When I was at Art School I did a whole tranche of work about growing up in suburbia. I didn't get to Art School until I was nearly 30 and in my younger days there was a kind of shame or embarassment about growing up in such bland surroundings. I felt I should either come from a more sophisticated background or something more feral and grungy. In other words I should have the cache of being posh or the cache of being working class and down with the kids. I wanted to be cool and where I came from wasn't cool. I grew up in quite a nice semi and was brought up with the same nice middle class aspirations as many of my neighbours and friends but that didn't cut the mustard when I was 17. My heroes were David Bowie and Warhol and the Velvet Underground, Alice Cooper, Nico. Surley they hadn't come from 'nice' houses and held their knife and fork properly, said please and thank you and watched variety shows on TV with their Mum and Dad on a Saturday night. Surely their parents hadn't had a slight distain for programmes on the 'commercial channel' ----there was only one then !
At Art School I began to reassess. Then I realised that many of the people I revered came from similar backgrounds to myself and the idea of coming from such an ordinary place seemed OK.
At the moment I am really enjoying reading Griff Rhys Jones biography 'Semi-Deatched'. With a surname like his I had assumed that he was from Wales and, indeed, he is of Welsh stock, but it turns out he actually came not a million miles from where I lived. He is three years older than me but many of his memories are mine: places, people, music, parties and he has a wonderful way of providig a space in your head where you could almost be really sitting enjoying a strawberry Mivvi whilst you read. Even his father reminds me of my father. His was a doctor. Mine was a Headmaster: the same clubbability of the professions; the same formal attire for small children of the 50s and 60s; the same lessons in how to attend grown ups' parties and hold a sensible conversation with an adult when you were 8 years old whilst trying hard not to drop the sausgae roll and vol au vent off your plate.
The best bit was always later when you had shown you were there, spoken politely to the grown ups and then they'd lost interest in you and were swapping stories and gossip with each other. One of my fondest memories is of sitting under the grand piano at my parents' posh friend's house, with a plate of nibbles and all the other kids: little girls in sticky out party frocks with bunny wool boleros and little boys in tailored short trousers and collar and ties with tartan patterns or cowboys.
3 comments:
hey cusp, it is way cooler to go to art school when you're thirty than straight from school!
yes, yes, you conjure it up so nicely. Me, coming from a kind of refugee diaspora no-definable-class kind of background used secretly to covet the kind of household where there would be variety shows with Mum and Dad (mine separated) on a Saturday night, with Ovaltine perhaps. I longed above all for a sticky out party dress - organza, wasn't it?
Don't be surprised by the word "new" against your name on my blogroll. I know you've been around, but you're newly back to blogging.
Dear NMJ. Oh I know darrling. I am SO cool...well I kind of was once but you should see me now. No maybe not.
Yes, from what I know, and reading between the signs (sorry) I gather you had a rather bohemain background. You have only to mention the word Steiner and I get the drift. Lulu, Val Doonican, Dusty, Rolf, Cilla and the Young Generation were quality entertainment and their schtick doesn't seem to have affected me too badly. Just a slight yearning for crazy, goofy dancing against a backdrop of a few backlit oversized mobiles now and then. Some hope.
Actually I was a fan of Bournvita or Milo when you could get it and I never had a stick out dress either.
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