"Working hard used to get you something. It got you a house, a nice life, holidays. It got you somewhere....." Hannah Spencer MP Here I allow my thoughts to meander, try and consider where I fit in with class; acknowledge there are many pretenders; and finally consider whether it should be a legally protected characteristic.

My great-grandfather was known by everyone as Frank Elsden, although his birth name was Frederick, who moved to Spalding as a “man from the Pru” – an insurance agent for the Prudential Assurance Company in 1932, with his wife Ada and his son Cyril Frank Elsden. As such his was a story of social mobility from working class to middle class.

Rural class structures are very misunderstood. A popular history I was taught was that these people migrated to cities to work. This is a little misleading as in fact that they migrated into industry to work, not all industry was city based, especially coal mining as any visit to the former coal mining villages of the Midlands, Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland will reveal.

“It’s terribly difficult to explain in England to people how much class distinction there is. Its only when you go away and look back that you see it.” Michael Caine

Allotments have a variety of forms and uses. They are important today as they were in the past. The purpose of them and their function may have changed, but as fiscal pressures become greater they may become even more significant to people by reverting to their original purpose: To enable those not receiving enough renumeration from their labours to support themselves and their families.