The working class did not vanish; they just swapped their high visibility for something less obvious, a sort of social invisibility cloak.

Selina Todd, Professor of Modern History at Oxford, has made it her business to poke holes in those cosy British fairy tales about class, gender, and power. She has spent years reminding us that the working class is not some quaint museum exhibit but an inconvenient fact some people would rather pretend no longer exists.

“Working class” did not vanish. It just stopped looking like a miner.

The Most Dangerous Myth Today?

That class does not exist anymore. “There’s still this persistent idea, especially in Britain, that the ‘real’ working class is only white, male, and manual. However, that has never been the full picture.” Translation: The working class is more complicated than your Sunday roast chit-chat allows.

If your mental image of the working class is stuck in the 1920s, hard hats and lunch pails included, congratulations, you have just won the ‘Most Out of Touch’ award.

Ordinary Lives And Extraordinary Surprises

Todd’s first history lesson came from interviewing an older woman at school and rewriting the 20th century from her viewpoint. “That taught me how central ‘ordinary’ lives are to the real story of history.” Radical, if you have ever suffered through a history lesson that was little more than a calendar of vaguely important dates.

Her Latin American research later debunked the “lack of sources” excuse for ignoring women’s, black, or working-class history. The truth? History-makers do not always get Wikipedia pages. “Change does not just come from Westminster or prime ministers. It is often grassroots, driven by people whose names do not make the headlines.”

Class Ambition Or The Emotional Cost Of Success

These days, ambition means abandoning everything you know. “There is this assumption now that to ‘get a good life,’ you must move away from your roots, your family, even your values.” Nothing says ‘achievement’ like a lifetime of awkward family dinners and chronic guilt.

Todd’s experience of benefiting from the postwar welfare state while growing up has made her sceptical. “Even moving from working-class to middle-class without changing your postcode can create deep emotional rifts.” Ah, yes, social mobility: the gift that keeps on fracturing.

What Britain Still Refuses To Reckon With

Asked what moment British history has not yet properly confronted, Todd is unequivocal: “our jingoistic view of World War II and the postwar period.” We adore the NHS and Churchill, but somehow miss the bigger picture: “The welfare state did not just deliver healthcare or education. It gave people a sense of entitlement to a good life.”

She argues that entitlement-inspired feminism, protests, and demands for equality are now quietly slipping down the memory hole, probably because they complicate the patriotism narrative.

Behind The Sex Discrimination Act: The Women We Do Not Name

The 1970s Women’s Liberation Movement often gets the headlines, but Todd wants to highlight the quieter players. “The women who laid the groundwork before were often less radical, less spotlighted, and definitely not Oxbridge-educated. But they mattered.”

They crafted the Sex Discrimination Act, the bedrock of today’s Equality Act, reminding us that history does not always need megaphones and marches. Sometimes, it just needs someone to file paperwork in the shadows.

If History Had A Soundtrack Now?

“Probably something triumphalist.” Nothing says ‘history’ quite like a brassy fanfare rewriting the past to suit whoever is holding the reins. Cue the parade of trumpets drowning out inconvenient truths.

History Is Not A List Of Dates; It Is A Debate

Todd understood from the start that history is not just memorising dusty dates. History is not a list of dates; it is a conversation. This may be why some find it dreadfully dull; they prefer their history like their tea: neatly packaged, easily digestible, and without too many unsettling questions.

History Is Not Capitalism Or Patriarchy. It Is People

Big systems do not move on their own, she insists. “Systems are upheld or resisted by individuals. So the question is always: Who is making change happen? Who is blocking it?” Power is in people’s hands, whether they like it or not, quite a responsibility.

The Importance Of Changing Minds

Todd’s journey shows history’s real magic: it forces you to rethink what you thought you knew. She once dismissed middle-class women’s roles, but changed her mind after reading about their contributions to medicine. It was a reminder that good historians don’t just find answers, they’re willing to rewrite them.

History As Debate, Not Dogma: A Call For Change

If she could slip a secret into the curriculum, it would be the oral histories from the Greenham Common Peace Camp. Their stories are “powerful, grassroots, and deeply political.” It is not quite the ‘battles and kings’ syllabus most of us endured, but it is infinitely more helpful.

The Soundtrack Of A Historian’s Heart

The early Smiths albums. She wrote a biography of Shelagh Delaney, one of Morrissey’s heroines, before he went off the rails. She keeps an album cover featuring Delaney by her desk. Whenever writing gets tough, she looks at it.

Because if history has a soundtrack, it might as well be bittersweet indie melancholy with a side of cultural revolution. And a healthy dose of British irony, naturally.