“Even at the third-rate schools to which Gordon was sent nearly all the boys were richer than himself. They soon found out his poverty, of course, and gave him hell because of it. Probably the greatest cruelty one can inflict on a child is to send it to school among children richer than itself. A child conscious of poverty will suffer snobbish agonies such as a grown-up person can scarcely even imagine.
The times that Gordon dreaded most of all were when his parents came down to see him. Gordon, in those days still a believer, used actually to pray that his parents wouldn’t come down to school. His father especially, was the kind of father you couldn’t help being ashamed of; a cadaverous, despondent man, with a bad stoop his clothes dismally shabby and hopelessly out of date. He carried with him an atmosphere of failure, worry and boredom.”
George Orwell, “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, 1936.
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 