To think that the middle classes are liars and actors?

Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder about the English class system. But, I did have to explain its subtext to an American friend who just did not get it.

I've got plenty of friends from backgrounds they would describe as working class. They speak the same as I do, enjoy similar pursuits, types of holiday etc. That does not make them "liars and actors". Do you think everyone working class should sound like a cockney or like they've just emerged from a tin mine? Some very odd snobbery in the OP.

@saveforthat by definition, with the help of his mother.

That's right op, you get it out there, they're all fur coat and no knickers. 🙄

Or you could just get over it?

a few handy tips:
wear gloves. then if any commoners masquerading as middle class fool you into shaking hands, at least you've got a layer of protection.
A ballgown with bustle and barbed wire outer layer can also keep the dirty beggars at bay.
Before inviting anyone over, get an experian credit check done on them and their parents.
Ask them where they buy furniture. If the answer isn't "Buy? I just bring a few heirlooms from my country estate"...
if in doubt, full hazmat protection is advised.

I think you needed to change your name because you know you sound like an ungracious snob.

I hope you've had your arsenal handed to you on this thread

This one made me laugh like Muttley.

Our esteemed leader, a tool? Surely not!

You sound quite bitter 🤷🏻‍♀️

my mum was born in the 40s. I’d assume her parents were working class. Grandma was a secretary, grandad owned a grocery shop but “did well”. So my mum and sister went to uni and became teachers.

Saying that my grandparents always spoke very well (proper RP), lived in nice houses and had expensive cars by the time I was born. So an acquaintance might have made assumptions about their background.

but it’s a massive stereotype to say your friend has middle class values/actions. How do you think all working class people should behave? Should they be scrapping in their council house gardens while smoking fags and going to bingo? Anyone is allowed to have any sort of hobbies and interests.

so I don’t understand what your friend has done wrong

And we've all heard about what that dreadful Winifred Ellerman and Nancy Cunard got up to in their spare time. Shipping magnates and their wayward daughters! These new money types sure had ideas above their station.

Landed gentry is where the class is at, dahling! Even if all you own is a crumbling, derelict property and otherwise don't have a bean.

(Scratching my head as to the logic of this one. I have to confess I've drawn something of a blank) 🕵

They are just living their lives according to their tastes and finances like everyone else. How you label them is none of their concern.

I come across as posh and have a posh accent my family think is funny. My dad came from a council estate and all my grandparents had manual jobs. I am not ashamed of this and will happily chat about it to anyone if the subject comes up.

I’m not hiding anything and how other people perceive me is not my business.

It doesn't bother me how much money someone has. Some people do very well, and good for them. You can be working class, and be absolutely loaded. You can also be upper class, yet you haven't a penny to your name. It's not the money that's the issue, it's how quick some people are to conceal where they really came from. As though it's shameful.

What annoys me is how people flaunt or express status. As though one class is better than another.

How very dare a construction worker make something of himself !
You can't possibly be for real.

I also hate the class stereotypes especially in relation to Angela Rayner. Lots of working class women are introverted and bookish and don't have an accent. We're not all doing sing songs down the pub and dancing in Magaluf.

There is nothing more tedious, though, than a middle class person banging on about their "working class roots" (looking at you, Keir!). So that's why people don't mention it - nobody cares (well, except the OP, it seems).

Someone been reading Dave Nellist or Scargill?

People do change, my cousin went to school and University and had very middle class friends and her accent changed naturally. She's a terrible actress so I'm sure of that. She also worked very hard and now has a lot of money, if you met her you wouldn't know she didn't always and why should you. No one needs to give their life history, they just are who they are. Honestly time we got rid of thinking in classes really anyway. I don't think about it at all and my children are generally unaware there even could be such a thing.

Really? He kept that quiet. 😄

Someone whose great- grandparents were working class, from mining stock no less, will become the next Queen of England!

Yes, but (to me anyway) there’s a significant difference between saying you’re proud of something, and saying you’re not at all ashamed of it.

Being proud of something usually implies that you’ve done something to earn or achieve it.

I think people forget how much social mobility there was 1945-2000. 50% of the UK lived on council estates in the 70s. 25% went to grammar schools. University was free. The most famous actors of the 60s/70s were all working class. We have gone backwards at a frightening rate.

Are British people obsessed with this? It's a bit mental.
Maybe everyone else feels they have to pretend to feel respected. A viscous circle then.
Are you not allowed move from one class to another?
If someone from a wealthy background ends up poor, do they get more respect than someone poor who ends up rich cos they worked hard?

If you see videos of the 1950’s a lot of children were raised to speak correctly regardless of their class. It’s only in more recent times the poor speak poorly - not all of coarse lots of people don’t dumb down language or swear - bit there has been a shift.

Maybe it’s that?

On a less frivolous note, this British fixation with class is oh, so tedious.

And no, it isn't just Mumsnet.

I'm from a working class background but am middle class, each generation has done a little better than the last. My great grandparents were on the edge of the workhouse poor as children. The introduction of the welfare state meant whilst they were still poor and in poverty at times they survived better than their parents as adults. Grandparents working class but with enough financial security for a good life. My mother was food bank poor in her first marriage and relied on the kindness of others for food and childcare. My parents started married life as working class family by the time we were teenagers they were nudging into middle class. My sisters and myself are more firmly in middle class.

It's called social mobility

I grew up on a council estate. I am now very well off, mortgage paid off, I don't need to work. I don't worry about things anymore.

I'm open about it but I don't go around telling everybody my life history because it just doesn't come up. When out with friends once I had a very snotty woman (mother a friend) make a snide comment about somebody else we all know being from a council estate and that they were 'council estate skinny'. I waited until she was done and said 'actually I grew up on a council estate.' and another friend replied 'I'm glad you said that because I did too!'

It's not as uncommon as you think, people can do well for themselves in their career, be very lucky and end up in more privileged positions, work hard and become wealthy, inherit from grandparents and even marry into money etc. The opposite can be true as well, you can end up in a council estate by cheer bad luck and hard times, even if you're from a 'good background'.

You can't buy class though op lol