Big homes, nice cars, luxury holidays... what their friends don’t know is that they’re Britain's new MIDDLE CLASS POOR



As I walk down London’s Westbourne Grove, it suddenly hits me. The world looks the same, but my life as it was a decade ago is over.



Around me, well-dressed women are happily chatting in restaurants and cafes, their shopping nestling safely at their elegantly shod feet, next to their designer handbags.

Less than ten years ago, that was me, but today it’s like peering through a window in my past. Like so many middle-class people, I slid into poverty when fees for my work froze or plummeted and the cost of living soared.

Financial struggle: Charlotte Metcalf, pictured with daughter Deia, has seen her income shrink by half in the last decade and now struggles to make ends meet

I am currently one of thousands of middle-class paupers out there putting on a brave face and pretending nothing has changed when, in fact, beneath the glossy varnish of the facade, our entire way of life is crumbling under the crushing pressure of the credit crunch.

Perhaps those same smug-looking women lunching in Westbourne Grove are secretly dreading that sickening moment when the bill arrives, too ashamed to admit they can’t afford to pay it. Five years ago, I worked in film and was earning £1,200 a week.

My partner and I started a new business and we borrowed and borrowed and bought a country house alongside the two we owned between us in London.

We practically rebuilt it while I fussed over the kitchen, oohing and aahing over Farrow & Ball paint and butler sinks. We moved to the Cotswolds and I even bought another cottage as an ‘investment’. What hubris!

When the recession hit, we realised the value of our properties had slumped and we were largely in negative equity. We had to rearrange our lives totally.

Now, I live in a two-bedroom rented flat in West London. What I can earn by writing making the occasional short film brings in just enough to cover the rent. For many articles I write, I earn no more than £250 and often struggle to make £500 a week — just over what my rent is.

But, superficially, my habits remain the same: I go to parties, eat at restaurants when my friends invite me, and pray they don’t ask me to go Dutch.

It is rather ironic that a favourite middle-class pastime is to moan about the cost of mortgage, school fees and domestic help, but the minute we really can’t pay them, we clam up.

When alcoholics stop drinking, they tell everyone they’re on the wagon and avoid their boozier friends. When we stop being able to pay, do we shun our wealthier friends?

'Some of us still have bags of money, some of us can’t afford to take a cab home. But on the surface, we all look the same'

No, we cling to our old haunts and habits, preferring to go without food at home rather than admit to a friend we can’t afford their trendy organic cafe of choice for lunch.

We think nothing of donning a dress that once cost the earth to attend a glamorous party or a restaurant opening.

We sip our champagne and move easily among the same old circle of friends, chatting away about what we’re up to.

In reality, a vast chasm yawns between us and, well … us. Some of us still have bags of money, some of us can’t afford to take a cab home. But on the surface, we all look the same.

It’s as if thousands of middle-class people are dangling in mid-air, legs waving. We’ve been ejected from our old lives, but we’re desperately resisting hitting the ground with a splat.

Deborah Risbridger, 45, has run her own PR consultancy, DRA Public Relations, for more than 20 years.

She lives with husband Paul, 46, and their three children under ten. Like me, the Risbridgers came of age in the Eighties.

‘Paul and I are Thatcher’s children,’ Deborah says. ‘Like many of that generation, we believed everything we touched would turn to gold and for the first ten or 15 years it did.

‘We had a phenomenal couple of years, our earnings were rocketing and naively we believed it would go on for ever. It wasn’t enough income to describe ourselves as wealthy, but what it did was unleash our ability to borrow.’

And borrow they did. Over time and on credit, the Risbridgers acquired all the trimmings of success: a five-bedroom house in Buckinghamshire, with an Aga, bespoke kitchen and wet room, surrounded by 15 acres with stables and 14 horses.

Saving face: Charlotte says she still eats at restaurants with friends, but prays they don't ask her to go Dutch

A top-of-the-range Audi as well as a Range Rover sat on the drive. Their two children were privately educated and they holidayed in the Caribbean and Dubai.

By 2006 their incomes had dropped, but their outgoings hadn’t. To add to the problem, their properties were all heavily mortgaged, with little or no equity remaining.

With another child on the way, they didn’t want to worry their families. ‘We did all we could to keep the charade going,’ says Deborah, though they were frantically selling their cars and cashing in their endowment policies and pensions.

‘There was definitely a sense of shame and I remember feeling that I’d failed in some way. If I didn’t have the material wealth or the ability to borrow money, then who the hell was I?

‘I hate to admit it, but I think there was an element of saving face. Being secretly poor but having this outwardly wealthy lifestyle took its toll on my mental health and, in 2007, I had a nervous breakdown.’

I sympathise with Deborah’s sense of shame and failure. When a friend invited me and my daughter to Scotland for the weekend recently, I accepted before I looked into what it would cost for the two of us to fly there and hire a car.

I couldn’t afford it. Five years ago, I’d have spanked my credit card, but I don’t use one any more. Like Deborah,

I was squeamish about telling the truth, fearing I would be slamming a door on some magical inner sanctum.

Yet I liked and trusted the group of friends going with me enough to be honest, and one of them treated me to the tickets. A year ago, I’d have been too proud to admit being short of cash, let alone accept it. None of us likes to lose face.

‘We kept our troubles from family and friends for a long time because we didn’t want to worry them, but also it was about keeping up appearances,’ says another mother, Susannah Mimms.

