11 Comments
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Annette Richardson's avatar

Another cracker. Loved this Rowan.

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Kelly Cogswell's avatar

I liked this so much and can relate. The Kentucky version being my mother's fear of being considered white trash. Her girls had to avoid making too much noise, wearing too much make-up, too much color. Being too much of anything. As a result, better keep me off the tribunals, too.

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Rowan Davies's avatar

Ha! I also was not allowed make-up. Or earrings. Or above-the-knee skirts, or anything tight-fitting, or any heels higher than one inch. Quite tricky when you were a teenager in the mid-‘80s.

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Heather's avatar

No Tiny Tears for me, in case it gave me ideas. Aspirational career girl dolls only!

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Rowan Davies's avatar

Oh lord, yes. I was so desperate for a Barbie or a Girl's World. Absolutely not. (I told my adult son this a while back and he actually bought me a Girl's World for Christmas...)

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Pete Wolf's avatar

I enjoyed that one, thanks. Apparently one thing you learned about the rules ("goodness me, did I know the rules") is that you should not always stick to them. Because one of the rules (along with no makeup, no loud voices, not loosing it, etc) was surely "no questioning of the rules"! Remember that graffiti on the wall in Thief lane, no not "Ah good, the sea", the other less interesting one that said "Don't be fooled by the rules, don't be ruled by the fools"?

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Mapledurham's avatar

Once, when I was an undergraduate in London, I went drinking with a group of friends who’d brought along some very posh guy from Cambridge. We walked into a local pub in Bethnal Green and - at the top of his voice, and with the lack of self-awareness and disdain for others that only the truly posh can get away with - he said, ‘GOSH, IT’S REALLY WORKING CLASS IN HERE, ISN’T IT?’ The whole pub went silent. Thankfully the Kray Twins were long gone by that point but I could never work up the courage to go there again.

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Rowan Davies's avatar

Toby lived in Bethnal Green for ages so to be fully judgemental about the situation we kind of need to know which pub it was

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Mapledurham's avatar

The Marksman - but this was long LONG before the whole gentrification of that area, back when pubs in Bethnal Green/Shoreditch were all darts and strippers. And smoking - god knows how many packs I got through over the £1.48 pints of bitter...

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Rowan Davies's avatar

Lawks a mercy, you wouldn’t get a pint in there for less than £8 now…

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Mapledurham's avatar

Yep, it was back when London was remotely affordable - and when there were student grants for us all…

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