Page 37 - White Lives The Interplay of 'Race', Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

30 Talk, tea and tape recorders
rise estates. However, most had only more recent histories in the area. Those
middle classes who live in Camberwell have a reputation for being relatively
‘bohemian’, prepared to live in what is regarded as an inner city rundown
area and benefit from cheaper house prices. This reputation is strengthened
by the presence of a local arts school. Indeed, several of the interviewees
and/or their partners were involved in theatre or the arts.
Clapham spreads over quite a large area of London with Clapham Com-
mon at its symbolic centre. It is dissected by the border between two bor-
oughs, Wandsworth and Lambeth, which have different images in public and
political discourse. The former was a Conservative council throughout the
Thatcher years, and the latter is regarded as a Labour stronghold. Clapham
has good communication into central London by bus, tube and rail. A sig-
nificant proportion of housing in Clapham consists of good-sized Victorian
terraced houses in the leafy roads that fan out from, or lie parallel to, Clap-
ham Common. There are also low-rise and some high-rise council estates.
In the public social imaginary, Clapham is a middle-class area, characterised
by winebars, restaurants, delicatessens, small shops selling expensive and
fashionable gift items or exclusive toys and clothes boutiques. Clapham’s
reputation is indicated by a tongue-in-cheek article in a London paper where
it pictured a typical resident of Clapham who was described as:

smug, married-with-kids thirtysomething Caroline. At the weekend she
protects herself from the [. . .] chill by muffling up in lots of fleece.
Smokes Marlboro Lights. Works in PR and admires former PR girls Julia
Carling and Sophie Rhys Jones for their dress sense and social piggy-
backing abilities. Husband does Something In the City.
(Evening Standard 2000)

However, the area is, as might be expected, not so homogeneous. The
ward in which the majority of the middle-class interviewees lived is largely
white with (in the 1991 census) 79 per cent of the population white, 13 per
2
cent black and 3 per cent Asian. In 1991, it was estimated that almost 23 per
cent of the population of the ward were professional and managerial work-
ers and 40 per cent were other non-manual workers. However, the neigh-
bouring ward to the east presents very different statistics with a population
of 55 per cent white, 35 per cent black and 3 per cent Asian and 6 per cent
‘other’. This neighbouring ward (which is not in Clapham, but neighbouring
Brixton) has only 11 per cent of the population estimated to be in profes-
sional classes and 29 per cent in other non-manual work. An estimated 45
per cent of the population are semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers.
One of the interesting aspects of this area, as will be explored later, was that
the interviewees (particularly the middle-class ones) lived in areas that they
perceived and were reinforced in public discourse to be largely white and
middle class. But when they encountered other conceptions of area, such
as those presented by school catchments, they were confronted with a very
different social make-up.