The Class Ceiling

Growing up in Chatham, I never really considered my class or upbringing. It was quite normal that in secondary school, most of the kids I knew didn’t want to go to university because they’d “end up in debt”, and that the arts were considered “a waste of time” because you’d never be able to pay off that debt with silly fantasies…

Throughout various points in my life I was vaguely aware that there was a divide. I’d felt the tension on the 176 bus when surrounded by the grammar school kids - we stuck out, the “Saint John Fisher lot”. I went to a Catholic state school. I’m not religious, me and my brother were just in the catchment area and both failed the 11+. See if you were smart, you passed the test and went to a fancy grammar school where they set you up for future success, but if you were stupid, you failed the test and went wherever would have you. Or at least that was my understanding of it at the impressionable and damning age of 11. 

Despite the fact I did okay in school, it was a miserable time for me. I was desperate to escape to university; the magical place where you had complete autonomy and most importantly, accommodation, which meant you didn’t have to live at home! I had fully decided at this point that film was for me and I was going to do it, despite everyone around me telling me not to. The more people protested, the prouder I was of my decision.

I remember bits of university vividly. Like moving into halls. I was the first person in my whole house to move in on the very first day. I had envisioned that university would be my time. A time to redefine and reinvent myself, away from home and troubles that I’d left in Chatham; I was an artist now. I was going to an arts university and would do cool art things. University definitely did redefine me in all the best and equally, very worst ways... But that's for future musings. My first year of university was a huge culture shock. Especially attending an arts university. I quickly learned that people liked to victimise their lives and play “tragedy top trumps”; middle class people would attempt to appear damaged or different in order to serve a narrative that was carefully crafted to hide their “middle classness”. People in an arts uni didn’t want you to know about their comfortable bank account refilled by Mum or Dad, or their private school education or where they were really from. They wanted you to know if their parents were divorced or how many various drugs they’d taken before university and how many anti-depressants they’d tried. These same people also loved to make passive aggressive comments along the lines of “You’re quite loud aren’t you?”, “You’re not very lady-like”, “You’re really aggressive” and “You swear quite a lot don’t you?” which I always found interesting. I’d never really been pulled up on any of these things that much until now, and I was confused why these people were so quick to pass judgement on me. I was just like everyone else in my school really. My life wasn’t completely terrible, we weren’t really, really poor and I never went without. In fact on rare occasions my family seemed relatively normal, which they will tell you is quite the statement, but clearly something about me was just a bit different.

Maybe it never was my class, maybe it was just the nature and nurture of my life- but for the sake of this post, we’re focusing on class. 

By third year of uni I hated myself. I hated how I spoke, I hated my roots in Chatham and I hated that people looked down on me. I hated that I was angry and I hated that I was horribly depressed. I hated how I looked. I hated life. It was the bleakest few years and I wanted to avoid any parts of myself that were intrinsically linked to my upbringing or who I had been until this very moment in my life. I became a completely blank slate, and after a few years post-uni (whilst stuck in lockdown) I was completely lost. By the time I moved to London I barely knew who I was anymore. 

Now at 27 I have a pretty good understanding of who I am again, I'm still learning and growing more every day, but now I can appreciate some parts of me that I used to hate. I champion artists like myself who are still pushing every day for equality and diversity in the arts, because we aren’t too loud, or brash or aggressive, we’re brave and opinionated. We took a risk when there was no one to catch us if we fell, and we deserve to tell our stories as much as anyone else. The arts are complicated and I'm still not sure how to fully break through the "class ceiling" when it's barely even discussed, but to my fellow artists from working class beginnings, hello! I see you and I can't wait to see what you do next.

#art #film #class