My man - my gentle man lives in his rural patch of bankers and corporate finance. A delightful enclave of Surrey. A stunning landscape set in the Surrey hills. However, this landscape has been infected with those that sneer at the less fortunate: us mortals who do not own a hedge fund. A garden of Eden - beautiful but deadly. Harsh.\Yet it is a true statement - four wheel drives, loafers and loud braying befit the newly arrived "second wives" of the market town that sits among the Three Counties of Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. Here one's face does not fit unless there is a huge wage packet attached to it. Here gossip is rife about which school is the best; whose husband has strayed and who has gained the biggest pile. If your offspring, probably a beautiful accessory, did not gain the school that was "the IT school" then a multitude of labels are available for a price of an Ed Psych report. The born and bred have faded and barely have a voice. They can still be heard, just, amongst the iphone and blackberry loud chitter chatter of the wealthy elite. If you take time to dig deep.there are truly wonderful folk to be found with generations in the graveyard. But they are hidden as the "succeeders""who have taken root and grasped this beautiful market town with a corporate, monied grip.
Essex, my home county, is just as bad. However, in Surrey, these new folk have the accents of pedigree but I am sorry to say less grounding. Not that I am saying Essex is any better - rough and ready and, where I live, plastic and orange. How do they differ? Essex is money, money, money. Surrey is money, money, money. Hedge funds will out in both counties. However, there just seems to be a more real feel to Essex.
On the Estuary run from Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness , you can find the most successful entrepreneurs in the country of fiance, art and literature, possibly due to ill gotten gains, but those apart, success is embraced not criticized nor bitched about. I can still walk into any of my locals and mix with all different walks of life and noone cares. In Essex, stereotypically we have bought into that image of the blonde and plastic doll adorned with bling. That living, breathing, walking, talking doll can be from any walk of life in Essex - we still love her or him./And yet, we don't care if you are orange, punk, emo, plastic, wealthy etc, if you can sit, chat and argue, in my home town of Leigh, we will listen. That is the truth. We are so happy if any one will debate or listen - we are the end of the line- the arsehole of England!
Yet in Surrey, there is a complete divide of those that have and those that do not. If you ooze wealth then you attract wealth. Then is no room for the extraordinary There is a dress code. Woe betide those who do not follow it! Success is only praised if that person can open doors or is so very wealthy that their door may only be opened if chosen. One can only befriend them if they are climbing that corporate ladder. The real Surrey folk have retreated and are hard to find, like pearls you have to dive deep. Strangely in my TOWIE land of Essex - the flatland of gain and Sylvia Young, I still witness that slap on the back to sa:y: "well done my son" . Is that because non of us have strayed from our roots? Well I did. Or is it because in Essex we welcome success. I think that I am probably prejudiced being an Essex girl who can trace her roots back for at least 5 generations.But, I admit, we do love bling and celebrity; we do celebrate wealth and gain but since we live at the end of the mouth of the Thames, we realise that home is where the heart is and we need to stick together as noone else cares. We have been persecuted (Matthew Hopkins), ridiculed (white handbags and stilettos and left to flounder (Thames Barrier). Yes, we have a tier system. Yes it is wrong. Yet, anyone can join it through hard work or marrying well - like Surrey What is the difference? We don't ditch our friends because they do not fit, we take them along for the ride - be it the end of the line,Shoebury or the end of the line,The City of London. We don't care if their face fits or not; we care about them.
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