good and great

I was born in 1949 to an upper working class family in rural NE Scotland. I was brought up to respect my elders and betters whether or not they deserved it. The various authority figures may have had faults but these were to be overlooked so as not to rock the boat and disturb the status quo. I was in the church choir and sat through two services on every Sunday. I was interacting with what I thought of as hypocrites in hats.

Especially at the local level, several of the authority figures had a vocation rather than a job. They got their existential jollies from taking pride in their work and serving their communities. The bottom line was about more than profit and wages. Salt of the earth.

But, then as now, there was tension and ill feeling in the interactions between the rich and the poor and between the bosses and the workers. The class struggle – upstairs and downstairs.

The lethal non-sense of the two world wars raised a lot of questions about the validity of the class system. I was born shortly after the end of the second war. Those who were my elders and betters had lived through it. The status quo got a serious shake up. But many of the old ways survived.

I was encultured into subservience in my early years. (Little children should be seen but not heard). Some of the authority figures before whom I would bow and doff my cap are listed below – local and national examples. Note in passing that I have problems with authority. I feel antipathy towards anyone who tells me what to think and how to act.

Local Respectables:

the family

the doctor, the district nurse,

the schoolmasters,

the minister, the church elders,

the policeman

the landowners,

the business people,

the provost and local councillors,

the solicitor

the workers – farmers, fishermen, and townspeople

National Respectables:

the MP, the prime minister and the cabinet ministers,

the queen and the royal family,

the experts and intellectuals,

the media celebrities - print and broadcast