sapote | (no subject)

I'm English, so can help with general things... but I don't think I met any queer teenagers until I was 14 or 15 - mid nineties. What's the query?

Okay, first, what kind of schools would the daughter of a shopkeeper go to? Second, did you still have shopkeepers in the seventies/eighties? Third, can you tell me how someone can get to be prime minister?

And fourth, I have no idea what the history of GLBT life in Britain is like. My roommate just suggested I watch Velvet Goldmine again for reference and that's all we've been able to think of.

::hangs head:: I am a little culturally ignorant.

The school part I can tell you: it'd probably be the local comprehensive. There's an exam called the 11+ that used to be compulsory. If you passed, you went to a grammar school where you were encouraged to take lots of exams and stay at school until you were 18 (and maybe uni - more so recently), if you failed it was the comprehensive. At a comp, it's a bit more vocational, and generally a bit rougher. They're generally the schools that struggle to catch and keep good teachers. In my borough in 1993 I had to opt in to take it; my friends in the next borough over all took it as part of their normal school week. I don't know offhand when it turned optional - eighties? Your character would definitely have had the option of either, but stereotypically the working class went to comps and the middle class went to grammar schools. There would probably have been a choice of mixed or single sex in either case. There's a third option - private school, but unless that shop was doing really, really well it's unlikely your character would go there. If you want him to, he could have won a scholarship - my brother got into private school at half price that way, and some of his friends went for free.

Shopkeepers? Sure. There's the corner shop (so called regardless of its actual placement), the greengrocers, the butchers, the bakery, DIY shops and so on. They're often family run, but recently a lot have been bought out by bigger companies.

Politics... not my strong suit, but I'll give it a shot. Our boroughs each have an MP. We vote in local elections every few (4?) years to select our local MP (member of parliament). Whichever party has the most MPs is usually the one in power, but not necessarily. The prime minister only changes at a General Election, in the case of a change in leading political party; or due to an internal party change like we just had with Blair/Brown. We also have the ocassional by-election (sp?), which is when we need to vote in a new MP ahead of schedule - for a resignation or death. There have been times when the balance of power has changed between general elections and the leading party doesn't have a majority in the House of Commons, (where all the MPs get together to insult each other and jeer and other important political stuff) and as I recall 1990 or so was a period when this was happening. After Maggie stood down, John Major was the PM, but he was so crap that the Conservatives lost their majority to Labour, who're still in power now. The PM is an MP who got voted in by the other MPs to lead the party. We never actually vote for Prime Minister, we vote for the representative of the party we want to run our local council. Sometimes tow representatives run for the same party, but usually it's just one per major party - Conservatives (aka Tories), Labour, and Lib Dem, plus some fringe parties. Back then the Green party were around, and my grandma always voted for Lord Such's guys, the Monster Raving Looneys.

GLBT - not much of an idea. It's probably pretty safe to base it on America's but with less conflict and more muttering. And different slang, of course. It's not queer, it's poufs for boys and dykes for lesbians.

That was all a bit stream-of-consciousness, hope it's clear and helps! Need any clarification?

See, is "pouf" and "dyke" derogatory? Because "queer" of course can be, but it's also a catch-all, reclaimed sort of term - like someone wanting to major in GLBT culture & history at college would have "Queer Studies" on their diploma.

This is great information, thank you so much! I am going to work my way through it and try to use it not to make too much of an authorial ass of myself *g*

I really appreciate it!

"Poof" is pretty derogatory, of a similar level to pansy, shirtlifter, uphill gardener, fudgepacker, woofter, etc. Not quite as strong as "fag". We don't really do reclaimed language in the UK, , although we do have Queer Studies in places like Brighton.

check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_politics and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom for political details. I'm something of a politico myself, so I'd be happy to answer any specific questions.

In general,

tacit_uk is reasonably accurate for a non-politico! The British system is quite different to the US one. Elections (which we call "General Elections" to distinguish them from "Local Elections" where we elect our local government and mayor-level people) must take place at least every five years. However, they can be called earlier if the Government of the time wants to. (Thatcher, for example, was elected in 79 and called an election in 83 to take account of her Falklands electoral bounce. Subsequent elections were 87, 92, 97, 2001, and 2005, and in general tend to be in May, but this is more of a tradition than a law.)

An important point to note in British politics is that the Prime Minister is not elected separately to Parliament, as the US President is to Congress.

tacit_uk is correct that the country at large doesn't vote for, say, T Blair vs. D Cameron, because they are local MPs in addition to being selected party leaders by their parties' internal methods. (These internal methods generally involve a vote.) We vote for our local MP candidates, who are then added up (there are 650+ of them) so that one party has a majority in Parliament, and that party forms a Government that is led by their party leader, who becomes PM.

