When you reflect on life, you muse about some of the hoops you’ve had to jump, just to get to the next day in the maze and turmoil that is the drama of growing up. I’ve even been tempted at times to blame my parents for creating an inadvertent environment of duress, that made it all the more important for the need to be creative in developing survival tactics to cope with the events that played out right in front of your eyes. This they did, by thrusting me at a very tender age, in a schooling and social environment that equated class to identity, and by extension, the right to be heard and not just to be seen. I guess you can’t blame a parent for trying to give their child the best, though the jury is still out about the methodology of this rationale.

See, I grew up in a public council estate where by the age of three, you were fending for yourself when out in the playground. No family in a five-mile radius had a monopoly on poverty, though every single parent did their best to keep their households above that respectable poverty line. The casualty to this survival instinct was that as kids, from a very early age, we had to learn how to improvise. It was unthinkable to even ask for a toy and from my recollection, the only interaction I had with any toys was when I watched advertisements on TV that had toys, and this was usually at a neighbours place on a special occasion.

Folks spent most of their time getting through the day and figuring out about what to do the next day that there wasn’t’ any quality time for creating an atmosphere where we could grow up in a well-rounded, three dimensional way like the rest of society. It was a predictable environment where getting through the end of the day was a good strategy, low-level gang thuggery seemed to be a preferred way of life for teenagers, and in some quarters, domestic violence was a cottage industry.

It’s no wonder why any parent would see school as an opportunity to change fortunes and give hope to their children, and for this fact alone, any parent should receive a medal.

In my case, I was presented with a serious social entry problem when I was landed with a school place not only on the other side of the railroad tracks, but most definitely on the other side of town. It was the sort of school that would earn any dad bragging rights when he sat down with his peers at the local drinking den. It was one of those schools that gave an opportunity for young children with academic ability, as it was subsidized by the government.

It took a while to suss out, but it soon became apparent what the rules of the game outside the classroom were. The pressure to survive and conform in groupings and cliques increasingly identifiable by class was a project in itself. It was paramount to develop a very flexible ability to survive in this environment dictated by class, but all the same difficult to translate the survival skills picked up from the neighbourhood, because some of these neighbourhood tactics simply did not apply.

There were daily interactions that made it harder and harder to avoid dealing with class conformity, and the situation at the time aptly justified Darwin’s assertion that only the fittest, or maybe the richest, survived. I look back at the sticky situations where I was constantly being asked why I always had jam sandwiches and a soda for lunch, while the others in the group pretty much had a gourmet lunch, or having to answer why my shoes were so dusty first thing in the morning - well, it’s hard to explain to a kid being dropped to his classroom door daily in a Pajero that the mile or so walk from the bus stop is normally a dusty, windy road.

The turning point for me was when our whole class got invited to a fellow class-mate’s birthday party, and the obscenity of how rich folks can live became a serious culture shock. For one, our two roomed flat could fit into this girl’s house living room. It wasn’t long before I became overwhelmed with the desire to conform to the apparent madness of class.

First things first, I had to style up. The dusty shoe routine in the morning, the jaded amazement at other kids talking stuff that I couldn’t even pronounce, the amazement and awe at those being dropped in heavy duty Benzes and Range Rovers - all that nonsense had to go. I took to travelling to school every day with a shoe brush and polish, and I suspect up to this day, my mother thinks I was moonlighting as a shoe shiner. Arriving in school early was an advantage, I had time to scrub up from the sweaty rush hour travel, and fewer heavy duty cars passed me on the way to school.

I also got to spend some quality time with some early comers at the school, and this gave me the opportunity to interact on my own terms without any clique or group dynamics in play. Lunch was a different story, and for this, I realised how advantageous it was to rotate crowds. I still had my humble low-cost jam sandwich or scones on a good day, but rarely was I seen twice in one week in the same group.

I also adopted a time old survival instinct that I’d learned while growing up in the neighbourhood. Find something you’re good at and make it an issue, and you will get listened to. Mine was sports and the gift of the gab. Talking my way out of trouble when growing up was a key prerequisite for sitting at the table in the neighbourhood cliques where I was more comfortable, and there had to be a way of converting this skill to this environment.

I also learned to steer clear of the classic “what does your father do?” conversation. My standard answer was that he’s in the army and he has a gun. By far, the biggest break for me in this forest of madness was when I had the opportunity to join the drama class, and excelled on an undoubted talent to shine on stage. The attention followed, the girls got interested, conversations in the cliques of class were those of my choice, and most of all, I became a king pin in the middle of the park playing a key role in the direction of the game.

Looking back, I don’t think any of those folks would have given me a second chance in being one of their classy bunch, but the strategy I adopted then, is the same one I have now; class is relative and I can define it. Money is just one factor, and only those who don’t know how, naívely substitute it for class.