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Nowadays, Jarvis Cocker may spend more time loafing his way around Parisian walkways than he does assembling the next lyrical pastiche to modern life, but the former Pulp frontman’s elegant and witty musical contributions to indie culture remain as evident today as they were at the height of the band’s fame in the mid 90s.

In a Britpop movement that was as much about the pride of being homegrown as it was the music, Jarvis’s work and inspiration always came down to one key point – real life.

Raised in Intake, a rough council estate in Sheffield, he was abandoned by his father at the age of seven, and thrust into the reality of a stark urban upbringing. Some years later he emerged energised and inspired, ready to touch the hearts and minds of a generation of indie kids with a combination of great tunes, lanky dance moves, and a well-considered opinion or two.
 
Here, he tells 24housing magazine’s James Evans  about squats, squalor and orange squash.

“To me, growing up in a council area meant, however involuntarily, you were in with the cut and thrust of community and reality.

“It was genuine, if, at times, a bit rough. I mean, there were always kids inflicting serious injury on themselves, not to mention their passengers, by jumping over a stream on a trial bike or something like that. So some aspects of it weren’t so great, but growing up in those areas was quite a good laugh; it was real, and I think anyone who has ever moved away from a housing estate will miss some part of it.

“I suppose we didn’t have much cash. I’d often be sent into school dressed in peculiar creations from my mother’s sewing machine. Combined with long hair and an inbuilt shyness, it might have explained why I didn’t attract a great number of friends.

“But there was so much stuff that was going on – a kind of buzz. That made it a great place to start a band. It’s funny, because you see so many famous people staring down camera lenses, crying out that they had to escape from somewhere by forming a group, or becoming a boxer, maybe. But for me it wasn’t about that, because I didn’t want to escape my working class routes – that would be like denying they were a part of me.

"Instead, the inspiration behind making music was to be able to talk about things that happened on our streets and behind closed doors. So that’s what we did.

“At the time – during the early 80s - that kind of stuff wasn’t represented in music.  Film had always managed to depict what was going on in the backstreets, and some of kitchen sink realism stuff from the 60’s had been a perfect portrait of gritty Britain.

“That said, I’d love to pretend I was busy gathering inspiration from high-rise blocks and windy alleyways in my immediate post-school years, but the reality was something different, and there were times when council estates could be as depressing as they were inspiring. I wouldn’t recommend sitting around on the dole for seven years for the sake of £30 a week as a lifestyle choice, put it that way.

“When it dawned on me at the age of 25 that I should do something with my life, it seemed right to move to London. It was incredible how many people were sleeping rough or in squats back then, including me.

“Dossing down in squats was always a risky business, because you knew that any day you might find yourself chucked out. When the inevitable happened you’d be stood there on the pavement filled with a profound but terrifying realisation that you really didn’t have a roof over your head.

"Thanks to housing provision and the work of charities such as Shelter, I don’t think that situation has to exist any more.

“But those experiences brought out the best in me, and certainly made me more connected with social accommodation issues, which has probably why I like to involve myself in these things nowadays.

“Everyone looks on the idea of having a roof over your head differently. I remember there was a buzz-phrase a few years ago, ‘council estate chic’, which went around for a while attached to Pulp’s music. But back in the day, the reality was if you were living in those conditions they weren’t very pleasant, and definitely not chic.

"It bothers me still even today when someone comes and does a fashion shoot on a council estate because they want it to look a bit gritty. I think that’s a bit pathetic and exploitative. It also becomes more difficult to write legitimately about that stuff, because you’re increasingly aware of making sure you’re not being looked upon as some pretender.

“Peoples’ lives are fascinating – in housing estates, suburban areas, or wherever. I’m just intrigued in the way we live, and I suppose growing up on a rough council estate gave me quite a bit to play with.

“As for how much things have changed over the years, I’m probably not the right person to pontificate as I spend a lot of time in Paris and it has been a few years since I have been living at the sharp end of things, but it’s clear that in most aspects of modern life we’re a lot better off these days.

"If you’re rational and sensible, you get a roof over your head.

“The other thing to consider of course is that the world of social housing in which we grew up in the 1960s doesn’t really exist anymore. I think having kids makes you realise this, and I’ve been known to embark on very deep philosophical slightly drunken discussions with friends on this subject.

“Council housing is still here, of course, but I’m not so sure the working classes still exist. I mean, there’s not much industry left anymore, especially if you take a place like Sheffield. Being working class back then really did mean you performed manual labour, and that created certain communities.

"It’s more like a state of mind now. So much of it has changed.

“I think class has become less obvious in the grand scheme of things, making it more difficult to decide where things are at. The middle classes start going to football games and all that, while working classes now own pepper grinders and sometimes might buy some rocket salad. It’s not as clear cut, it merges into one.

“I think the remaining distinctions come down to spending power. Everyone’s consuming the same thing, it’s just whether you buy freshly squeezed orange juice, or settle for the blue-stripe version. It’s all processed in the same factories, after all.

“Add to that the fact that the higher you get up the social ladder the more boring it usually gets, and I think we all need to be content in who were are.

Certainly, I can’t imagine growing up without the adventure of council housing, and society would be a much more sterile place without its influences.”