How to be a Brit

nouveaux pauvres. There was no end to
their swaggering about, claiming how poor they were. As soon as you suggested a
coach-trip to Hitchin or just the idea of buying a chocolate ice-cream, their
eyes gleamed with pleasure and they told you with glittering pride: ‘We can’t
afford it.’ Their poverty was as ostentatious and vulgar as a gold-plated
Daimler with leopard skin upholstery would be at the other pole of the
financial globe, but while the display of commercial riches was vieu jeu, the New Poor were, at least, a new social phenomenon. Not being able to afford
anything made them happy; jeering at other people’s pleasures cheered them up
no end. Their eyes and their trousers shone with pride.
    Then the Prosperity of the
early fifties descended on us and ruined it all. It took the Poor unawares and
disorganized their legions. For a year or two they accepted Prosperity with a
sigh. Gone were the book-keepers who dressed like bohemians; every bohemian now
dressed like a book-keeper. Then, a few years after the initial blow, the
revolt against respectability broke out.

    The flag-bearers, the most
conspicuous an ociferous avant-garde, were the Teddy Boys but they were
not alone. Everybody who mattered protested in his own way. Filth, dirty
pullovers and unshaven faces became the fashion once again; others greeted the
convulsions and hoarse groans of graceless teenagers as a new art; angry young
men spat at the middle classes; others, again, hurriedly exchanged their
antique furniture for new and uncomfortable chairs and sofas. And a few people
gave two months’ holiday to their uniformed chauffeurs and went on a
hitch-hiking tour in France and lived in tents.
    But there was no getting
away from it. That damned Prosperity had caught up with all of us. The angry young
men went on spitting at the middle classes and made a tidy little fortune on
the proceeds; the convulsive young singers began to shake their manes while
they groaned, and that made them even richer than the angry young men; the
hitch-hikers and tent-dwellers returned and money kept pouring in to all and
sundry.
    How to remain poor? — the
worried practitioner asks himself. It is not easy. The New Poor of yesteryear
are fighting a losing battle. To remain poor needs the utmost skill and
ingenuity. (And only old-age pensioners and a few other unwilling people manage
to achieve it — to our shame). Everything, really, is conspiring against the
poor and trying to deprive them of their poverty. They had bad luck too. They
moved, for example, to such districts as Islington to show how needy and
destitute they were. Instead of establishing their misery, however, they
managed to turn Islington into a fashionable district.
    What else is left? It is no
use saying that you cannot afford a car because everybody can afford a car. It
is pointless to allege that you have no money because all you have to do is put
your head into your bank manager’s office and before you have time to say,
‘Sorry, wrong room,’ he will throw a couple of hundred pounds at you. (I am
always puzzled why people bother to rob banks. Can’t they ask for the
money?)
    How to remain poor then? I
can give no foolproof recipe, only a few pointers.
    1. Gambling, I believe, is
almost always safe. There is no amount the horses and the dogs cannot take care
of. The safest way of losing money is chasing it.
    2. Try farming. It lends
weary clothes-manufacturers and harassed directors of chain-stores a fresh
country air, and besides it helps to get rid of any amount of money. After the
war I saw a letter written by Marcel Pagnol to Sir Alexander Korda; it ran
something like this (I quote from memory): ‘I have discovered a truly
magnificent way of losing money. It’s called farming. Film-making is nothing
compared with it. A film may be successful after all and you may make money on
it. Never on farming. Farming is safe. You needn’t worry: it will ruin you in
no time.’
    3. Then there is always the
path of dishonesty. I mean you can always fake poverty, just in order to keep
the confidence and affection of your friends. Who can prevent you from going
round trying to borrow half-a-crown while you have quite a decent little
nest-egg tucked away at home? Being well-off, of course, is not your shame,
only your misfortune, but some people will not understand this. Alas, having money
causes a great deal of discord, faction and superfluous unhappiness.
    In a Soho espresso I once
saw an