Yahoo News Watching ITV... and other things we once saw as common
My maternal grandmother worked as a secretary in a building next to Church House in Westminster. On one childhood visit she whisked me off to Peter Jones department store in Sloane Square to ogle the china in its don’t-touch display cases. Desperate for a pee, I asked a passing assistant where the toilets were. Afterwards, my vivacious, funny granny pulled me aside and said: “You can say loo, bog, water-closet, or even s--t-house, but you must never, ever say ‘toilet’.”
I was so shocked that my grandmother had used a verboten expletive that the episode remained scorched on my memory for all eternity. But it served to reinforce the unvoiced fact that, for my mother’s side of the family, pretty much anything – bankruptcy, illness, bigamy – was better than being deemed “common”. Granny had lapped up Nancy Mitford (high priestess of ‘U and non-U’, ie words, behaviours and possessions that were socially acceptable vs those that jangled your snob alarm), and had absorbed her diktats in the way that only those who were socially ambitious can.
And no-one’s more desperate to claw their way up than those clinging to the coattails of the middle-classes, desperate to be assimilated – which we were. My publican dad was a stationer’s clerk’s son, who had to leave school at 14 when his own father went bankrupt. Meanwhile, Mum’s dad, following a brief burst of mobility as a chartered surveyor, had become head gardener for a prep school. There was ground to be made up.
So you can imagine how the recent burst of correspondence on The Telegraph’s letters page, about things their parents deemed “common”, made me squirm with recognition. Telegraph readers were tickled by Anita Singh’s review of Keeping Up with the Aristocrats where she sighed, “It is terribly difficult for the plebs among us to know what is common,” and sent suggestions by the bucketload: ice lollies, Daz washing powder, patent shoes, comics, voting Labour and shouting in the garden. As one correspondent pointed out, parental thoughts on the matter frequently “defied logic”.
In the Pelling household, there was a long list of verboten wares and products: Angel Delight (so vulgar I believed it could poison me), Mr Kipling cakes, Smash mash in a packet, Monster Munch, Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes or any over-elaborate breakfast cereals (we had a shrine to Shredded Wheat), Chopper bikes, Tiny Tears, Barbie and Ken (so common they’d induce a teen pregnancy), lace curtains of the twitcher variety, doilies, calling your grandmother “nan”, pantomimes (unless at the Palladium), Freeman Hardy & Willis shoes and watching ITV. We were almost the only children at our local primary school who only watched Blue Peter (never ITV’s rival Magpie), played with wholesome Sindy and Sasha dolls, wore Startrite shoes and never ate food out of a packet. Mum had a titanic wrestle with her finer feelings when the Morecambe and Wise Show moved from the Beeb to ITV in 1978, but finally caved in. These, after all, were exceptional circumstances.
Over the years I’ve watched social tastes evolve or completely pirouette – such as the ironic interior décor trend that declares all that’s 1970s, including shagpile carpets, to be suddenly desirable – and I’ve tried to de-programme myself, with mixed results. The fear of being found declassé runs at such a deeply-instilled level it can defy my own willpower. The year before Kate Middleton married Prince William my agent friend Clare and I dreamt up a book we intended to call Pleased To Meet You (a hideously non-U greeting, as all Mitford fans know). Our inspiration was the chorus of snobby commentary that had been aimed at the Middleton family; half the UK seemed to have a fit of the vapours when Carole Middleton was spotted chewing gum and there were dark comments about social-climbing “Wisteria sisters” – which just goes to show how often the only thing revealed by snobbery is the sneering person’s own misjudgment. We whiled away happy hours dissecting what was now acceptable and what wasn’t. I was particularly impressed by Clare’s confident pronouncement that “all pedigree cats are common, except Siamese, while pedigree dogs are always fine.” We both agreed “cream dream” home furnishings were a cringey faux attempt at sophistication, ditto hot-tubs “unless in Scandinavia, or invited to share one with Snoop Dogg in LA.”
Needless to say, no publisher wanted our masterwork. Why would they when everyone knows the self-anointed arbiter of modern vulgarity is Nicky Haslam. His regular lists of things deemed beyond the pale are renowned for bringing the chattering classes out in hives – what cherished tradition, institution or pastime will he aim his lance at next, showing devotees up in all their needy aspiration? In 2019 he had a tilt at signet rings, Henley Regatta, sorbets, hedge funds, mindfulness and palm trees. The wheeze has proved so successful he’s assembled some top targets on a tea towel, including: cufflinks, James Bond, polo shirts and being unwell. Haslam knows full well you can never underestimate the British middle-classes’ desire to self-flagellate in the cause of social insecurity. Meanwhile, the upper and lower classes, who don’t give a damn, consider it a spectator sport to watch others writhe. A friend whose close relatives include a dowager Duchess says she loves saying “toilet” to make visitors squirm.
I’m not above squirming myself, but I have at least managed to raise two sons who are oblivious to petty social signifiers and class straightjackets. They even regard my attempt to stop them pronouncing “th” as “f” as some kind of Tatler-style tyranny. YouTube, TikTok and rap music are great levellers. Even so, I’ve never let a spoonful of Angel Delight pass their lips, just in case…
