My background is working class. I was the first person in my family to go on to higher education. Thank goodness for the grant system in the UK, or I’d never have got there. Being saddled with years of debt - as many students are now - would have put me off completely. I’m thankful for a system that sought to make a level playing field and provide opportunities for all. There are a number of other things I’m grateful for too: public libraries, my English teachers and the ‘Youth & Music’ organisation.Politicians often talk about ‘levelling up’ ‘access’ ‘opportunities for all’ yet this seems less possible in today’s climate than it ever did. It’s often just that ‘talk’, hyperbole, with no real substance behind the sound bites.
Growing up in 70’s Outer London, I had opportunities to expand, develop, try new things and above all, dream. My parents had no hopes and aspirations for me, other than getting a ‘good job’, which roughly translated as something relatively well paid and long lasting. They would have been happy had I worked for the council or the Civil Service. 18 months at a Civil Service training facility and 3 days in the tax office put pay to those particular aspirations - on my part, anyway. I had different ideas and wanted to go into publishing, to be involved with books and writing somehow. An early reader I also became an early writer and was encouraged by positive comments on my English work at school and a prize-winning essay, which was externally published. We were fortunate at my all girls school to have great English teachers who encouraged not only a love of the written text, but drama too. They gave up many evenings to take us to plays in the city - an education in its own right.
The Youth & Music organisation exposed me to classical music, opera and ballet - the latter of which I have a life-long love of. Without these opportunities, it is unlikely I would have had the inclination - or my parents the money - to experience these art forms. Even now, there is a degree of snobbery around the arts, although it is perhaps less than it was back then.
These days kids aspire to be reality TV stars, singers or TikTok’s next big discovery. Social media has certainly created its own form of levelling out and opportunities, whatever you may think of it. Yet I worry, that whilst this generation of young people have access to a form of creative media we could only dream of, they’re potentially missing out on some fundamental privileges that my generation were privy to: funded education, music and physical education, public library services and youth services. These things were integral to my development and I would not have been exposed to lots of things without these public provisions.
Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe ‘the kids are all right’ as Pete Townsend proclaimed on the Who’s 1965 debut album (yes, showing my age). I still worry that we focus too much on academia, not enough on creativity, that we don’t offer enough support for young people to gain a broad mix of skills and develop their horizons. I feel lucky that I had so many opportunities as a working class kid, whose parents had a limited income and I’d hope were offering as much to this and future generations. What do you think?