It’s not just a Liverpool issue, it is happening all over this fine land, but an awful lot of young people are a bit loathe to leave the family nest and spread their proverbial wings right now. Look at Arg off TOWIE, if you must, with that flat he never moved into and always going on about learning to drive so he can win back Lydia. Whilst SBP has spoken about her youthful quest to buy a property early and keep on working her way up the career ladder, the fact is as Scouse teenagers it is not always the first things on their minds. They are not stashing copies of Your Move into their school bags. For girls it is all about what you look like, what you are wearing, and who you are seeing. For boys, even though they seem like an alien species, their list is remarkably similar. Already I don’t think they talk about girls as being young ladies they are seeing. Well, not on Twitter they’re not.
So your average Scouse Prin might be an intellectual genius, and she may not, but odds on she has got a pink bedroom, with an accent wall , a huge mirror and a chandelier, and her mother still does all her washing and ironing. Even if you decide to go down the Uni route like I did, well, I didn’t move a muscle. I was too busy with my life outside, so it was home cooked meals, a pretty nifty budget (I had a few jobs on the go), and a very nice fit Scouse boyfriend with a lovely Mercedes sports.( Which he never let me drive, by the way, but that’s Scouse lads and their cars.)
Even when I got a proper job, which took me a while as my career as an international supermodel didn’t go quite as planned, I was still at home and so was my other half. Did we move out and get our foot on the property ladder? As if. We just emptied our bank accounts in Cricket and Flannels and got served Lemsips in bed by our mums at the first sign of a sniffle.
When I found myself single, in my mid-twenties, and with a now very decent job, I did the right thing and moved in with my best mate. Which went swimmingly well until she wanted to move out so I was back home again. Now being a Scouse Prinny past twenty-five takes you past cute. Not only had I watched my dad actually cry when I had moved out, now I was on a return route ten months later skint and wanting my bedroom back. Funny how those tears dried on their own.
Being a Scouse Prinny, living with your mum and dad, and also being a teacher living in the same street as half your pupils is also akin to being in your own hellish version of Big Brother…
EEEEEEEEEEy Miss wha time did u gerrin last night? We heard that fella’s car engine what’s he got? Rya seein him again? Is he fit miss?
AAAAAAAAAAAAy Miss I seen ya gerrin in your Fiesta last night them pants were nice where were they from?
EEEEEyyyyyy Miss we seen yer arl fella comin out the Club last Sunday afternoon he was bevied.
So I did the honourable thing, and got a better job, bought myself a ‘luxury apartment designed for carefree living’ as it said in the brochure, and resigned myself to the fact I was now going to have to drive a crap car and possibly buy my work clothes in the Next sale. Bank of Ma did give me a nice little dropsie to buy a washing machine, which I bought a Dolce and Gabanna suit with in Wade Smith. So, obviously I stayed back at home at least twice a week so all my laundry could get done, I got fed properly, and I could watch all their Sky Channels. Result.
As a Scouse Prinny post-thirty I was doing fairly well. I mean, my mum retired from work and became my unofficial P.A., always going to my new flat to decorate and jangle with the posh neighbours. I never paid my dad back for the two car deposits, that holiday he paid for, two set of veneers…………. but still, I was going all Beyonce making my own dollars and that.
Please don’t ask why, because it is like a long, marauding soap-opera special, but I am now right back home in my old room. I am now officially a Scouse Spinny – you know the spinster auntie in the family who all the kids love but all the adults think is a full-on flake. And if you thought dating from home was a bit iffy as a Prinny, you want to try at as Spinny. The last one ended so badly I can barely show my face to this day. I mean, you can’t really go internet dating and mention your living arrangements. You are already using a bio that is full on fiction with a picture that has been Instagrammed to death, why not throw in that the last time you had a break up you had to listen to I Can’t Live If Living Is Without You with your headphones on, so as to not destroy your parents, who actually thought he could be The One, and they were actually, finally getting rid of you. Then insult added to the injury when on a cold dark Sunday he dumped my stuff outside the front door. To say my mother was fewin is an understatement, mostly at me really, for probably being a crank and ruining my chances once more……….
As a Scouse Spinny still at the homestead I can’t cry about my single status, leave anything on the floor, or get absolutely hammered for any reason at all. My social life is woeful, not because I don’t like people, but because trying to explain my life is just too shameful for words. However, I have noticed my silent army of Spinnies is growing, as are all the very bitterly divorced people whose not-so-better-half is in the nice detached ‘forever’ home while they are footing the bills and sleeping every night in a single bed, surrounded by posters of Kenny Dalglish, right back in the room they thought was just a museum of a past life.
Would I want to go out with these men? Are you joking? Eeeeehhh. Still living with your Ma, with your flash watch and no petrol money, going on and on about the wife rinsing you. Soz aba that.
I might not be living my glory days but I still have standards. I am still a Prinny at heart, and my dad says I can have my veneers done again for Christmas, as he attempts once more to get me married off and out of his house.
Good luck with that, Tommy lad. You’ve got more chance of getting that flat deposit back. And the one after that as well………
Follow Nancy on Twitter
XOXO