Growing up among the Tory voting mind set

I've just noticed the BBC news site has an article on Sandhurst, the Military Academy. It reminds me that in the early to mid 1970s, aged 11 to 16, I attended a military boarding school in Dover. The Duke Of York's Royal Military School. And I remember my mum was always hoping or assuming I'd go on to Sandhurst afterwards.

The grown-ups of my childhood were, I believe, mostly Tory voting working class. Though my mum did have at least ONE best friend, Ann Edwards, who voted for the Liberal Party. And as 2 of my dad's favourite men were Bertrand Russell and George Bernard Shaw, I like to think he was SECRETLY voting for the left.

Putting a creative, imaginative, super bright and sensitive fairy boy child such as myself into a military school AND also expecting Sandhurst to follow, seems to me to be so typical of the blinkered Tory voting mind set.

I also remember when I was about 17, after I left school, and my Nan (my mum's mum) discovered that I was left wing, she assumed it must be the influence of my friends and not the result of my own intelligent autonomy. How insulting. I remember her argument was "we've always voted Tory" and therefore that should be reason enough for me to vote tory also. And again, I feel, SO typical of the tory mind set.

Speaking of which here is another classic example of Toryism via both my nan and my friend's nan .... titled: "there were moments when Nan could be a real cunt."

... http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/6020910123/ ...

MEANWHILE ... http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/5601020746/ ...