Blood Brothers #2

So clearly people from working class backgrounds could use a bit of solidarity at the moment. We get into problems when we don’t recognise that we have some cultural differences. You expect it when going to another part of the world, but for some reason when we’re in the UK we expect everyone to behave just like us. If you don’t recognise the differences you can end up judging people for not behaving how middle class values say you should (e.g. ‘chav’-bashing); you can assume their difficulties are due to laziness rather than society dumping on them since the year dot (what do you think about people who go to the job centre?); you can attempt to be helpful and achieve the opposite because a) you do things to people and so disempower them further or b) you put things on and don’t understand why no one’s interested (e.g. doing Alpha in homes in the east end, when no one ever goes into each other’s houses there).

Your class doesn’t necessarily correspond to your wealth. It is more to do with a different outlook on life. Working class culture is not worse for you than any other culture. However, in our country, it is mostly working class people who are bearing the brunt of poverty... and that is bad for you!

A note on poverty. Poverty isn’t just about having more or less money at any given moment. I’ve had a few lean times in my life – when my Dad’s business went bust and he was bankrupt for a few years, and more recently working voluntarily for over a year on diminishing savings and money out of the blue from the Father. But I’ve never really been disempowered. I’ve still got the benefits of a great education, great work experience, a strong network of family and friends, wisdom for handling money/decisions/work/etc, self-belief instilled by loving parents, confidence in & intimacy with the living God, all the nice clothes & goods I’ve picked up through the years... so although I left Kampala with £20 to my name, I wasn’t really poor. My future was as bright as ever. I could easily see how I could get to anywhere in life I wanted to go. The point of poverty is that 20% of people in this country can’t.
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So.. in our different classes, we are equal. The question Willy Russell poses to us through Blood Brothers is, why then do people from one background get opportunities when the other doesn't? How can that be allowed? What can we do about it?

I haven’t really mentioned much about Blood Brothers. I just want you to go and see it. If you can afford to, you probably need to. It will help you understand this so well, and be a lot more fun than reading this dry blog. So I'll leave you with a real taste...