Mortimer's article is now somewhat outdated, although a class system still exists in Britain. 'The Nobility' has now been largely replaced by celebrities and there is now, as in America, a much greater emphasis on money. It seems at the time the Sunday Times was running a series of articles on class by well known writers.
April 18th, 1969Mr. Raymond Mortimer, CBE,
5 Canonbury Place,
LONDON N.1.
Dear Raymond,
I'm sorry that I agree with you that I don't think it is quite pointed enough. I think it would need to have some specific symbols of class. The Snowdon observation about class and motoring is the sort of thing I mean:
Saloon car with two husbands in front, their two wives behind = lower class.
Ditto with mixed couples in front and back = middle class.
Ditto with no one in back, husband and somebody elses wife in front = upper class.
I leave it to you whether you feel you want to do any more work - I'm sure there is a piece here - and I'm grateful for you response. Your sincerely Harold Evans. Editor.
[Mortimer article] "Why, " I was asked by a friend half my age, "Do you say that there are at least nine classes in England?" Well, I also denied the existence of any frontiers between them, and it might be nearer the mark to say eighteen, because each class can roughly be divided into those who were born in it and those who were not. The subject in any case has become a joke and an embarrassment, as sex was in the Victorian Age. We avert our eyes when class "rears its ugly head"-- and may even believe that distinctions of class no longer exist, apart from differences in education, occupation and income. This seems to me wishful thinking, although the young today are not nearly so class-conscious as their grandparents.
The various classes are difficult to define or enumerate, because they often depend upon social habits-- tastes in food, drink, dress and pastimes, for instance, and ways of speech, both in vocabulary and accent. The ninefold division (derived from social historians, biographers and novelists, not from sociologists,) cannot be trusted because it is mainly based upon rank or occupation. All reserves made, here are the nine. A. Royalty; B. The Nobility; C. The Landed Gentry; D. The Upper Middle class; E. The Solid Middle Class. F; White-collared workers. G. Lower Middle Class (small shopkeepers, for instance); H. Skilled Workers; I. Unskilled Workers. (That use of the words "worker" or "working class" is unhappy, because it implies that other classes are idle.) Each of these classes merges into others.
Members of A. marry into B., C, or even D.
