Preparedness for when

greenbee

I know what women driving their kids to school are like fuddle. Much like many drivers, so focussed on where they are going they don't notice people trying to cross the road. Or so concerned about their OWN rush and priorities they forget other people's.

But your point was about the lorry driver's class. Lorry driving isn't an exclusively working class occupation (yes, do know a middle-class lorry driver and she assures me there are plenty of others, but then most people also assume lorry drivers are male), and salary doesn't necessarily determine class - I know at least 3 long distance lorry drivers (who would consider themselves working class, and are of working class backgrounds) who make more than my 'middle class' GP does.

My point was that there is a clear prejudice on this thread against anyone who is anything other than working class. Inverted snobbery is still snobbery. Nice people are nice people. Class shouldn't matter any more than gender, race or religion. It is certainly no more reliable an indicator as to whether someone is a decent, caring, considerate, intelligent person. Or whether they are well-educated or wealthy.

fuddle

I know at one time long distance driving was pushed at middle classes with the chances of earning a great amount of money. This wasn't a long distance lorry driver. This was a driver of a heavy goods vehicle for a local plant hire company. It's completely different with wages in line to what I was earning working in the office. I assumed the gent was working class because of it.

I was wrong to assume that he was working class but if we were up north I would like to suggest that there would be no second guessing that he could be middle class. I believe it would be assumed he was working class. Stereotypes work both ways.

I agree with you that class has no bearing at all regarding nice, kind, considerate people but in this situation I felt that he was working class and given I am working class I appreciated what he did for us. Working class solidarity.

[Deleted User]

Does anyone have a preppers plan for things like earthquakes? I've been through a 5.7 mag earthquake, there is a fault line running right along the Rhine valley and it happened when we were living in Germany, the epicentre was in Cologne about 70k from where we were. It happened in the middle of the night and the house was bouncing up and down and side to side all at the same time, noise like a washing machine full of rocks and then dead silence. Houses in Cologne partially collapsed and some people were hurt, nothing in our village and all that we found next day was a couple of bamboo canes fallen over in the garden. What could we do by way of prepping for something like an earthquake?

If my previous post has caused offence I'm sorry for it certainly none was intended. Experience not snobbery leads me to believe that the people born in the village would be more inclined to help if we needed it than those incomers who are in the more affluent parts who tend not to stray far from them and not to socialise out of them. Both posts are now removed.

jk0

smeeth wrote: »

Quite a few neighbours had structural cracks appear after it.

Crikey! Not just the houses then?

thriftwizard

What could we do by way of prepping for something like an earthquake?

My best friend from schooldays lived in Hollywood for a while. They live in dread of the Big One out there, and it's always made clear that it's your responsibility to Be Prepared. And preparedness includes having vast stocks of tinned food & bottled water, but the only place she had to store them was in & on high cupboards round the (enormous) kitchen. She spent several years convinced she was going to die under a pile of tinned goods that had fallen on her... it's a lot safer in Harpenden, where she lives now!

But that said, we have had big 'quakes here in the UK, as I discovered recently, albeit a long time ago. Whilst researching something else, I came across several references to a possible magnitude 8+ quake, epicentre somewhere between Portsmouth & Chichester, that happened in 1275 and killed a fair number of people in Southern England and Northern France. I know from my long-ago uni days that the Channel is actually a rift valley; the fact that it hasn't moved much for a very long time doesn't mean that it isn't ever going to. It could mean instead that it's well stuck, and when it does move, it'll go with a bang as it's alleged to have done back then. However that's not a particularly likely scenario in any way shape or form, and it's probably not worth stockpiling heavy goods on top of your kitchen units just on case...

Another one middle-class born & bred here, blessed with a "good" education & high expectations - but without ever having had any serious money! People are people, good & bad, the world over, whatever their background or colour of their skins. And how we see ourselves isn't necessarily how others see us; I didn't know whether to be amused or horrified when the son of some friends (who was later diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome) asked me earnestly whether I really minded being so terribly poor... he'd been told at school (yes, the one in town, Fuddle) that the poor have too many children, and as we had 5, and no carpets, he'd put two & two together & decided we were one of the poor hardworking families the Government keep banging on about... Persian rugs & sanded floors don't count, polypropylene wall-to-wall carpet is what makes you middle class!

