oh, OK.
28:19You are stirring incorrectly, I'm afraid.
28:22So take your teaspoon, please. Yes, sir.
28:24And we're not going to go round and round and round
28:27because you could splash.
28:29Instead, we're going to just move the fingers,
28:31go back and forth in a delicate 6-12 motion.
28:336-12. Yes. Very good.
28:35And a sort of flick at the top of the cup.
28:37We're not banging it against the side of the china.
28:41I did, I did. I'm so sorry.
28:43No, it's all right. I won't do that again.
28:45It's overwhelming. Very good.
28:47It's funny you should say that. Sorry.
28:49I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon.
28:51Um...
28:53They're begging each other's pardons.
28:55LAUGHTER
28:57I beg your pardon. And I beg yours.
29:01We'll have a pardon beg-off.
29:03LAUGHTER
29:05That's hilarious.
29:08It's so posh.
29:10You upper-class twit.
29:12LAUGHTER
29:14I like the way you said that.
29:16It just sounded like something on TV I would have heard.
29:18Everything is very delicate, considered,
29:20and we are trying to avoid showing other people
29:23that we are eating or drinking.
29:25It's, in a way, quite repressed.
29:27It's almost as if it's regarded as shameful
29:29to be eating and drinking publicly.
29:31The process of mastication
29:33is not necessarily enjoyable for others to see.
29:35What matters really are, and always ever have been,
29:38is they are about other people,
29:40and putting them first and putting yourself second.
29:43Shall we have a drink of our tea?
29:45OK. I'm sure there's a way not to do that.
29:48You know me well, yes.
29:50And we're just going to pick up the cup.
29:53Now, let me just see what you naturally do.
29:55Yes. OK.
29:57So you've gone for the hook-and-thumb-on-top method,
30:00which some people do, and I don't hate it that much,
30:03technically.
30:05To be correct, you would just pinch.
30:07Yeah, see, I don't quite trust myself that well when I'm trying it.
30:10There we go. Perfect. You've got it.
30:12OK. Just keep your elbow tucked in.
30:14Keep your elbow tucked in.
30:16Yes, there we go, and you can bring...
30:18I've never been this nervous eating a cup of tea.
30:22Now, there was a little bit of a noise.
30:24Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Remember, no noise.
30:26Oh, yes, yes. OK. We're not in the East.
30:29The hate mail I'm going to get for you.
30:33I get it every day. It's fine.
30:35But isn't the class in America more related to income?
30:39Yes. So it is a kind of a class system.
30:41It's in its very early stages.
30:44America's sort of like Britain's baby brother with a loaded gun.
30:48It's like...
30:50And it's like when I first got here,
30:52I was stunned to learn that you can have title and still be cash poor.
30:56There is a sort of slight misnomer, I think, in this country now
30:59that class is dead or we're a classless society.
31:02And, of course, the mistake that a lot of people make
31:05is that they confuse class with money.
31:07If you have a lot of money, you have higher class,
31:09and that might have been the case in Edwardian Britain,
31:12but it's not the case now.
31:14Look at the Beckhams, for example.
31:16They have a lot of money,
31:18but most people wouldn't say they are upper class.
31:20Now, would you like a scone? Yes, I would.
31:22OK, well, please do help yourself.
31:24Very good. And, first of all, class marker, as I'm sure you know,
31:28in Britain, what do we call it? Scone or scone?
31:31Scone. Right. No.
31:33No. It's a scone. Scone.
31:35Yes, mainly because once it's scone, it's scone.
31:38As a joke for you, you can put that in your next routine.
31:41I will open with that. Yes.
31:43Can you show me how you would open your scone?
31:46I would go for this fault line here.
31:49I would part here.
31:52Do you know, so few people in my career
31:54have ever actually got that right first time.
31:56So how would others do it?
31:58They use their knife. You never use a knife on bread.
32:01Mmm.
32:03Well, you're giving me a new reason to be hated when I go back to Georgia.
32:07Next time I visit Georgia, they're all going to be stirring their tea
32:10correctly and we'll know.
32:12I'll know who knows you.
32:14After I got to England, I remember I called my mother and I said,
32:17Mama, the newspaper you read says what kind of class you come from.
32:21Because I look at my British friends and they go,
32:23they look at someone and they go,
32:25**** son reader.
32:27And I'd be like,
32:29powerful.
32:31American newspapers, at least when I was growing up in America,
32:34goes much more out of its way to hide bias.
32:37Whereas here, newspapers or journals
32:40are very openly one way or another.
32:43In Britain, people pass judgment on the way other people speak,
32:47how they drink a cup of tea, but also what newspaper they read.
32:51All of these are used as class badges
32:54to identify the different strata of society people come from.
32:57I want to know how far back class has influenced the printing press
33:01and shaped British society and vice versa.
