Class at university

I've always seen class as quite a complex thing which most people get wrong, though the nature of that perceived complexity has probably changed as I got older.

e.g. as someone from an atypical social bracket at a public school, I allowed for lots of nuance in what might be described as the "upper reaches". Then, as I've aged, I came to somewhat dismiss that viewpoint, certainly in terms of people's perceptions. Private school is posh, there are no two ways about it really. Privilege is privilege, whiteness is whiteness, maleness is maleness etc

In terms of my own place in it, I was happy to accept that I wasn't as "other" as I thought when I was younger. Though there were some twists along the way, so there probably were with everybody, and I was a pretty standard common-or-garden posh guy after all.

I had mainly seen the deciding factor in class as schooling, which I think is broadly accurate. Access to an elite secondary education gives most people an advantage other people don't have. Even if you hate it, even if you have a scholarship or assisted place, even if, even if ....

But, just this week, I remembered that actually the clearest dividing line in class I'd ever seen was not at school, or in the wider world, but at university.

St Andrews in the 1990s might have been its own particular ecosystem, but I'd still suppose that some version of this phenomenon exists in the majority of British universities most of the time. University is the place where people can really decide who they are, after all.

I think the perception of St A's is that it's full to bursting with posh English folk, but actually that wasn't the case. The posh English were a very visible minority, but still, very much a minority.

In some places they call them Rahs; in St Andrews, they were called Yahs, and they had a uniform of faded baseball cap, pink shirt, gilet. The usual stuff. And they wore it with pride.

I chose St Andrews because I wanted to get away, I wanted to be somewhere remote, I wanted to be in Scotland or Ireland, also because it seemed like a nice place. I suppose it wasn't a particularly a revolutionary choice, I was hardly breaking the mould. But still, I didn't want to be typecast. In my first week or two in first year, I found myself on nights out with a couple of (perfectly nice) English public school boys meeting other (less nice) English public schoolers, and I actively thought to myself "i can't be doing this".

So, genuinely, my first term at university was pretty solitary. Not a natural maker of friends, I wanted to make sure I didn't fall into line with the obvious - didn't go to the black tie balls, join the exclusive clubs, I even made a self-sacrificing decision not to go to university cricket nets when I saw what the vibe was.

Eventually by Term 2, I settled into a group of people I was happier hanging out with. And so it remained. It was hardly the working class revolutionary party, but it was a very solid, normal group of people. Some from state schools, some from grammar, some from private schools, played football, went to pubs, Scottish, Northern Irish, southern England, northern England.

The point is ,,, I guess ... that's where the line is, or can be. A choice in early adulthood rather than destiny or a choice in childhood. (by this, i understand that a limited number of people have that choice, and that's the privilege). Being a member of the "upper class" can be ingrained but it can also be aspirational. The pink shirt wearers chose to stay on that path. Some, with enough chutzpah, are able to join that path.

Conversely, lots of people who are privately educated want not to stand out, to just be "normal" whatever that is, and university gives you the opportunity to do that.

Arguably, as you go out into the world of work, some of that good work gets undone, as people who at one time aspired to normality achieve high financial standing, and find themselves back amongst the elite ... anyway, I still think there's something in my passing thought,