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I believe that Britain is becoming more class-conscious, and I quake at the very idea of Old Etonians ruling the world again.

Class still matters in Britain today.

The Sixties was a time of breaking down class barriers, although I think class still exists today in some areas.

Everything is about class in England, whether it's upper, lower or middle. Why should that be?

Ireland is such a young society. The British were the ruling class up until they left about a hundred years ago, and we've been trying to work out what our class hierarchy is ever since.

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.

The 1970s - I was ten in 1975 - were a bad decade in all sorts of ways but the middle class had comfortable assumptions about the prospects for its children. The middle class was smaller then; it was a much less competitive Britain, less meritocratic.

England is strictly class-based. What's surprising is how many films are still made with a load of people in silly frocks running around gardens and talking in middle-class accents.

Of course the lower classes have always felt downtrodden and aspired to a better life. But there is this theory that people respond to a class structure in England - there was a time when people knew who they were and knew whom they served and as long as management wasn't abusive, it was a good life for people.