Jimmy comes from the working class and although some of his mother’s relatives are “pretty posh,” Cliff tells Alison that Jimmy hates them as much as he hates her family. It is the class system, with its built-in preferential treatment for those at the top and exclusion from all power for those at the bottom, that makes Jimmy’s existence seem so meaningless. He has a university degree, but it is not from the “right” university. It is Nigel, the “straight-backed, chinless wonder” who went to Sandhurst, who is stupid and insensitive to the needs of others, who has no beliefs of his own, who is already a Member of Parliament, who will “make it to the top.” Alison’s father, Colonel Redfern, is not shown unsympathetically, but her mother is portrayed as a class-conscious monster who used every tactic she could to prevent Alison from marrying Jimmy. The only person for whom Jimmy’s love is apparent is Hugh’s working-class mother. Jimmy likes Cliff because, as Cliff himself says, “I’m common.”