33:04Miss Carol. Reg. How you doing?
33:06Lovely to see you.
33:08I want to be in the headlines
33:11Anything to be in the headlines
33:15Reg, we're going to play a little game.
33:18We're going to test your knowledge of British newspapers.
33:22OK. So what I have here is a selection of headlines.
33:26I want you to match the headline with the title of the newspaper.
33:30A Communist in Space. I'm going to put that for The Daily Worker.
33:34Fred Astaire ate my hamster.
33:36I don't know why, but I'm going to go with The Daily Mail.
33:40Gotcha, our lads sink gunboat and hold cruiser.
33:44I'm going to put The Daily Express with that.
33:47It's the sun what won it.
33:49I'm just going to assume that the sun is bigging itself up.
33:53I'm going to put the sun with this for Miss Thatcher
33:56that says give the girl a chance.
33:58Maybe The Express as well.
34:00That is The Express. Well done.
34:02That must be butter because I'm on a roll.
34:05Fred Astaire ate my hamster and Gotcha are both the sun.
34:09And then the final one here about the Titanic is The Daily Mail.
34:13Well, three out of five ain't bad.
34:16Clearly I've been in Britain way too long.
34:19You seem to have an instinctive feel
34:21for what were the tabloid headlines here.
34:23Do you know where the word tabloid comes from?
34:25No, ma'am, I don't.
34:27The word tabloid comes from chemistry
34:30and it referred to a large effervescent pill,
34:33so something that bubbled quite a lot.
34:35So this was to do with style, eye-catching, bubbly news,
34:39news that wasn't always boring, serious and depressing.
34:42Let's try to imagine where newspapers came from.
34:46This is Cobbett's Weekly Political Register.
34:50The government in the 1700s introduced a tax on paper.
34:55That made the cover price of these pamphlets quite expensive.
34:59So that meant, of course, it was beyond the reach of working people.
35:03The tax on knowledge, as it becomes known, lasts until 1855,
35:08and that's when we really get a huge change
35:11in the landscape of newspapers in Britain.
35:13Victoria is on the throne.
35:15The Victorians plunge a lot of money into education,
35:19so levels of literacy start to rise.
35:21So this, more than anything, is the kind of golden age
35:24of newspapers in Britain.
35:26I have a wonderful example here of the Bolton Evening News.
35:30So this is really starting to resemble a newspaper that we know today.
35:35If you look at papers from the 1920s and 1930s,
35:38you won't see any news at all on the front page.
35:40The front page is covered in advertising.
35:42I thought sticking advertising all over everything,
35:44I thought we just started doing it.
35:46Oh, my!
35:48Now, at this time, could you still glean a political bent
35:53from any newspaper the way you can now?
35:55Yeah, our press has always been extremely partisan.
35:57Miss Carroll, thank you, you have filled in some of the gaps,
36:00and the many gaps, mind you.
36:02Thank you, you don't make me smarter.
36:04LAUGHTER
36:05But we're not helping ourselves, are we?
36:07Because we generate this terrible nostalgia about class.
36:10We produce things like Downton Abbey.
36:12We keep putting it on a pedestal and a dais,
36:15and worshipping it like that.
36:17The good old days. Yeah, the good old days.
36:19And that's just perpetuating it. Yeah.
36:23Civility, newspapers, landowning and how we speak
36:27all seem to have a bearing on our class.
36:30Surely, sport is the one place of solace
36:32away from these social barriers.
36:34You hot tea drinkers sure get nostalgic about it.
36:38You know, far cry from the English game, isn't it?
36:41Small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts,
36:43rascally, two at the back, three in the middle, four at the front.
36:47One's gone home for his tea, beans on toast,
36:50possibly, don't quote me on that, marvellous.
37:00Surely the great leveller when it comes to class in Britain is sport.
37:04Time to see some football in action.
37:06David here is going to take me through some of the history of the sport
37:09and its relationship to class.
37:11David. Rach.
37:13Pleased to meet you. Pleased to meet you, too.
37:16MUSIC CONTINUES
37:22Class, is it in sports?
37:24Is that a traditional model of how you choose your team?
37:28Is you inherit it from your family?
37:30My family were East End Jews
37:32who arrived at the beginning of the 20th century
37:35and, of course, Tottenham Hotspurs were their team.
37:38For a lot of people, it is a romantic and cultural connection
37:44of your class and geographical past,
37:46because that's one of the things about working-class life.
37:49Large numbers of people did stuff together in large numbers,
37:53in factories, in streets, in football stadiums,
37:56and we now live in a remarkably atomised, individualised world.
38:01Let me give you another example. Please do.
38:03People have a real problem in this country
38:06about the money football players earn.
38:08Oh, it's obscene. Oh, it's outrageous. It's immoral.
38:12I don't hear anybody saying,
38:14those accountants, those bankers, those commercial lawyers,
38:18they don't deserve that money.
