"I grew up on a council estate"

[computedshorty]

I was a Carpenter and was called a Chippy.

I have always written down my memories, here is one from many moons ago.

I did not live on a Housing Estate but here is my veiw of how thing were.

Memories of a carpenter

I had just joined the Housing Maintenance Department of the Borough Council, as a carpenter, I realise that in any job, the new man gets the less attractive jobs, and my first job was to replace a door that had been forced off, and I was left by the foreman until lunchtime to complete the job.

I was let into the house by a woman with a crippled arm, who led me to the back kitchen. A lad was lounging in a chair leaning back against the door. The woman told the lad to move, he did so and the door fell into the room! The woman and lad left. An elderly man wearing a flat cap and smoking a cigarette sat at a table laden with empty milk bottles, lidless jars of sauce and jam, and countless items of crockery and an ash tray filled with cigarette ends, the room was filled with a thick haze of smoke.

The gas cooker was sited beside the door. All four gas rings were alight to give heat to the room as it had no door to the garden, I put the new door to the frame to pencil mark it, in order to cut it to size, and singed the hair off of my arm as I reached above the uncovered gas jets. The heat in the upper part of the room was unbearable. I cut the door to fit, put the hinges onto the door and positioned the door to fix it to the frame. But a large deposit of grease from the cooker covered the floor which would have to be removed or the door would never open.

I selected a large chisel, and began to dig away at the grease. Once on the chisel the grease would not come off. I said to the man that the grease made it impossible to fit the door. The man did not reply to my remark, just an extra glow on his cigarette!

I was getting fed up , My arm with the burnt hair was sore. I decided that I would not remove the grease, but cut an arch in the bottom of the door to pass over the inch of grease to allow the door to open. This I did and hung the door. It fitted perfectly, but for the large gap under the bottom. To remedy this I used the piece of wood I had cut from the door, scraping the grease from my chisel onto it and placing it in the position of the closed door, under the carpet,. It stuck solid, I closed the door. A perfect fit!

When the foreman came to pick me up, I told him of the problem, and what I had done. He laughed and said that none of the other carpenters would work in that house!

Some of the tenants would never be at home, when I called to do a job. The key would be left in a certain place for me. I would find a note saying ?make yourself some tea and toast, the milk and butter are in the fridge?. Come to think of it, in all the years I worked there, some of them I never did meet, to thank them.

People are kind. I was putting on a new door one day , the lady of the house was cooking . She gave me a cup of tea, and asked if I liked bread pudding, I said I did and she gave me a large piece of newly cooked pudding. I took a bite out of it, it tasted a bit fishy so I did not eat it, and when she was not looking I threw it out onto the grass area in front of the house. The dog chased after it and brought it back, and dropped it at my feet just as the lady returned, I had to say that I had dropped it in the dirt.

I was to fit a new back door for her the next day, so I asked her if I could look at the old one to make sure that I brought the right type with me in the morning. As I passed through the kitchen, on the table were the remains of kippers and half eaten crusts from the bread. Perhaps this was the fishy taste to my bread pudding?

The next day as I worked, at ten o?clock, there was a cup of tea, and Yes, a black piece of bread pudding with shiny glass currants! How could I get out of eating this?

If I threw it the dog might bring it back, if I buried it, he might dig it up.

When I left the house I wondered whether the birds would have eaten it, or would it become exposed in the Autumn as the leaves fell revealing that piece of bread pudding nailed to the tree in the garden!

My next job was to renew a bath panel, on entering the bathroom I saw a dismantled motor cycle in the bath soaking in paraffin. The surface of the bath had been discoloured be the cleaning agents used on the motor cycle. I renewed the panel, but left with oil stained overalls.

I think the most unexpected item was a donkey in the living room of a house in Ferry View Rushenden, with a bedroom full of doves. Instead of a door, there was a wire mesh cover to the room, It was covered in feathers, as if there had been a pillow fight.

November the sixth, was always a busy time, remaking the wooden gates for the whole estate. The front garden gates had been lifted off from their hinge pins, and burnt ,with the effigies of Guy Faulks, on the bonfires. I would have to measure each space between the gate posts, as nearby tree roots had moved the posts, and make gates to hang on the left or right side posts, I would make a dozen in the workshop, ( we were timed to make one in thirty five minutes, or no bonus). I would take them, to the site and, work my way along each road replacing, a gate at each house. If the powers that be, supplied Garnet hinges this time instead of Strap and pin hinges , these gates could not be lifted off next November fifth.I was kneeling down screwing one of the hinges on, when a man stopped behind me

and told me I was wasting my time , as they would be taken and burnt next Guy Faulks night, I said that this was my fifth year replacing these gates. He moved on with his dog, who had just had time to cause rust to my tools in my open tool box.

