When and why did ED become so poncey?

[MadWorld74]

Middle-classes in ED? I can't take it anymore!

[JoeChuff]

agreed, being middle-class is lush.

[mockney piers]

MW74

In one line sean more or less said.

"Oooh, give over"

[Lucyl]

I dont have a problem with this question and I also think that it shouldnt matter that subjects have been done already as there are always new people on the forum who might care to start a new (to them)discussion.

I'm speaking very much as one of the ponces who likes all the poncyness. We moved here just as it all started about seven years ago I reckon, because it was relatively cheap and there are loads and loads of three bed family houses which we could buy for the same price as a 1 bed in Brixton. Thats what happened, lots of middle class ponces moved here when they had kids, either from North London or the more tubified areas of South London and that inevitably put the prices up.We bought a grotty old house off a not very poncey woman who wanted to move to Canvey Island, did it up and so it goes.....

Would also like to add that Sean I agree with everything you say ....always... weird.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Madworld74 - I'll go one better, I'll summarise in a word:

"mmwwggghhhhhaaaa"

PS - you counted the number of lines? You're not that bleary-eyed ;-)

[Administrator]

Stay on topic please

[MadWorld74]

I'M MIDDLE CLASS AND I WANT TO MOAN ABOUT STUFF.....alot, well some stuff. Oh Sh*t, I don't have any kids and I don't own a ridiculously priced house in ED, so I guess I'll forget the moan, seeing as I haven't paid up my membership to the Middle Class Society of the United Kingdom. Maybe I'll just be a middle class reserve. But! I am a fully paid up member of the Ponce Club UK. Hip hip hurrah!

[SeanMacGabhann]

Lucy - that's the problem with you poncey people - always being nice to other people ;-)

Just kidding

Your point is absolutely spot on, and as I said I thought the initial post was solid. It's just that it became apparant it wasn't people interested in a discussion but an axe to grind (with all due apologies to relevant parties if I have misinterpreted)

Other topics are often raised by people new to the forum unaware the same topic has already been raised - and it's not normally a problem (eg "which is the best curry house?") but this particular topic just has no endpoint

[macroban]

> I've been living here just 3 years - found ED when searching for an affordable house large enough for teeanage family and two elderly parents-in-law to all live together.

A new East Dulwich extended family.

Good stuff.

[Brendan]

I've been doing a bit of research and my closest estimation is some time late Friday afternoon 11 March 2005.

[MadWorld74]

I think we should blame it on Clarence the dog from The Bishop.

[pk]

i haven't time to respond to all of the above on a case by case basis, but to summarise - i am not against change (certainly not when it is for the better), the middle classes (i guess i am as much a part of it as someone of immigrant stock can be) and i am very realistic about the ways of the world

but what i am against is not so much 'poncyness' as 'snobbishness' and arrogance of which i think that there is plenty in ED

i understand some of the 'if you don't like it move on' stuff but to be honest i don't necessarily agree - if there are SOME elements of an area/town/community that you like less it doesn'e mean that you don't on balance like the whole (obviously i do), but liking the whole does not mean that you would not like to change the parts that you don't like

[MadWorld74]

I still say we blame it on the dog from the pub.

[DaveR]

The pattern of gentrification in London is largely a story of re-colonisation i.e. areas of Victorian and Edwardian housing which was built for and occupied for many years by the middle classes, abandoned when they fled to the outer suburbs and commuter towns during the 30s through to the early 1980s, and then re-occupied when the trend for inner city living took off. In the meantime a lot of public i.e. council housing had been built or acquired by local authorities throughout inner London. This leads to the current strange situation where the LB Islington, for example, is synonymous with gentrification and wealthy/high profile residents - ponceyness, perhaps - but also has one of the highest proportions of council tenants of any London borough.

ED is not so different - the ponceyness may be very visible, but that doesn't mean the area is in fact homogenous, and it's arguable that people's behaviour and attitudes are far less easy to classify by reference to income, for example, than in the past. As has been said by numerous people above, in terms of shops and bars etc. you get what the majority of people want.

So, why oh why are there so many shops selling crappy gift type stuff that no-one in their right mind would ever buy - that's what I want to know.

[MadWorld74]

the buyers have more money than sense?

[LostThePlot]

James Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "young student-look-a-likes who dress in rags and

> then drop money on champage at the EDT and snap up

> ?250k 1 bed flats somehow"

"Trustafarians" sums them up best I feel

[SeanMacGabhann]

hmm - can't disagree on your distaste for snobbishness or arrogance pk

And I'm sure you are right - some of the well-off recent arrivals would rather move to Hackney than take a wander down Peckham High St or Rye but one shouldn't judge a book by it's cover - as I said before, people of all walks of life have their own inherent prejudices

I'm not sure how you would judge me walking around ED but you as often find me in Peckham as you will pretending to be a (20 years younger) student in Inside 72 - but without knowing me you might assume otherwise..

[James]

What's interesting is the way salaries have levelled out. E.g. most of my "creative" friends earn substantially less than train drivers, carpenters etc. So I don't have much sympathy with those who mourn the disappearance of the "poor impoverished working classes" from East Dulwich - most of them left long ago for Bromley and Basildon. They can now be found polishing their 4x4s, admiring their new build mock tudor mansions and going to Bluewater of a weekend, thanks very much!

[pk]

sean - i wouldn't judge you at all, unless you did something remarkable that attracts attention (which may then make me think 'he seems like a nice guy' or otherwise, depending on what you'd done).

as such couldn't agree more that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover

[SeanMacGabhann]

but then again I might be buying champagne in EDT ;-)

reminds me of a scene from Beautiful Girls where this guy is trying to impress Uma Thurman is a small US town so he asks the waitress to bring "the finest champagne" - to which she replies (witheringly) "there is no finest, they're all pretty much the same"

[*Bob*]

Let's not beat around the bush. A cock is a cock. And there are cocks in every demographic of society.

Middle class cocks are stand-offish, drive look-at-me cars, have nothing to talk about except their work and possessions and and are snobby and smug.

Working class cocks take delight in being aggressive and threatening, don't care about the area they live in, act unsociably and selfishly within a shared environment and start fights because someone looked at them in a funny way.

There are more middle class cocks in ED now, and less working class cocks. But the cock percentage is roughly the same.

[*Bob*]

I forgot the moral of the story:

Stay well clear of the cocks and you'll be just fine

[James]

I shall resist the urge to make a smutty remark.

[*Bob*]

The spirit of Dick Emery lives on..

[James]

I try my best!