Sorry it’s taken me a while to reply, I’m taking some leave at the mo, and have been spending quality time with my kids because oddly enough I like them more than I like the internet. This morning’s post had actually been written over a few days, following a few weeks of occasional grunking after another friend had tipped me off to this site. Anyway my little critters are in bed, housework is done, emails sorted, so now it’d be rude not to reply to the best of my ability.
OH probably does exist. I agree with guesses that it’s a man, and I’m bi myself so do understand how difficult it would be for Jack to row back on her public lesbianism and announce a relationship with a man. When I’ve had relationships with women, I’ve known
absolutely that I never wanted to be with a man again, and then a few years later whoops have had to change my mind because actually there are some lovely men out there and I’ve been attracted to some of them enough to go out with them. (Thank you to sympathetic commenters on previous threads, who have noted that biphobia is a thing and that it makes relationships difficult for those of us who’ve been adamant that we’re
100% gay 4EVA and then later realise we aren’t!) So I’m not going to throw any shade on Jack at all for keeping OH close to her chest and not posting photos or whatever, cos if OH is a man she will undoubtedly get some backlash on socials from some of her more bonkers followers. And although IMO she deserves plenty of
tit for plenty of reasons, having a relationship with someone isn’t one of them. We should all be allowed to fall in love with another consenting adult without sniping about our sexuality, so no shade on that. I have an idea of who OH might be - definitely can’t say though, sorry, in case I’m wrong - but if I’m right then he’s a lovely chap who works long hours in multiple jobs. Not wealthy. Not the kind of guy you’d notice for his looks (either in a good or bad way) but a very kind and good man motivated by good things. The sort of man someone might take advantage of, sure, but equally the sort of man who might bring out the best side in someone. I hope for everyone’s sake that, even if I’m wrong about exactly who OH is, whoever OH actually is can bring out the good side of Jack, cos it looks from her Twitter like she hasn’t half let the bad side take over. But then, Allegra and Louisa both seem like thoroughly lovely, kind, warm people too, and they had no luck with Jack. So we’ll see.
Regarding the social circle stuff - I suppose I should be fairly careful … although tbh there’s not much of substance to it, and I don’t care much if Jack threatens to sue me anyway, because everything is either provably true or an honestly held opinion based on available facts. I’m not gonna be easy to identify from anything I say here, and didn’t sign up with my real email address. (Plus I have no assets and never will have, all my spare money goes in the kids’ savings, so I ain’t worth suing as I can’t buy Jack any sofas.)
Anyway without giving identifying detail
in my teens I finally began to meet other kids from around the town who weren’t from my background. Lots of them lived in Thorpe Bay and had lovely parents with big houses, who were happy to have large groups of miscellaneous teenagers partying in their garages or gardens, so I spent plenty of time in the area and know it well. Leigh too, and nice bits of Benfleet (but Benfleet was a serious pain to travel to when all you had was a bike, and no money for train or bus fare). It was a different era and social groups at the time were pretty mixed. There were some cliques, and the odd fight, there were different groups of lads who were known to not like each other, there were different groups of adults who were known to not like each other (some of my schoolfriends’ dads were childish
bleeping embarrassments; thankfully my own dad kept himself to himself), but no actual gangs back then really. But mainly, most people rubbed along pretty well, and everyone knew everyone to however many degrees of separation. Some of us povvos were welcomed at the fancy house parties the same as some rich kids were welcomed round the pirate radio broadcast. (Tbh the rich kids would be welcome cos they’d be the ones whose money we’d all use to buy hash and speed, sooooo … ! Yes, we were dickheads. Yes I regret a lot of it, and wish I’d known there were better things to do without money. My kids will know there are. Whether or not they’ll listen to me about anything is another matter, of course.)
One thing it might be useful to bear in mind is that Jack is from a family that, compared to the average family in the UK, is pretty well off (using net household wealth as a measure) … BUT a good number of Jack’s close comparators growing up, because they lived in a nice area AND she went to a grammar school, would have been the kids who were from families even better off than hers, instead of the average family or poorer families. I’m talking the showy yacht club families, in the really big Thorpe Bay Gardens or Cliff Parade houses that even in the early 2000s could cost getting on for a mill or so. Where the dads were in finance and fiddling their taxes to have more ready cash to do up their own houses or build their buy-to-let portfolios, and somehow still found the time to go shagging each other’s wives at the tennis club. (There was a Real Housewives Of Thorpe Bay series opportunity that got missed in the early 2000s!)
Socially the creative arts in town used to be a thriving free-for-all, but lots of it is now dependent on grant funding and that usually goes to quite a small group these days. When it was a free-for-all, there was a lot more social cohesion in the popular scene, and nobody really gave a
duck who came from what background. Especially at gigs or pubs or wherever. Through my late teens and 20s, and even early 30s, there were former heroin addicts happily rubbing shoulders with former private school kids, all playing music together and making art; commoners like me getting pissed and pilled up together (and often loved up) with the fine upstanding young men and women whose dads owned property portfolios across the borough. Southend was a pretty decent place socially in a lot of ways, despite there always being a lot of wealth inequality. It’s different now, fewer places to mix with people who aren’t like you.
