Scratchings

Rich kid, poor kid

lzsl

Channel 4 just showed an excellent documentary focusing on two girls from Stockwell - Natalie, living on benefits in a council estate with her mum (depression) and brother (speaking difficulties), and Alice, living down the road in a six bedroom house with a family that look like horses and goes to a private school.

Alice spends much of the programme as a totally loathesome character - producing such gems as “My worset fear is to be poor. I hope I never have to send my kids to state school, I couldn’t bear it”. Alice’s mum is eye-wateringly awful, ruing that “there are no British people at this end of the street - you never see a white person”.

Natalie begins aggressive and wary, but turns out to be insightful and very funny. Her main worry at the moment is getting her five year old brother into school - he was supposed to be registered two years ago.

The girls meet and go on a pedalo in Battersea Park.

And they have fun. Natalie takes the piss out of Alice for her ignorance (“I didn’t know you could hang wallpaper yourself - I thought you had to get someone to do it”) and Alice takes it in good humour.

At the end of the programme, Alice repents, realising her views are perhaps not so balanced, and worries about what she had said earlier in the film.

The viewer is left with a feeling of hope - not that things will change in our divided society, but that there’s a chance that Alice won’t turn out just like her mother.