Jealous

I'm jealous as hell! Exeter College, where I work in one of my 2 part-time cleaning jobs, is hosting Radio One's Academy (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p017f6dt). Which is a good thing, of course, but I'm so jealous of the young people who get to do things like that. When I was at school in the 1960s working class kids like me were deliberately steered away from arts, music, poetry, acting or any of the interesting things. Britain in those days was class structured and the child of a coalman or a factory worker was expected to become a coalman or factory worker like his old man, while the children of middle class families were expected to follow in their father's footsteps to become a bank manager or other middle class job. Working class kids were not encouraged to go to university even if bright. I left school without qualifications and stayed that way until I did the Mensa IQ test in my 30's and, being informed that I had an IQ of 160, was thus able to gain the confidence to go to university as a mature student and get my art degree. In the 60s we had nothing. We weren't even allowed to touch musical instruments at school in case, being clumsy working class oafs, we might break them. Nor were we allowed to use the high quality art materials which were kept in a glass case only for show. Kids these days, by contrast, have everything! That's what makes me so jealous. I don't begrudge it to them though.