Some advice about things Southwarkish/Londonish

My WP is about two "council brats" from an imaginary council estate in the borough of Southwark called just Gardens.

It is not as bad as Aylesbury estates, but it's not a happy place anyway.

Writing this, I've made many assumptions that may not check out, and I thought I'd turn to any experts you to see if I could get some advice about these matters.

Here's a number of questions:

1) My MC Michael's mother works in the London underground as a ticketeer. What would be the salary levels of one that had worked in that same position for 10 years?

2) Michael's mother has also put him in a posh secondary school called St Joseph's. A non-denominational catholicish private school in the upper results range. What would the typical tuition fees yearly be for a school of this type?

3) Are there any government or municipal grants that would be awarded to either accomplished students, or to low paid workers, to put their children in schools like this?

4) I know a lot of council estates in Britain are getting either refurbished, and/or completely torn down - like Aylesbury estates - but I sort of work on the premise that urban blight is still prevelant in many of them, and Gardens har a 40% unemployment rate, many single families, many children, and very transient "parenting". Is this stil the case?

5) The borough of Southwark, is it sort of splintered up in many different communities, so that you have affluent ones right next to poor ones? What I'm after is... is there a geographic correlation between levels of poverty and location? For instance, if I walked through Southwark from London Bridge to the south border, would it get progressively worse the further south I get, or would my walk be very diverse?

6) Having been a lot in South Ealing, I've sort of made assumptions on the time it takes to travel from Kensington to Gardens, and that assumption is 40 minutes. Is this a fair assumption?

As you can see, I've not been in Southwark, and know little about it, but since when have I ever followed the advice "write about what you know" anyway?

I hope you have some answers, and advice, for me.

Cheers

Thanks! Appreciated.

I had figured tuition was about 1-2k cheaper. I guess Karen O'Malley isn't as honest as I have thought. Damn when bi-characters go and become a bit more shady just like that...

And thanks for the link to the tfl-site. I feel a bit silly. I'm regularly at that site, but hadn't actually consulted it this time... :/

Oh, it's unmentioned present time, thought it would have been interesting to set it in Thatchers time with Section 28 and the poll tax troubles...

I've figured about £1000 per month for a two bedroom flat, which is some sort of half-guesstimate of Peckham prices. I think that's a reasonable assumption.

I just need to figure out how to bridge the gap, because my MCs mother is a formidable woman that does not intend for her boy to be unemployed, a father, and with no hope at 20.

And yes, Michael does not have an easy time. He's "that posh fag" in Gardens, and he's not liked in his school.

Digging around is actually quite interesting. Informative even. There is so many levels at work here - from the national taxman to the council. There's many benefits open to an employed single mother.

But the easiest will be to resurrect Michael's father from the dead, move him sufficiently far away, and just have him pay child maintenance that will cover the difference, and have him not return Michael's calls.

But, thanks for persisting with me and my maybe naive questions about this.