It could be a distressing time to be detailed to change the locks at evictions. At one a woman and a child were removed for rent arrears, the bailiff put out the belongings, furniture, bedding, food, toys, everything, into a heap in the front garden, the clothing lying on the wet grass. The woman left with the crying child to seek accommodation from the Department of Social Services. As I changed the lock on the back door, the rabbit in its hutch was waiting for its food. Who would care for it now? The washing on the line flapped in the breeze. Who would retrieve it for the woman? I changed the front door lock. Before I came away I put the cat out. At least it could be fed outside. I packed up my tools, patted the cat which was sitting beside the new pint of milk on the doorstep. I closed the gate, leaving the abandoned belongings falling to the ground. My foreman collected me, I climbed into the van with a lump in my throat.

A tenant of one of the flats that shared a passageway through the block, complained that people were taking a short cut through the corridors, to get to the bus stop, letting the doors slam. I found that during the day somebody would wedge the door open causing the mechanism in the self-closing buffers to strain. When the wedge was removed the doors would slam, causing a nuisance to tenants. A tenant had nailed a rubber heel to the door to silence the impact. I removed the heel and adjusted the door closure mechanism to close silently.

On my return to the depot I was told to report to the Housing Officer. A garbled phone message had been received from a tenant, that a carpenter had stolen the sole from his boots. I explained that I removed the rubber heel , which to my mind should not have been placed there as this was Borough Council property. I did have the heel in my tool box, as there being nowhere to dispose of it I brought it back with me. As for me stealing it, there being no boot fixed to the heel, and no person wearing the boot? how could I know who the owner was? I placed the heel on his desk for the Housing Officer to reunite it with its lawful owner, who could then renail it to the door!

A call to the toilets at the main road, someone had made holes in the half inch partitions dividing the cubicles, creating peep holes. I had a piece of formica with me and a tin of quick drying glue, so I cut some one inch squares of formica, then moving from cubicle to cubicle, I glued a square over each hole. The last six kept falling off and dropped to the floor, as I refitted one, I saw a pencil come through the hole.A look under the partition revealed a school?s bag and books, and small shoes, and being assured that it was not a very big Docker in the cubicle, in my deepest voice I said ?What do you think you are doing?? No reply, and he didn?t come out. I looked at the tin of quick drying glue, and the door between us, and was tempted.

The next day the foreman, who had to inspect my work, had been to town , and asked me why I had not repaired those holes in the partitions, I said had, ?well go and do them again, and take those black Formica squares off of the W.C.pans?. I returned to Town, this time I was going to screw a patch over the holes, outside the toilets on the other side of the road, waited lots of children for their school bus, they seemed to have a secret joke, I looked at their shoes but they were all alike, my pencil pusher was there, but who? The bus pulled away a head popped out of the window, a boy shouted ?It was me HA HA?. I now knew that I had time to let the glue dry, before they came back.

[felt-tip]

a donkey in the living room is believable. a penguin wouldn't be.

[Emerson Crane]

Mick Mac Wrote:

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> Why do people state this as some sort of badge of

> honour...

Maybe to demonstrate that from humble beginnings they have managed to make something of themselves. I say it because its a fact, and I'm not ashmaed of it, its certainly not a badge of honour, just a statement of fact, and I only mention it if I'm asked. Clearly from the way you put this accross you have a problem with it.

[Huguenot]

Well I've heard it used as an insult - as if to suggest that a council estate background made them a better person, more 'real'.

I've heard people on this forum talking about flaky clapham blow-in yuppies that use their 'working-class' roots as a weapon in a similar way.

[Mick Mac]

Emerson Crane Wrote:

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> Mick Mac Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Why do people state this as some sort of badge

> of

> > honour...

>

> Maybe to demonstrate that from humble beginnings

> they have managed to make something of themselves.

> I say it because its a fact, and I'm not ashmaed

> of it, its certainly not a badge of honour, just a

> statement of fact, and I only mention it if I'm

> asked. Clearly from the way you put this accross

> you have a problem with it.

No - I wonder why people feel the need to mention it (when not asked), like on Question Time last night.

[oilworker]

Being from a council estate makes me feel slightly superior when I look at some of the privately-educated t*ssers I am surrounded by and realise that they would be working in Kwik-Fit if it hadn't been for their educational/social advantages. I guess it's just the stisfaction of knowing one has succeeded by dint of one's own hard work and natural talent. "Leans back in plush black leather chair and stares out of window at the snow-capped Alpine vista"

[daizie]

Hehehe :))

[DJKillaQueen]

LOL oilworker....yes, a not so bright kid in a public school statistically will still do better than many brighter chidren in the state system.....like I say...not a level playing field.

I just watched Question Time on iplayer. The point made was that 'right to but' had offered upward social mobility to many people in the 80's. Of course it also beautifully makes the point that those at the bottom still needed a leg up (in this case by giving massive discounts on the purchase of their homes, which was instant money for many buyers)...used mostly to trade up and escape the estate lol.....

[Tarot]

There are a lot of people who think they are more superior than others.This thread for instance proves how some people love preening ,and crowing, thinking they can pass judgement on a person, just because they grew up on an housing estate. They are not that good themselves, frusterated want to be posh people , who after all are only living in East Dulwich. Hardly Mayfair.