Frugalsod

fuddle wrote: »

Interesting you pick upon the issue of the truck driver and not the women who were driving their children to school in a self obsessed and selfish manner.

Yes there are many like that who are far more obnoxious than many in the upper classes. As I said it is down to actions rather than class that is the issue.

The upper classes usually hitch their wagon to TPTB, and if they screw up then they get caught up in the cross fire. Good examples are the French and Russian revolutions.

The problem is that there has been a class war for more than 30 years but you are not allowed to mention it. The real enemy are not the upper class, but the 0.01% who have control of the wealth. The top 85 people in the world have as much wealth as the bottom 3 BILLION people. They are still getting richer even if the poor have had a slight improvement in their wealth.

moneyistooshorttomention

Frugalsod wrote: »

Yes there are many like that who are far more obnoxious than many in the upper classes. As I said it is down to actions rather than class that is the issue.

The upper classes usually hitch their wagon to TPTB, and if they screw up then they get caught up in the cross fire. Good examples are the French and Russian revolutions.

The problem is that there has been a class war for more than 30 years but you are not allowed to mention it. The real enemy are not the upper class, but the 0.01% who have control of the wealth. The top 85 people in the world have as much wealth as the bottom 3 BILLION people. They are still getting richer even if the poor have had a slight improvement in their wealth.

:T This is one of my personal bugbears - ie that that the vast vast majority of us (working and middle class alike) aren't in this 0.01%. I doubt anyone on this thread is in that tiny proportion of the population.

ITRW I find that some people will automatically assume that the fact I'm obviously middle class (ie my voice the second I open my mouth means theres no way to hide it anyway:rotfl:) must mean I have a good (or at least decent) income. Nope....I wish...I've always been on a very poor income (add in extra costs of being single to that) and I've always been very badly off. But that hasn't stopped a few people having a "chip on their shoulders" of assuming I'm on good income and being chippie towards me because of it. On the other hand are a few with decent incomes who seem to be unaware that I haven't got the same level as them and can be a bit "snobby" about it.

So..yep....kindness is kindness and I don't actually think there is any such thing as "working class solidarity" (except as regards supporting strike action).

Yep...I had two instances of kindness from strangers whilst out and about exploring yesterday and they were people I suppose would be identified as working class instantly. It wouldn't have been "working class solidarity" the second I opened my mouth and out came that voice:rotfl: - but they were both being kind to me (with understanding/kind remark by one and an offer of a lift in their truck by others). Just pure kindness - and no "solidarity" about it....

The vast majority of people don't go in for being negative about any perceived differences and there is a common recognition that neither of us are in that 0.01% and we are all "doing the best we can" with what resources we have available to us.

[Deleted User]

A very interesting discussion on class, I suppose a lot of how it is perceived depends on where you live, no one has any class where I live, even though one husband and wife think that they are a cut above, owning the local land and the `small` manor house etc but everyone treats everyone in the village, the same as everyone else

Now I am fiercely of the opinion that anyone who works for pay is working class, so that, to me leaves an upper class, who don`t `work` and no middle class. Many of us could all spout on about breeding, well my mum was born into a family that owned land and had servants but she married for love, hence the poverty. So genetically I could well be middle class (she shudders) re jobs, well my husband rose in the company and became a director with a jaguar as his company car and I have always been a professional with a degree. All this time I have been very protective of my roots ie where I was born and bred and I have always kept my Liverpool accent.

In my mind there is no middle class and all people are equal in the skin, born naked. Some people are lucky enough never to have had money worries since birth, whoopee do da. Personally I think there is the utmost satisfaction in striving for something and then achieving a goal. My husband was born poor and I was born poor and I am very proud of the working class symbol, snobbery or not.

mardatha

I think anybody sensible enough to join in this thread comes under the definition of "a nice person". Greenbee nobody meant it personally, we were just talking generally. MrsL you're a lovely person and shouldn't need to remove your posts - you are never nasty. We are all of the prepping class in here and allowed to say what we think wiithout offending each other. Gawd how would we get on post-SHTF if we were going to take offence at wee things said to us lol

mardatha

Personally I am much much more upper class than the vast majority of my neighbours.
Given that they are of the woolly 4 legged type :rotfl: