Yah, we're all working class in Chelsea

Chelsea Green is one of London's most exclusive quarters. In the picturesque ring of mews houses and boutiques, sprinkled with blossom and lined with BMWs, the women tend to wear big, blonde hair and big, black sunglasses.

Most of the men look like Hugh Grant. But above some of the shops are housing-trust flats, purposebuilt for the working classes - and so here, around the tiny green, rich and poor Chelsea muddle along together.

It's also the battleground of a highly unlikely class war. A few minutes' walk away is the Beehive pub, which developers want to turn into million-pound houses, and which the Earl of Cadogan, Chelsea's richest man (and London's richest landowner after the Queen and the Duke of Westminister), wants to use to house the poor. The property was designated by the earl's grandfather for "housing of the working classes", and he is taking the case to court, in a bid to enforce the pledge. The only problem is, there is no legal definition of working class. So what does it really mean?

We went to Chelsea to find out if the locals themselves had any suggestions. As you might expect, upmarket residents outnumber their poorer neighbours.

Less predictably, though, they all seem under the surprising impression that everyone in Chelsea is working class.

"What is working class? I don't know. It's based on clothes, shoes and voice, isn't it?" In an estate agents, whose properties are so expensive that prices are not even advertised in the window, a pinstriped gentleman pondered the question. He appealed to a colleague, and got an instant response. "Blue-collar workers, non-professionals. Yah, estate agents are working class." Both men were dressed like bankers, wore brogues and could drawl for SW3 - but they were, apparently, working class.

Across the green, the door to designer boutique Collette Dinnigan was locked; entry is gained by buzzing the bell. Inside, surrounded by floaty dresses and diamant? high heels, the manageress considered the social credentials of her clientele.

"Here? In this store? Um ... Well, on average, I'd say probably about half our customers are working class." And how much would that dress over there cost? "That one? About £3,000. Oh - no, look, it's a little bit more. £4,100."

In the Chelsea Fishery next door, Bill Squires insisted he served "all sorts", but an American woman buying smoked salmon fell about laughing. "You have to be damned rich to be able to afford to buy Bill's fish."

The posher people were, the more reluctant they seemed to be able to identify their own class.

"I know what class I am," clipped a blonde walking her dog outside the launderette. "But I'm not going to put it into print." Nor would she give her name. Chelsea, she thought, used to be posh. "But now, you see, Notting Hill has got there too. Chelsea's taken a step back because of Notting Hill."

But even the poorest seemed willing to go along with it. Phillip Hudson, a resoundingly working-class character who had lived in one of the housing-trust flats above the launderette all his life, looked amazed by the very idea that Chelsea could be considered to be posh. "Nah. Most of the people round here are definitely working class," he insisted, as a man in a silk bow tie walked past.

Perhaps the English find the whole matter embarrassing. Foreigners were certainly much less embarrassed about coming straight to the point. In the launderette, a Brazilian was doing his weekly wash. How high was his partner's class? "Very high." Out of 10? "Ten." And yourself ? "Eight." What about the women who worked there? He studied them carefully. "Three."

The big difference between Chelsea's real working classes, and its rich pretenders came down to their attitude towards Lord Cadogan's plan for poor housing. The wealthy residents were hugely enthusiastic, and declared low-cost housing a splendid idea. "I'm 100 per cent behind him!" trilled Ingrid Temple. The lowerincome locals - who might even qualify for such housing - were decidedly suspicious. In the Simmonds hardware store, the manager and a customer - both from council estates, both plausibly working class - pulled long, doubtful faces.

"You'd think, what with our backgrounds, we would say yes - let's have cheap housing. But you can't guarantee who's going to live in it, can you?" The manager, Mr French, shook his head sadly. "I would love the working class to have a nice area to live in. But then there's all them kids, them vandals ..."

The owner of the launderette put it more bluntly. "Could this area do with more workingclass people? Not really, no. Mainly because of their children problem. You know, the problem of their kids. Workingclass children are badly behaved, and they cause havoc."

One of the greengrocers next door in Frys grew up on the local housing-trust estate. At 33, Warren has lived there all his life. "Since working here, I speak to all the people round here. The posh ones, all the lords and ladies. They are all really nice people, really nice. I've worked all over London on the barrows, on the lorries, and I tell you, the customers here are easier to deal with than our sort. They pay without complaining, don't they?"

If the Earl of Cadogan is hoping to rouse some solidarity among the working class of Chelsea, he clearly has his work cut out. Even Tamara Beckwith is against him. "So this is going to be a working-class area now, is it?" The first lady of It girls paused outside her hairdressers (a trim, £70-135), and gave a yawn. "Oh, dear. I wouldn't want to change it. I think it's perfect just as it is."

But what did she think it meant to be working class? "Working class?" A long pause. "I don't know. I think it means when you've got a job, doesn't it?" So what class was she? "I belong to the lucky class, of course."