The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working ClassThe white working class is demonised. In the wake of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, they were cast as wholesale racist cattle by the liberal press, the rightwing press mock their tastes and attitudes; they take to the streets when paedophiles and asylum seekers are in their midst, they expose their lives in TV documentaries, they love Gucci and hate the Euro. Michael Collins was brought up in Elephant and Castle, where his family had lived for generations. Here he looks back at the intertwined history of Walworth and his family, from his great great great grandfather's life during the establishment of an urban white working class culture in the 19th century, to his own upbringing amongst the new tower blocks of the 1960s. working class is nothing new. Missionaries from other classes have always descended to study, influence, patronise, politicise, and now to demonise them - including Henry Mayhew, Charles Booth, town planners and contemporary journalists too numerous to mention. |
Contents
Map of Southwark ix | 1 |
Something Out of Dickens | 15 |
Its a Small World | 28 |
Copyright | |
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Alexander Paterson arrived became become Bermondsey Bill Borough High Street boys British brother church cinema cockney colour coster costermonger crime crowd death decade described Dickens door East Street Elephant & Castle England English factory father flat football funeral G. K. Chesterton gang girls Henry Larter Hooligan immigration inhabitants Jessica Mitford journalists Julie Burchill Kent Street kids Labour lived London Belongs look married Mass-Observation Mayhew middle-class missionary Mitford Morrison mother moved multiculturalism murder music hall nearby neighbourhood neighbours Nell Hall never newspaper night nineteenth century novel Old Kent Road Orwell poor pubs race racist reported revolution Rockingham Rotherhithe rumoured scouts shopping centre silver cube social South London Southwark Stephen Lawrence story television Thames tion took urban working class urban working-class Walworth Road white working class William window women workhouse working-class writing wrote young