houses round here, going to lots of the people moving out of London – sell their three-bedroomed flat in Notting Hill and buy a huge country mansion …
( An elderly couple, he studying the racing page .)
HE: … the Thirsty Farmer.
SHE: The what?
HE: Thirsty Farmer … Oh – Rattling Jack.
SHE: That would be a good one. That’s sure to be all right.
I’ve never been able to get worked up about class and its distinctions, but then I’ve never felt the conventional three-tier account of social divisions has much to do with the case. What class are these?
My parents would have called them a grand couple.
SHE: Is it sweet enough for you? Sweet enough for you?
HE: Yes. It never worries me.
My mother’s scheme of things admitted to much finer distinctions than were allowed by the sociologists. She’d talk about people being ‘better-class’, ‘well-off’, ‘nicely spoken’,‘refined’, ‘educated’, ‘genuine’, ‘ordinary’ and – the ultimate condemnation – ‘common’.
( The elderly couple are still poring over the racing page .)
HE: I wonder if I could trust you.
SHE: What, to pick one?
HE: No. Very Special Lady.
SHE: Oh well, well I am at the moment, aren’t I? I don’t know how long you’ll keep me that way, but …
HE: Oh we’ll have a bit of fun while we’re here.
SHE: Your pencil’s upside down.
( Reception desk .)
RECEPTIONIST: Can I book you a paper for the morning, or a morning call?
GUEST: Daily Telegraph , and what about a morning call?
RECEPTIONIST: Right.
GUEST: I get up at half past five normally.
PORTER: The lift’s round the corner. Shall I take your bag for you?
Right, this way.
( Upstairs corridor .)
I always carry my bags myself-avoids the tip. It’s not the money: like catching the barman’s eye, it’s a skill I’ve never mastered; but then my parents graduated from boarding-houses to hotels when I was in my teens and at my most thin-skinned.
PORTER: This way.
Hope the weather’s going to perk up a bit for you. Here we are then.
GUEST: It’s been lovely for the last couple of days.
PORTER: That’s right.
( Bedroom .)
Arriving at the hotel, like leaving it, was fraught with anxiety: there was always the question of ‘the tip’.
Dad would probably have his shilling ready before he’d even signed the register, and when the porter had shown them up to their room would give it to him, as often as not misjudging the moment, not waiting till his final departure but slipping it to him while he was still demonstrating what facilities the room had to offer – the commodious wardrobe, the luxurious bathroom – so the tip came as an unwelcome interruption.
Once the potentially dangerous procedure of arrival had been got through, the luggage fetched up, the porter endowed with his shilling, and the door finally closed, my parents’ apprehension gave way to huge relief – it was as if they’d bluffed their way into the enemy camp, and relief gave way to giggles as they explored the delights of the place.
‘Come look in here, Dad. It’s a spanking place – there’s umpteen towels.’
( A boy runs down the staircase .)
Every family has a secret, and the secret is that it’s not like other families.
( A maid cleans a bathroom .)
In a new refinement of gentility, the maids these days plait the ends of the toilet roll. It’s a good job they didn’t do this when I was a child or I’d have imagined this was standard practice throughout the land, our family’s toilet roll unique in its ragged and inconsequent termination.
This was long before the days of trouser presses and hair-dryers, and even kettles in the rooms came in just too late for my parents. That would have been the ultimate, though. With a kettle and the wherewithal to make some tea, they could have fetched some stuff in from outside, been free of the terrors of thedining-room, and never needed to stir out of the room at all. When we stayed in boarding-houses we didn’t
( An elderly couple, he studying the racing page .)
HE: … the Thirsty Farmer.
SHE: The what?
HE: Thirsty Farmer … Oh – Rattling Jack.
SHE: That would be a good one. That’s sure to be all right.
I’ve never been able to get worked up about class and its distinctions, but then I’ve never felt the conventional three-tier account of social divisions has much to do with the case. What class are these?
My parents would have called them a grand couple.
SHE: Is it sweet enough for you? Sweet enough for you?
HE: Yes. It never worries me.
My mother’s scheme of things admitted to much finer distinctions than were allowed by the sociologists. She’d talk about people being ‘better-class’, ‘well-off’, ‘nicely spoken’,‘refined’, ‘educated’, ‘genuine’, ‘ordinary’ and – the ultimate condemnation – ‘common’.
( The elderly couple are still poring over the racing page .)
HE: I wonder if I could trust you.
SHE: What, to pick one?
HE: No. Very Special Lady.
SHE: Oh well, well I am at the moment, aren’t I? I don’t know how long you’ll keep me that way, but …
HE: Oh we’ll have a bit of fun while we’re here.
SHE: Your pencil’s upside down.
( Reception desk .)
RECEPTIONIST: Can I book you a paper for the morning, or a morning call?
GUEST: Daily Telegraph , and what about a morning call?
RECEPTIONIST: Right.
GUEST: I get up at half past five normally.
PORTER: The lift’s round the corner. Shall I take your bag for you?
Right, this way.
( Upstairs corridor .)
I always carry my bags myself-avoids the tip. It’s not the money: like catching the barman’s eye, it’s a skill I’ve never mastered; but then my parents graduated from boarding-houses to hotels when I was in my teens and at my most thin-skinned.
PORTER: This way.
Hope the weather’s going to perk up a bit for you. Here we are then.
GUEST: It’s been lovely for the last couple of days.
PORTER: That’s right.
( Bedroom .)
Arriving at the hotel, like leaving it, was fraught with anxiety: there was always the question of ‘the tip’.
Dad would probably have his shilling ready before he’d even signed the register, and when the porter had shown them up to their room would give it to him, as often as not misjudging the moment, not waiting till his final departure but slipping it to him while he was still demonstrating what facilities the room had to offer – the commodious wardrobe, the luxurious bathroom – so the tip came as an unwelcome interruption.
Once the potentially dangerous procedure of arrival had been got through, the luggage fetched up, the porter endowed with his shilling, and the door finally closed, my parents’ apprehension gave way to huge relief – it was as if they’d bluffed their way into the enemy camp, and relief gave way to giggles as they explored the delights of the place.
‘Come look in here, Dad. It’s a spanking place – there’s umpteen towels.’
( A boy runs down the staircase .)
Every family has a secret, and the secret is that it’s not like other families.
( A maid cleans a bathroom .)
In a new refinement of gentility, the maids these days plait the ends of the toilet roll. It’s a good job they didn’t do this when I was a child or I’d have imagined this was standard practice throughout the land, our family’s toilet roll unique in its ragged and inconsequent termination.
This was long before the days of trouser presses and hair-dryers, and even kettles in the rooms came in just too late for my parents. That would have been the ultimate, though. With a kettle and the wherewithal to make some tea, they could have fetched some stuff in from outside, been free of the terrors of thedining-room, and never needed to stir out of the room at all. When we stayed in boarding-houses we didn’t
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