young? upwardly mobile?

Well, no. But I used to be young…

I don’t think we had yuppies round these parts. We were still living in black and white, and without financial institutions, credit or mobile phones. That may have been the only period in history when my hair (big and curly when left to its own devices) conformed to fashion. I’m sure there were shoulder pads, but they did not a yuppie make.

Yuppies may have had money, but they didn’t seem to have a lot else going for them. The term somehow implied people getting above their station; social mobility as something to be sneered at. They worked hard, spent their money on gaudy baubles and lived in expensive shoe boxes. Who’d want that when you could be living in a drafty student house, looking up the library card index, and handwriting essays?

Actually, politicians in NI regularly like to worry about a ‘brain drain’- the young people who leave the region and never return. The inference is that those of us who stay here, through choice or circumstance (and including those self same politicians) are just that wee bit thicker than those who leave. Maybe we didn’t have yuppies because we’re not clever enough to work in finance? Because we all know that only the brightest and the best handle the money…

So, given that I’d be too poor, too stoopid and too far from the action to ever have been a yuppie, how on earth did I end up with a health condition invariably and pejoratively linked to them?

 

Sidey’s weekend theme: yuppie

our new house

It was time to move out into the world. We’d left home; now it was time to leave the security and warmth of student halls of residence. An adventure, indeed.  We were keen, energetic, and clueless.

There were thousands of houses let to students in the area. I’m fairly sure we took the first house we looked at. We saw the right number of bedrooms and our own front door. We chose to not see the grub, the mouldy bulge in the kitchen ceiling, or that the plaster on the living room wall appeared to be held up only by the ancient and peeling wall paper. We were charmed by bits falling around us if the door was slammed. Memory has blurred how the door could have been slammed since it probably never closed properly- maybe a draft was enough to bring the plaster down?

We were playing house. We painted with enthusiasm, we ate a lot of toast, we collected shopping trolleys in the back yard. We studied and partied. We huddled round tiny fires or costly blow heaters which warped LPs. We stayed up all night. We cooked individual ‘meals’. We put on layers of clothes before going to bed- climbing into sleeping bags under duvets. We didn’t realise it was the coldest winter in years.

We made the house our own. We made memories.

Many years later, I still can’t watch the Sound of Music without thinking of making that move. We bought brushes and sponges and cloths and any amount of cleaning products. We piled into the house, opened the windows, sang along to loud music, and cleaned with gusto.  In a move away from the regular programming, J branched into musicals; ‘I have confidence in Ajax, I have confidence in Vim …’

Written in response to RemembeRED: Cleaning House, over at Write on Edge. If I can figure out how to link from there, I’ll be very impressed.

lifelong learning

The nearby university is buzzing again. Thousands of young people in the park, the coffee shops (in my seat!), and the library. I don’t envy them. They have a lot of fun ahead, but ridiculous costs, lots of hard work and uncertain futures. Also, hangovers.

I came to Belfast as a student in 1983. I was anxious about leaving home, what university life might have in store, and about being in Belfast at all. We used to take the odd day trip to do the Christmas shopping, and stock up on that Boots soap that Herself liked, but I’d never been in Belfast at night. A country girl, scared of trouble, who took a long time to venture outside the university area.

The front buildings of Queen’s University are gorgeous, and the quad behind is somewhere I still love to sit. During holiday time it’s almost empty and I can see our younger selves charging through to lectures, the library or the union bar. The people I still see regularly,  the people I haven’t seen since, and all the others. It feels like a lot of my life was forged at this place.

There were no fees. For a brief period there were grants. Heady days of long queues to collect the annual student card and the grant cheque, and at the bank. Carrying bundles of books because we weren’t allowed to bring bags into the library. A well worn card index. Special classes in my final year to introduce us to computers. (Hello PC, meet speccy)

I don’t think students live in houses without central heating anymore. They probably don’t need to use communal showers in the students’ union. Many have cars. Even so. Despite the huge leaps in technology and the changes in scary Belfast,  I’m so glad I’m not starting off as a student on an arts degree now. I’m middle aged and cosy, and glad of it.

exams

It’s exam time. The coffee shop is full of young people with papers, notebooks and highlighter pens. Studying seems to be so much fun than it used to be. Although it must be said that some of these conversations do actually seem to be about course work.

Kileen and I spent many long hours in the library, thinking we were studying. We managed to spend a fair bit of time organising our social lives, eyeing up the men, and gossiping. Would it be different now that we’re grown up, responsible and uninterested in young men? We’d work more effectively. We’d know to spend less time reading and more time thinking. We’d write essays that actually made sense, develop arguements, make confident presentations.

Now that I’m grown up I wouldn’t choose a degree subject simply because I’d quite liked it at school. I’d find out a bit more about the outside world, what interested me, what I’d like to do for years ahead. Without ever planning to do so, I ended up working  for a criminal justice charity for 15 years. Had health permitted I may have been there yet. Kileen, sharper than I, is still has a career she actually trained for! Dawnriser knew the value of focus and determination even then, while I, flighty Gemini, remain curious but easily bored and in possession of only a superficial knowledge of a range of things.

A quick glance at the website of the local university let me identify the course I’d like to do now. It’d be fascinating- time to consider issues around crime, welfare, benefits, disability, gender. Helping me to explain what interests me and put that into a wider context. Helping me to understand something about the ‘system’, so I can learn to influence it.  Not that I have energy, money or serious inclination to do it, but had I, that’s what I’d do now.

The opportunities for development outside the limits of the course or university confines are much greater than in Belfast of the 1980s. I look at the young people in the coffee shop and hope that they are grabbing all the chances they can, aiming high and  choosing not to be confined.

Wouldn’t you love to say that to them and freak them out?

“Why do I always get the weird old woman to, like, talk to me?”