[louisiana]

oilworker, there are some tossers from public schools, but they are in a minority. After all, how many peeps in this country go to a public (or even private) school? The vast majority of people around us are not the product of a public school. They are the product of a wide variety of backgrounds, including private sector renters, middle class less affluent, council house ambitious, council house not ambitious, the titled and landed, the totally crazy (I've taught kids who couldn't hold a pencil or tie laces aged 7 and 8, from very middle class home) .... and a very long etc. There are many kinds of home, and the parents' housing is only a small part of that.

[DJKillaQueen]

Yes but that's the particaluar nature of a capital city. Go outside of London and you'll find the socio-economic diversity to be less mixed in equal measure and in some towns you'll find one type of socio-economic background dominates in the main. We live in a bubble in London. It's not repressentative of the rest of the country.

[Dickensman]

We used to dream of living on a council estate when I was a kid, they had hot water and indoor lavatories and bathrooms we had none of that plush living, all we had was a cold tap and a kettle, with a bog at the end of the garden which froze up every year unless we put a parafin lamp under the cistern.

But we were 'appy!

[Alec John Moore]

I take your point to an extent, DJKQ, but I reckon if you were able to delve deep enough and if you drew your parameters widely enough, you would find plenty of diversity in the identities of those who live in "the provinces". I reckon the "I grew up on a housing estate" doesn't have the same resonance now when we think of ourselves in relation to many other aspects of identity.

[oilworker]

"After all, how many peeps in this country go to a public (or even private) school? The vast majority of people around us are not the product of a public school"

You speak for youself - in my last job we were team of eight and out of that 8 six had been to boarding school - I have diversified in my career into the legal/contractual side of things and have mixed with barristers solicitors judges etc. take from me - virtually NO ONE in that line of (very lucrative) business comes from a state school background...

[louisiana]

Hmmm, I know several barristers who went to state schools... I work with them day to day in several fields. Also professors of law at Oxbridge locations who likewise were not public school. Yes, there are public school people there, but also plenty not (depending on which line of law).

The public school peeps I know often did rather off the wall stuff like becoming people in the pop firmament...

[binary_star]

Tarot Wrote:

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> They

> are not that good themselves, frusterated want to

> be posh people , who after all are only living in

> East Dulwich. Hardly Mayfair.

Might have been if they'd gone to public school tho' eh?

[felt-tip]

I am a lawyer and I was brought up on a council estate which means no-one at work likes me and nor does anyone from home.

[louisiana]

I think much, much, much more influential than council housing, or than public school, is the question of Oxbridge. There is a club of Oxbridge that takes you places, whether it is editing a particular magazine, landing a certain job on a certain financial publication, getting appointed to certain corporate boards and a long etc.

There appear to be some people who only take other Oxbridge people seriously. Seriously.

[DaveR]

The problem with the typical "I grew up on a council estate.." mentality is that it becomes tempting to assume that anyone who didn't was either (a) born into a world of privilege, and/or (b) is less able and hard-working than them - see above. The UK is far more meritocratic now than it ever has been, and the idea that dim public school boys can still breeze into top jobs in law, banking, foreign office etc. is outdated.

That having been said, it is still far from being a level playing field, so I'm not going to be too critical of anyone who has 'pulled themselves up' and wants to make the point. But not everybody who went to public school is a t0sser (I didn't go to public school, and hopefully I'm not either, tho' Brendan may disagree)

[Tarot]

What are boarding schools anyway but places where kids are dumped, on the pretext they are having a good education.

They will probably speak nice, know lots of facts, go on to better education.

But later in life they will have to, be told how hard their parents at to work to put them through their education.

Then when they find someone to settle down with they cant, because they never had any home life.

Some. are even abused ,one way or another. Others families ,just about get their kids through the high fee paying

schools, living above their means,and a very broken child at the end of it. To find out your parents finances are not

up to the airs and graces they have portrayed. One bitter person at the end of it all. Rather be a salt of the earth

Londoner, feet on the ground.

[felt-tip]

Amen.

[camberwell70]

computedshorty Wrote:

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> I was a Carpenter and was called a Chippy.

>

> I have always written down my memories, here is

> one from many moons ago.

>

...snip...[edited for brevity]

popped out of the window, a

> boy shouted ?It was me HA HA?. I now knew that I

> had time to let the glue dry, before they came

> back.

How fascinating.

[binary_star]

The point of wanting your children to grow up in a position of privelege is that it affords, err, 'privelege'. The clue is right there, it's nonsense to think otherwise. If 'priveleged' backgrounds offered no genuine privelege at all there would be no such thing as school fees. As it stands, some school fees are more than some people's salaries because the higher echelons of society can buy themselves out of having to send their little darlings to crap schools.

[oilworker]

Mick Mac - You are either a bit dim or simply being obtuse. Politicians come out with this sort of thing because they think it will make them appear more in touch with the "common man" or more clever for having risen from humble beginnings etc etc

[Jah Lush]

Mick Mac Wrote:

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> Why do people state this as some sort of badge of

> honour...

It's all the rage at the moment since it was mentioned in a disparaging way that Cheryl Cole was brought up on one on Shit-Factor and she quite rightly defended herself. Awww..... bless the racist toilet attendant beating little nations favourite.