38:20And yet, working-class lads,
38:22who are providing the most unbelievable entertainment for all of us,
38:26these people don't deserve it.
38:28And that's because, in this country,
38:30we are profoundly obsessed with class.
38:34David may be right about people's attitude
38:36to the amount of money some sports stars make,
38:39but I'm not sure if he's right about the fact
38:41that people don't make the same point about bankers and lawyers.
38:45Still, time to take our minds off of it with a little football action.
38:50So this is a kind of recreation of the football
38:53you might have seen in the 1850s and the 1860s.
38:56And as you can see, it's a game just about dribbling.
38:59It's an individual game. It's not a team game.
39:01And that reflects the essentially aristocratic nature of football
39:05in the 1850s and 1860s.
39:07But, of course, working-class folks start looking at this game.
39:11So by the time you get to the 1880s,
39:14no-one's playing this game of football
39:16because it's become a working-class sport.
39:18And what the working-class work out is the best way to move the ball
39:22is not to dribble, but to pass it.
39:24It's about collective action, not individual glory.
39:28Ooh!
39:32My father-in-law used to say what I would call toffs.
39:36They'll indulge you, right, but they'll never accept you.
39:39They got blue blood.
39:41They genuinely believed that they had different blood to the rest of us.
39:44Let's go and get them.
39:46Get your pitchforks out, boys!
39:48So, Rich, you've actually been to a game of football in England.
39:51In 25 years, not once.
39:53Dude, what have you been doing in this country for the last 25 years?
39:56Been writing jokes for British people. You're welcome.
39:59You need to get down to the football
40:03because nothing explains this country.
40:06Nothing is a lens like football for understanding contemporary England.
40:11I know that it's an experience that I need and should have,
40:14but I have to say that in 25 years of reading and hearing about it,
40:18I mean, really, there's nothing that's really sold me
40:20on wanting to have the experience.
40:22And I love the England that I know.
40:24The England that I know is far removed from any of that.
40:26And it's like when I read about what Rashford went through
40:29and some of the others, it's like,
40:31oh, God, sure, man, do I get you?
40:34Think about it this way. OK.
40:37You know, football is, on the one hand,
40:40it's the biggest public theatre
40:42and, of course, there's terrible racism of all sorts,
40:46as well as the hidden institutional racism of the industry.
40:49But it's also a place where you will see and hear
40:52and feel expressions of anti-racism
40:54like you don't see anywhere else in this country. Is that right?
40:57Well, let's take the Marcus Rashford incident
41:00at the end of Euro 2020.
41:02Three black players missed the penalty.
41:04And, sure, they get some really nasty stuff.
41:07On the other hand, I have never seen
41:09such an outpouring of support and love,
41:12tangible support and love,
41:15from white people, from black people,
41:17saying, this is unacceptable.
41:19There are a lot of people in this country
41:21who want to still insist that Englishness means whiteness.
41:25You look at the England football team and you just think,
41:28what century are you living in?
41:30This is the best of England.
41:32This multi-racial football team is the best of us.
41:37Well, I appreciate that and I appreciate...
41:39And I'm grateful for that point of view
41:41because my existing point of view is this.
41:44Coming from the Deep South that has a history
41:46of the civil rights movement,
41:48it just seems like forever, black folks,
41:50our survival and our uplift
41:54seems to be always depending on good white people
41:57to telling bad white people to knock it off.
42:00And I'm sick of feeling vulnerable like that.
42:02Yeah, fair enough, dude. Fair enough.
42:05David, for the last two days, I've been speaking to lots of people
42:08going to lots of different places, exploring class.
42:11This is the first time in these last couple of days
42:13that I got mad during the conversation.
42:15Thank you.
42:16Thank you, dude. It's been a pleasure.
42:18I'll see you at a Hotspurs match.
42:19Oh, for sure. We'll be there.
42:21Hold you to it.
42:22Can't wait.
42:23Peace. Peace.
42:26Well, that was my day looking into class.
42:30It's proved lots of fun.
42:32Thank you.
42:33Keep going.
42:34Although pretty tricky at times,
42:36stirring up the odd emotion along the way.
42:39I need land as a conservationist to do my work.
42:42I think it's important we don't let the system
42:45and these perceptions either define or divide us.
42:49Aren't we better than that?
42:51God, I hope so.
42:52So hold your head up high.
42:54In a world with love, please stay alive.
42:57And speak boldly with whatever accent you have.
43:01I remember during the last lockdown,
43:03I was watching that series The Crown with my housemate,
43:07and I was looking at it, and we like a series three,
43:10and I said, oh, my God,
43:12they got me feeling sorry for this s***.
43:15LAUGHTER
43:19It's just propaganda.
43:20How do they do it?
43:22Look at this!
43:52It's just propaganda.