by
LENETA HEY
I was a sensitive and creative child, feelings which I channelled instinctively into art. From a young age I discovered that the long fingers I’d inherited from my grandmother made the piano come easily, and I loved singing Van Morrison and Elvis Presley with my grandfather on his karaoke machine.
I also wrote stories and poems, letting my imagination drift away from the eccentricities of my mother, who, back then, was a single woman with three children who could barely keep us all afloat in our tiny council house in Rochdale.
Nevertheless, music and writing were the things I would turn to when life was overwhelming; I just let my curiosity and imagination guide me.
It wasn’t until recently, at 22, when I relocated from Rochdale to a small village out towards West Yorkshire, that I began to understand that somewhere between the age of seven and my early adulthood, something had quietly stifled my creativity.
Over time, self-criticism, doubt, and a deep-rooted fear had taken hold, keeping me from fully pursuing the things I loved. Moving towards the Calder valley, a place where people express themselves freely and creatively, illuminated just how much I had abandoned the artist child I once was.
This abandonment was not a sign of a growing disinterest, but a result of an environment marked by poverty, hardship, and a relentless focus on survival.
…
The rejection of art by the working class, I have found, is built into us from an early age as we are taught to prioritise safety above all else. The constant need to survive in unpredictable environments makes us avoid play, vulnerability, and self-expression. We learn to wear an invisible armour that hides our feelings and creative passions, so they don’t make us targets for ridicule or disappointment.
In primary school, my best friend Callum was naturally sensitive and deeply introspective. Whenever he escaped the constant responsibility of looking after his two toddler sisters, and his mother’s frequent angry spells, he retreated to his small room to write poetry.
“I just write them when I get stressed or angry,” he said one day, showing me the scribbled words in his notebooks he kept hidden under his bed.
The next day, he decided to read one of his poems aloud in English class. Almost immediately the room filled with giggles and sidelong glances, and in the following weeks, his usual group of friends seemed embarrassed to be seen with him.
Slowly, Callum stopped writing altogether and adopted a tougher, less sensitive persona who fitted more comfortably with the boys his age. His notebooks disappeared under a pile of Xbox games. Poetry gave way to endless football drills in the park.
This dismissal of vulnerability and self-expression was often visible elsewhere, especially in the way the children treated the musical theatre students, who were often labelled as ‘too much,’ overly dramatic, or simply odd.
The theatre class often brought together a mix of working-class children and slightly more well-off kids. The working-class kids like me would often sit on the drama floor, either in awe or, at times, in quiet disdain for the slightly better off students, who seemed to possess an effortless self-assuredness and confidence that seemed impossible to grasp.
These kids didn’t need to be particularly talented; it was their boldness and presence that landed them the best roles. One girl in particular had a reputation for flinging her arms wide on stage. It didn’t matter that she was the smallest, squeakiest sounding girl in our class — when she performed, her tiny frame seemed to fill the entire stage, and her voice commanded every eye in the theatre. She also caught the attention of students who were quick to gossip about her and tear her down.
“Amelia is just so annoying. She’s so full of herself. I honestly can’t stand it when she sings,” Lilly said once in the PE changing rooms, rolling her eyes and tugging at her ponytail. As a girl of middling popularity, her opinion quickly shaped how the others treated Amelia: Amelia was always picked last for netball and rarely spoken to outside of group projects.
Of course, what I am describing — that self-expression risks rejection — is something all children experience to some degree. But the consequences of that rejection were much harsher for the working-class child, precisely because middle-class kids often had something to fall back on.
The rejection Amelia faced at school stung, but she continued to pursue her passions with a fearlessness nurtured by her supportive parents and the private singing teacher she had on the weekends.
With this encouragement, she held her head high, arms still sweeping beneath the spotlight, and dazzled her way into a top performing arts college. For the rest of us, however, for kids like Callum, who lacked Amelia’s safety nets, expressing ourselves in school or in public simply wasn’t worth risking the one security we had: social belonging.
In addition to the threat that pursuing creative passions posed to our social credibility, there was an emphasis that investing in them was also a risk to our future. The goal for most children in my town was to get out of it, and every subject was weighed against that escape route.
Maths and Science were encouraged and would get you the furthest, while creative arts were tolerated only insofar as they looked good on a CV that showed you were “well-rounded.”
Choosing music, art, or drama for GCSE demonstrated versatility and a willingness to push yourself, which was also a nice tick in the box for college applications. But no one ever taught us to truly live like artists — to see, feel, and shape the world through our own experimental gaze. Art was never an end in itself; it was always bent back toward employability and practicality.
Recently I bumped into Sam, an old friend from high school who had achieved one of the highest grades in art. Back then, he was always painting pieces like Andy Warhols and often had his work displayed on the wall, making our grey classroom a little more colourful and alive.
When I asked him if he was still painting, he looked at me with a slightly embarrassed smile.
“Oh, that was just a silly hobby,” Sam said, “It was never going to get me anywhere. I’ve just finished my degree in dentistry — planning to open my own clinic.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Dentistry? Really? I thought you hated science and that sort of stuff back in school.”
He shrugged, ‘I thought it was more realistic … what about you? What are you up to?’
“I just finished my English degree,” I replied.
“Oh, nice,” he said quickly. “Have you thought about a PGCE? I’m sure they offer bursaries for teachers — just nine months and you’ll have money coming in.”
I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t mentioned wanting to be a teacher, yet his first instinct was to steer me in that direction. It felt a little deflating, even slightly patronising, but I couldn’t blame him.
He was simply pointing me toward the safest, most reliable path to financial stability which we had both been taught to value above all else. In his eyes, it was a kind and practical piece of advice.
…
Children from poor areas are rarely raised to see themselves as artists, reflected in fact that only 16% of creative industries are made up of people with working-class backgrounds, the lowest it has been in decades. Conversations around working-class representation in the arts often fixate on whether ‘access’ to these spaces is open to everyone.
Yet, I would argue, access has never been more available. The working-class child today can study arts and humanities at university, attend theatre without it being a strictly classed experience, or open the internet to find Bob Ross tutorials, drawing lessons, creative writing prompts, or guitar tutorials at the click of a button.
The real issue is not whether working-class children can access these things, but whether working-class children are encouraged to believe they can or should — especially when, from the very beginning, they are taught that survival matters more than play, and that play and imagination come at significant social or economic costs.
I am still learning how to allow myself to play, and at times, it feels paradoxically like hard work. The process requires a complete rewiring of everything I have been taught to believe: that vulnerability is weakness, that people won’t accept me for showing it, and that a life in the arts is too precarious, too uncertain, to risk over the promise of financial stability.
When I moved towards the Calder valley, I gave myself permission to begin again, to take small, baby steps pursuing the two things I loved most: music and writing, because for so long I had believed that beauty, art, and creativity were for “other people.”
Stepping into play felt like trespassing into dangerous and unknown territory. But there is only so much one can endure of a life that quietly suffocates creativity, all under the sorry guise of staying ‘safe.’
That shadowy life, I have decided, is not one I want to live.
