@Gee3 , So would you class your career as " doing a bit here and
a bit there" Gee ?? 
Donkeyman! 
Been Employed, Unemployed, Off the Books, Self Employed, the latter being the most interesting in the respect that, If you are employed in a trade or profession, there is a remuneration structure that guides the status level within that occupation, and the folks within the organization was used to asses annual pay increments based on a percentage rate or a promotion to the next grade up.
When going Self Employed its obviously different, lets say you do X amount of work one week, and receive £250.00 for it, the thought comes that, if you do X + X the following week, that will = £500.00, a 100% pay increase on the previous week, then the following week there is no work, but if the first week is treated as the standard, the pay rate is still £250.00 per week. What I am saying is, once free of direct employ, percentages, annual increases, promotions all become irrelevant, if you can pocket twice (the real) average wage, have your days structured around what you choose do then I suppose you’ve done Ok, regardless of formal education.
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@Tiffany , Well l was born in 1936 Tiffany and l only knew one
person
who’s parents owned their own house !!
So l think your family would be classed as middle class in those
days ?
The main reason for not studying for years was definitely because we had to pay our way from an early age !!
Donkeyman! 
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Guess that is so, my Dad was a bank manager. 
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I went to an ordinary secondary modern high school, and left at 15 with no qualifications. The only qualification I have acquired since then is a driving license. All the jobs I’ve had required no skills, just experience, and none of them were highly paid. I’m neither pleased about that nor regret it. If there is one good thing to come out of it, it is that I have never been at risk of becoming middle class.
Up the workers. 
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To my way of thinking, anyone who has to work to live are part of the working class. I’ve been working class since I received my first pay.
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Only if you deliberately misinterpret what I mean by working class, LD.
In that case you need to define your version of working class. I’ve worked all over (home & abroad) for every post I was offered (read sent to) with some classed as difficult postings.
I know the dividing lines between the classes are more blurry than they once were, LD, but I think most people have a reasonable idea of what is usually meant by the term working class. You wouldn’t really want to put me to the trouble of writing an essay on the subject when you probably know exactly what I meant to start with, would you? 
Ah, so you are drawing a line between what used to be called blue collar workers and office staff. Both need to work to gain an income, so to me both are still working class.
Whether it be by ‘pen’ or by ‘tools’ both work for a living and I do not see any difference. I’ve always been working class just as my tenants are and I’ll die as such.
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My father wanted me to work on the family farm, and I did, for a year after leaving school with a couple of O Levels.
I wanted something else but didn’t know what. So I persuaded him to send me to Agricultural College, one year residential course.
After that I stayed with a cousin in London who was working in film set design: she got me a job, freelance. I bought an old van and an A-Z, picked up stuff from hiring houses. Good fun whilst it lasted. I went on to do all sorts of work: barman, roadie, advertising sales, corporate events …
Getting a job and getting on the property ladder never was easy, you had to use your gumption make sacrifices. I don’t know if it’s any more or less easy today, we live in a different word, all corporate structures, rules & regs and CVs required.
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Personally I dropped out of High School Half-way through my senior year and went to California to make my way. I did take the GED(High School Equivalency Exam and passed). When I arrived in California I was told by my parents that I had enough credits when I quit High School that I had actually graduated.
So I went job hunting. What I discovered is if I lied about experience, 99 times out of 100 the person hiring you is going to say something along the lines of. “I don’t know how they did it where you worked last, but this is how we do it here.” Then they basically show you what to do, if you’re quick on the uptake no one is the wiser.
Got into 2 great careers that way.
I think success in life comes from confidence and not a piece of paper. I see so many young people going after degrees they are passionate about. Then graduate and find themselves in a mall kiosk trying to figure out how to pay college bills. It’s a shame.
Life style is a more accurate definer of “working class” than occupation, I would say.
What has the class of your tennants got to do with it, LD? 
You are a gentleman of substance, is that what you want known? 
Inverted snobbery. 
Well l left school at 14, so l must have failed my 11 plus ?
But l remember l was called to the local grammar school for
an interview by a panel of teachers which l must also have failed ?
I then got an engineering apprenticeship at a small local
engineering company for what turned out to be 6 years due to my
young age ! On finishing the apprenticeship as a machine tool
fitter l did two years national service in the royal artillery as a
gunnery signaller !
On demob l returned to my old firm assembling machine tools
for a couple of years then got a better paid job on the maintenance at an armaments factory nearby where l really
completed my apprenticeship working on all types of machinery
cranes etc, l really enjoyed working there for about 7yrs when l
saw an advert in the newspaper for almost double the money
up in the Midlands, so l sold my house in south London and
moved up there where l found that not only was the money
more but the houses were much better than in London for not
much more money?
I stayed there for about7yrs till the miners and other unions
started interfering in the running of companies,and as l was non
union this caused a lot of problems!! So we upsticks again, this
time to South Africa where l started all over again !!
I eventually started working for myself and we were actually doing ok, lhad two decent houses ,both fully paid for and a plot of
land on the coast when l decided to retire,( l was then 62 yrs)
We sold everything and bought a semi derilict guest farm in
the forest on the south coast and invested the rest of the money
as well as buying a town house to rent out in the nearest city ?
The guest farm we developed bit by bit and it was self supporting
after a few years and l put a larger family unit up which almost
doubled our income !! Then l suffered a brain aneurism, ( due l
think to a log falling on my head) So we sold the farm as going
concern and moved to our town house when donkeylady
decided she wanted to move back to UK and here we are back
at square one due to the exorbitant exchange rate ??
Donkeyman! !
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They work to live, just as I did before I retired. One one side of my house works for my son-in-law as a transport depot marshal and the other side works in the town hall. Both work and to me both working class as examples. As far as I am aware, nobody in my neighbourhood survives without working to live or they are retired. The idle rich would most probably not be seen dead in my neighbourhood.
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I was very bright as a kid but just couldn’t get on with school. I did my O’levels but they weren’t great results because I didn’t turn up to most of the exams and the ones I did I left after about half an hour.
I then went to 6th form and got thrown out there, then went to a technical college where I passed all my exams with 100% and distinctions before leaving for polytechnic. I got thrown out of Teeside Poly, Dundee University, Sheffield Polytechnic and the Merchant Navy before settling for a job as a software engineer. I was always great at writing software and ended up working on projects for people like James Dyson who I used to have breakfast with on a morning, Ken Morrison (of Morrissons) and other top business men. I did well at that (I wrote the protoypes for supermarket self scan as well) and then went into Project Management and then into the Pharma industry as a project manager. After about 15 years I set up on my own because I realised without an MBA or something like that I would never hit the big time. So I decided to short cut the career ladder and become a Managing Director by setting up my own company. I now earn more than most Doctors and certainly more than the swotty kids at school and their economics degrees etc.
I wish I’d been a tradesman if I’m honest - I’m thinking of becoming an electrician and working for free for people I know in the trade at weekends and my spare time. I’m fully qualified just never done the apprenticeship… who knows…
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@Harbal l think it all depends on wether you started work at
8 O clock in the morning or earlier !!
I found blue collars worked longer hours than white collars ??
Donkeyman! 
Not all of them. I was usually first to arrive and last to leave when I was London or provinces based and definitely so when aboard. Early starters always were a step ahead of the crew in my experience, or the crew did not function as a well oiled team.