“If there is hope, it lies in the proles.” So said one of the 20th century’s greatest philosophers thinly disguised as a novelist, George Orwell, in his spookily prescient work, 1984. I believe my lifelong fascination with the underclass began when I pondered that declaration of independence against a futuristic form of government oppression, which has turned out not to be so futuristic.

As a shopkeeper’s daughter, I understood poor people; they obeyed the law, worked hard, sent their kids to the same primary schools I attended and were equally ambitious for their children. But the underclass, small as it then was, behaved differently.