Back in the 80s, the Tories (Conservatives) were in power for the whole decade. Thatcher was ousted by her own party (!!!!) in 1990, and succeeded by the very grey John Major, who won an election in 1992 and ruled until 1997, when Labour won a landslide majority.

From a personal point of view, Prime Ministers tend to go to Oxford or Cambridge, then spend some time working for their party, then become an MP, then get selected to be a Minister, then get selected to be a member of the Cabinet, then become PM.

oh, man, thanks! This is a pile of information to sort through (and I have a Canadian being very helpful on google talk). I really appreciate it. So basically someone who was going to be prime minister in 2005 would have had to get into a grammar school, and then ... I don't know what the intermediate steps are, something about A levels? then go to a good university, and then all that working-your-way-through-the-system bit?

Thanks again for helping, tacit and folk!

He/she wouldn't have *had* to go to a grammar school, but it is more common. Private schools are the most common route into politics, I suspect. They don't always have an entrance exam.

It goes: GCSEs at 16. Normally between nine and eleven of those, each graded from A (or A*) to F. I think - not sure what comes lower than E, there are some other letters that I never really understood the point of. N? U? Whatever. Anyway, you usually need five A to Cs to go on to A-levels.

A-levels at 18. These are often taken at a college, but my school went up to 18. Most don't. Back then, you'd take 3 or 4, graded as above.

University is generally three years for a bachelors, four for a masters. As

folk said, the Oxbridge set is more traditionally political. There's also a hardcore of boys' private schools that have more than their fair share of politicians - Eton, Harrow, Winchester. I used to go out with a guy who went to Winchester, and he was probably the poshest guy I ever met. He wore braces to work. God.

It's actually a bit different for the poshest of private schools. We go to primary school from 4 to 11 and secondary school from 11 to 18. They start prep school at 8 until 13, then go to Eton or wherever from 13 to 18.

Okay, educationally speaking, think Harry Potter. I'm going to assume that you don't mean Harriet Jones to be educated in public school (i.e., private/independent school), because this changes a bit if you do.

At 13, you have the Common Entrance exams, which get you into Grammar School or a comp(rehensive). I didn't take them because I went to public school and did scholarship exams instead.

At 16, you have the real-world equivalent of OWLs, which were called O-levels until the mid 80s and GCSEs afterwards. These are somewhere around 9 subjects, and I'm sure there's an excellent wikipedia page on them. After these, you can legally leave school.

At 18, you have A-levels, and there are three of them for most people. There are no core subjects, and you can take what you like. Back in the time period we're talking about, universities would have been more selective about what you could take to get into, say, Oxford's PPE (Politics, Philosophy & Economics), which is the primo politico degree. Say a language (French, Latin), English and then something else (Politics if the school offered it, History, Geography, that sort of liberal art thing).

After that, there were S-levels, I think, which were what you needed to get into Oxbridge. I don't know very much about these, because they'd fallen out of usage by my time (*waves stick*).

Okay, questions on this part?

::punches air:: The more I wrote, the less convinced I became...

Um, semi-reclaimed? As in, I'd call my gay friend a pouf ('poof'? not sure) in an affectionate, teasing way, but I wouldn't expect to hear it on the BBC anytime soon. And even less so for dyke. I do remember a lesbian friend in about 96/97 wearing a t-shirt that had some sort of clever play on words linking 'dyke' with Star Wars... I can't remember what it was for the life of me, but it was amusing. She wore it intending to shock, though.

Also, we don't use 'queer' here, just 'gay'.

Happy writing - what's the fandom?

that makes sense, and Doctor Who. I may be overresearching for a story based in a fandom whose villians are rolling trash cans, but there it is. *g*

If you're after entertaining research materials, try to get your hands on 'Queer as Folk'. It was written by Russell T Davis, who's also behind Dr Who. It was on air in about 1998 and it rocked.

and also thanks!

For that manner, was anyone a queer British teenager in the 80s/early 90s?

Sorry, I can't help. But this may be my favorite question ever! *g*

obviously someone was...

Obviously. I just like how you phrased it. Very succinct. *g*

Hello!

synecdochic sent up the fag-signal. I think I qualify, though more for the early-to-mid-nineties than the 80s bit. But I do know a lot about the Section 28 stuff and sim'lar. Happy to talk it through, either in comment spam or via email to my LJ address. :)

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Fast like a ~~Bangkok whore~~ fast thing. I'm heading to bed but will get back to you in the morning!

Wow, fandom is fast. Thanks! The only note is, I'm actually more on the lookout for UK lesbian history, but if you don't feel like that's too far from your field of expertise, I'd love to do some emailing.

Welcome! i can certainly find you some lesbians (I'm pretty sure they're under the sofa doing painting or woodwork or crochet or something) if you need to, or I can pretend to be one and answer some general questions. :)

nifty. Thanks!