Respectable

We talk a lot about the role class plays in British society, but how exactly do we move from one 'class' to another - and, if we can do so, what effect does it have on us? In this powerful book, part memoir, part social analysis, Lynsey Hanley explains that to be 'respectable' is to be neither rough nor posh, neither rich nor especially poor. Drawing on her own experience growing up on the Birmingham estate of Chelmsley Wood - living through the Thatcher years, listening to the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure, reading her parents' Daily Mirror and her grandparents' Sun - Hanley shows how social mobility can be double-edged unless we recognize the psychological impact of class and its creation of self-limiting obstacles.