Like the Risbridgers, Susannah, 47, and her husband David appeared to have it all — a big house, smart cars, two children at private school, a full-time nanny and regular holidays.

Their careers took off in the Noughties when they were earning over £250,000 between them. Then, in 2007, tenants in their buy-to-let property did a bunk without paying rent, leaving £30,000 worth of damage. Soon after, David was made redundant and their lives collapsed.

'We especially didn’t want the kids’ friends to treat them any differently because we were poor,’ says Susannah, ‘and most of them were from wealthy families. I can’t deny, either, that we’d got used to a certain lifestyle and that was very hard to let go of.

‘We kept our troubles from family and friends for a long time because we didn’t want to worry them, but also it was about keeping up appearances'

‘We managed to come to an arrangement with the school over the fees, we dressed well, we saw the same friends and acted as though we were still rich. By the end of last year, the stress of trying to repay our debts and hang on to our home proved too much.

‘Telling my parents was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do because I felt like such a failure having to ask for financial help.’

Psychologist Oliver James, author of Affluenza and The Selfish Capitalist, puts our sense of shame down to the pressure we feel: ‘A Briton turning 20 in 1978 was actually more likely than one doing so in 1990 to achieve upward mobility through education.

‘Nonetheless, in today’s Big Brother/It Could Be You society, great swathes of the population believe they can become rich and famous, and that it is highly desirable to them.

‘This is most damaging of all — the ideology that material affluence is the key to fulfilment and open to anyone willing to work hard enough.’

If our worth as a person is judged only by our affluence, no wonder we are so scared of letting go. Like so many of us, I went through a period of fretting over petty details like blinds, kitchen surfaces and taps.



The curtains in my current rented flat cost £6 a pair from IKEA and, as far as I know, no one thinks I’m a worse person for them. In many ways, the more we go back to basics the less anxious and happier we become: ‘Having material possessions brought

pressure, stress and expectation, not enjoyment,’ agrees Deborah.

The Risbridgers now live in a modest cottage in Dorset, with their children at the local school. The big house, horses and smart cars are gone, yet Deborah continues: ‘We are so lucky now because we have so much — three healthy, thriving children, a comfortable and affordable home in beautiful countryside and a lovely circle of friends, many of whom we’ve discovered have been through the same financial hardship as us.

Penny pinching: One woman reveals that she has to choose between toothpaste or toilet rolls when she visits the supermarket

‘We will never borrow beyond our means again, but I’m grateful for the experience as it has made me a better person. Losing one of my dearest friends to cancer last year at

40 made any residual worrying about what we had “lost” seem rather pathetic.’

The Risbridgers have faced up to their situation and dealt with it, but they are the middle-class exception rather than the rule.



On Mumsnet, the internet site for mothers, a 39-year-old calling herself ‘Skinters’ writes: ‘We have a lovely house filled with expensive furniture and nice clothes, but behind the scenes it’s horribly different.

‘We’re six months in arrears on our mortgage. We can’t sell because the bank have a charge on all the equity... it’s hand-to-mouth every month. And once or twice people

have turned up on our door-step for their money.

‘Some days, I have only a few bits of change in my purse, I can’t buy myself a newspaper and I have to choose between toothpaste or toilet rolls in the supermarket.’

Skinters continues to describe how she’s feeding her children cheaply, aware they’re not eating as healthily as they used to. She has a car, but often can’t afford the petrol.



She can’t even pay £50 for her children’s school uniform at ASDA.



‘And yet I’m sat here wearing an expensive pair of jeans, which were bought in happier times, and very expensive wedding and engagement rings,’ she says, ‘To look at me, no one would have a clue how desperate I feel inside.’



Skinters’ blog received 580 responses. Many women were in a similar situation and offered sympathy, which indicates a fundamental shift — who’d have thought that anyone would feel sorry for a university-educated woman sitting in a £600,000 house

in designer jeans?



Chartered psychologist Dr. Jennifer Gomborone treats many patients at her Harley Street practice and finds that the recession has caused dreadful new anxieties over money for the upper and middle classes.

‘I’m dealing with a vast number of professional people who have had to cope with major changes and haven’t known how to go home and tell their families that they can’t provide,’ she says.



‘It is excruciatingly painful for them. It’s not living on the streets, but it’s their version of skid row.’

Sylvie Beart, 46, is a member of Debtors Anonymous and has been attending meetings near Tottenham Court Road in central London for two years.



She has seen her group expand from eight people to between 20 and 30.

She describes herself as middle class. ‘It’s just been so acceptable to live on credit in this society,’ she says.



‘The lure of the credit card means so many people live in the red and our fellowship has become stronger and stronger as people’s lives unravel because of it. It’s

important we all start to see that living with huge debt is not an acceptable way of life — there’s another way.’

It’s time for many of us to take a deep breath and admit we have a seriously problem.



One of my best friends, a highflying career woman, has already attended Debtors Anonymous but is still finding it hard to face the harrowing truth that there will be no

more nice clothes or well-appointed central London flat in the future.



I know I have not yet had the courage to work out the exact discrepancy between the cost of my current lifestyle (albeit much more modest than before) and my income.

It’s far too scary but, unless I do, my problem is only going to grow. It’s time to hit the ground with a splat. Only then can we pick up the pieces and move on.

