Class at Christmas
Dickens saw Christmas as the one time when the rich and poor united in a spirt of shared humanity. But Laurie Taylor asks if that is any truer today than it was in Victorian times.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, children gathered beneath a sparking tree, a table groaning with turkey.....the cliches of the season are as alive and well as they were in Dickens time. But does everybody have equal access to the bounty of Christmas and the good will of others? The geographer, Steve Millington, finds that the distaste some middle class people feel for 'excessive' displays of xmas lights in working class areas reveals a narrative of class hostility which echoes Victorian attitudes to the 'undeserving' poor. He joins Laurie Taylor, the sociologist Bev Skeggs and the historian Julie Marie Strange to explore Christmas, compassion and class, then and now.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
Last on
More episodes
Next
Broadcasts
- Wed 22 Dec 2010 16:00麻豆社 Radio 4
- Mon 27 Dec 2010 00:15麻豆社 Radio 4 FM
Explore further with The Open University
麻豆社 Thinking Allowed is produced in partnership with The Open University
Download this programme
Subscribe to this programme or download individual episodes.
Podcast
-
Thinking Allowed
New research on how society works