This is all a very long way of explaining that, yeah I’m sure there were plenty of people who knew Jack was from a comfortable family, but the thing is, nobody actually cared. None of us EVER really cared who came from what background, not in that scene. The only reason people are caring more about her background and her BS now, is because she’s publicly attacking people all over the place, still leveraging her “but I was a Poor” story, and I think the Lee Anderson thing was a sort of breaking point for some of us. Like, the guy was literally down mines for a living and Jack makes out like she knows more about low pay and hard work than he does? NAH. If she was known to be a hard worker and actually put the hours in on the ground then maybe we’d just continue ignoring her BS, but she’s - how to put this politely - not known for her hard work on the ground. That’s why some of us are going “fucks sake can you believe the state of Jack Monroe” to one another now, when we’d never have bothered before. (Even though we might well think Lee Anderson is an arse too. Sorry Lee. Not a fan of your body of work generally, but do agree that cooking and budgeting lessons would be a great idea for lots of people from our sort of background.)
Anyway. The social exclusion stuff is actually a bit simpler/sadder than most of you are probably thinking, and it’s just that Jack wasn’t especially cool or well liked. No drama or anything, I just don’t remember anyone in my groups thinking she had much to add. I didn’t. That sounds harsh now, but I don’t know how else to describe it. I personally didn’t give her any thought at all until she got some publicity from The Poverty (which never added up for those of us who knew her, but I was busy at the time pulling myself out of a
tit life path, others were all busy having families and losing parents and stuff, and who really cared anyway, right?). After that, she’d pop up in the media occasionally and I’d roll my eyes that nobody had exposed her BS yet. Then would promptly forget about her. Mainly stopped reading the Guardian a few years back, and the Guardian was the only place Jack ever popped up with any regularity. So I just didn’t think about her enough to give a
duck. But all this nonsense with Lee Anderson happened recently, and whatever I think of him and the way he is, the way she conducted herself over it finally pissed me off enough to have conversations with friends about her, one of whom told me about this here website.
As someone who truly cares about a lot of the stuff Jack says she cares about, I just wish she would use her powers for good, and put in the time and effort to develop a genuine and solid skillset she could use to have real impact. It’s not helpful for the cause of social justice in this country to have the loudest voices belonging to the Jacks, because it makes it so easy for the other side to go “well, you’re a liar from a comfortably-off family, not a Poor, why should we believe a word you say?” and discredit the whole argument. Or they can go “lol you muppet, you don’t even understand that median pay is the only possible useful measure for calculating a pay gap, so you’re clearly not as smart as you think you are, why should we take anything you say seriously?” (god that pay gap
tit is embarrassing for her). Please become a better Jack, Jack - you could be useful to the cause if you were a better Jack.
As for her folks and why they keep quiet, I think it really is as simple as that parental instinct to protect their kid (and her kid). Kind of like SB’s dad, whose dignity I have to admit a bit of admiration for - he’s chosen to keep shtum instead of getting involved in her drama by correcting the record, bless him. To me that means SB’s dad has the right priorities because he’s putting his kid first, not his ego. Decent lad. Anyway, trying to think of her parents’ perspective, I imagine they’d probably conclude that nothing good would come from defending themselves. I don’t know them personally, but I simply don’t think they’re the type of people to prioritise their social standing over relationships in their own family. I know Big Dave gets a bit of ribbing here but fundamentally he’s a decent bloke, Mrs Dave is meant to be a nice lady too, and they’re old-school pillars of the community types. I honestly think Mummy and Daddy H are doing what they think is in the best interest of their family, even if that means letting the outside world think they were horrible bastards for leaving poor little Jack and SB to starve in their time of need. They know they didn’t do it, their friends know they didn’t do it, and that’s probably enough for them. Again, I think they really don’t seem like horrible people, they seem like decent, kind, and forgiving people.
And I have to say, if a kid of mine ever did to me what Jack’s done to them, if said kid ever made out I was neglectful and cruel … well, if said kid were in the public eye, I’d probably just do what Ma and Pa H have done, try and smooth it all over and have everything as nice as possible. Alienating your kid by calling them out on their BS, when they’ve built a big public profile and struggle with MH issues, would be a very hard decision to make, and not one a loving parent would be able to make easily. So I can totally understand if that’s the main driver for their silence.
Nighty night frauen. Thank you for the warm welcome. It’s nice to be in the company of others who know the backstory doesn’t add up (and nor do a lot of the other stories). I’m not going to stay up till 4am on Twitter or grunking, even though I haven’t got work in the morning, but hello Jack if you choose to do that. (I do wish you were better Jack. Please get some sleep and think about being better.)
please don’t let Jack ruin them . That said , it could be interesting as they are all about sustainability and minimising food waste - I can’t see how bollock sausages and rinsed beans will fit it
Horses are prone to sunburn, if they have pink noses, and yes we apply sunscreen.
) are fairly competent, but it's not always the case.
Thread Title nomination klaxon bib 
