How the upper middle class live

[LisaJool]

Apologies for yet another class thread but I find this fascinating. Off the back of a thread I started watching a TV series about British aristos and their stately homes. This lead to other YouTube videos and a podcast.
Some observations I made:

1. The women all have great bone structure with the infamous MN UMC swooshy hair.

1. A lot of "sleepless nights" and hand wringing about how they can maintain their homes, which they are "custodians" of. Many have had to do tours/homemade jams/souvenirs to try to bring in extra money. But, their dc go to private schools - surely the first thing you'd do is remove them from that to save money or get rid of the ponies?

1. Re decor, lots of chintz like you'd expect in lovely formal rooms but their kitchens look like something Kim and Aggie need to tackle. Clutter covering all available workspace, books, riding gear, pet bowls etc, lots of knick knacks. Someone on another thread stated that the 'clutter free' movement is a class thing, with it being a LMC to working class thing. Not sure if this is true but interesting all the same.

I don't know anyone who is truly UMC as in old money or landed gentry types. For those who are acquainted, what are they like and how do they live?

You're a skilled tradesperson then?

Was she? I did not know that

The limited extent of British upper-class support for fascism stands out in an international comparison. In France, for example, the great majority of families with old aristocratic handles were sympathisers with the far-right.

Estella I read that article in the Jewish Chronicle. No one is denying that fascism had support from some members of the upper classes. The point Peregrina made was MOST of the upper classes supported fascism at the END of the war.
I have explained this three times. Do you still not understand?

Apparently Prince Philip threatened Diana with taking her title away if she didn't behave, and she replied, "My title is a lot older than yours, Philip."

Was she referring to the Mitford sisters and their set? The Duke of Windsor ? Lots of posh people did seem to like the nazis but it's a stretch to say most

Sick burn, I love it

Fantastic!

I would think the Middletons are UMC. Glossy, expensive etc etc

I had a flatmate at university 20 years ago who was from an 'old money' English family and who was, quite frankly, the most incompetent adult human I had ever met up until that point.

Literally couldn't do anything associated with being a grown-up, such as cooking / laundry / budgeting etc because their grandmother was utterly class-obsessed and came from an era when 'we have staff to do that sort of thing'.

The problem was that the money had gone a LONG time ago and the entire family was on its uppers: I visited the 'ancestral seat' a couple of times and had it been a council house, it would have been condemned. Holes in the roof / floor you could put your fist through, plumbing that was eccentric at best and non-existent at worst and clutter everywhere. SO. MUCH. CLUTTER.

My flatmate and their parents were actually very nice and really wanted out of the game, but they were utterly in thrall to the grandmother, who was holding on to the lifestyle with every ounce of energy she had (years later, when Downton Abbey came out, I was instantly reminded of her by Maggie Smith's character).

We're not in touch anymore, but I do sometimes wonder how life played out for them.

I think that despite some of these families acting as though they are strapped for cash, many are in fact very wealthy.

There is a big difference between having no money , being genuinly on your uppers, and having money but feeling an obligation to preserve it for 'the family'. Money is there, but it is spent on eduxation/ investments/ property, with lifestyle being a much lower priority.

E.g. Boarding school fees cost tens of thousands; Diana's family bought her a flat in Kensington when she moved to London; and it's still not unusual for old UC families to have a London place as well as the country seat these days. The money is definitely there.

A PP referred to it being more common for women to 'marry in' to these circles than men - this is because many (most?) of the estates are inherited by the male line. Only women can 'marry in' and end up running an old estate.

A man who 'marries in' isn't going to end up being Lord of the Manor because the estate will likely go to his Brother-in-Law.

I’m very much from working class background - brought up in Manchester suburb to Irish and Scottish parents who worked really hard in professional jobs , we got a grammar school & uni education nice holidays etc but there’s also the focus on lack of clutter, scrubbed kitchen, updating the house to keep up with neighbours, mum going mad if the house is a mess, see also - ‘it’s like Blackpool illuminations in ‘ere!’ If the lights were left on etc. Shopping in home bargains for cleaning supplies and knock off yankee candles, which would make a MC mumsnetter shudder 🤣Loved my upbringing tbh.

I did know lots of the landed gentry types at uni. Like all groups some were lovely genuinely well brought up people some weren’t. The truly well off ones cared less about people’s backgrounds. I was good friends with a girl at uni (circa 2012) who had multiple holiday homes abroad, went to a really posh boarding school, lived in a listed house in Oxfordshire. I thought that when her parents came to visit they would be dead dressed up, uptight etc. They were so casual , what my parents would have thought too casual to go out to eat (not a snobby thing, just a class / area thing I think, you ‘make an effort’ for things) dropped £200 on wine at dinner and her mum had muddy walking boots on! They were lovely, very very well spoken. I truly felt they were alien to what I was used to. I think they total confidence to just do whatever is an UMC thing. Also they all have nice hair - but the girls I know who liked to look like they didn’t make an effort still spent upwards of £150 regularly getting blonde highlights and used very expensive shampoo etc.

@Andante57 i understand all right and I didn't at any time say I agreed with her either. I just provided background information about the fact that SOME of the aristocracy were sympathisers and not all. So I was backing your point & there is no need to be so rude about it.

Was she referring to the Mitford sisters and their set? The Duke of Windsor ? Lots of posh people did seem to like the nazis but it's a stretch to say most

OhMaria as I have written several times, Peregrina was referring to MOST of the upper classes being pro Nazi at the END of the war.

Beautiful stately home near me, used for weddings, grounds for craft fares ect. Current descendant family owner lives in the coach house at the entrance to home, has meals on wheels deliver her food, walks round all the grounds carrying a terrier, very nice aristocratic lady.

No I am a working class person who shops in M and S!!

I love these threads - where people like to declare those who don't follow their idea of good taste must be of a lower class, with the upper classes having the best taste and the best manners and really just are the best people in the world ever - same story every time. I always wonder who are the fans...what lifestyles do they live and how come they are so completely sold into this way of thinking.

But they buy their own furniture run a party tat website and Carole "doors to manual" Middleton means their non-U roots are showing. 😁

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

Yes, one PP declared that the UC are more intelligent, and another said that people get nicer the further up the social scale you go.

Bonkers and delusional. 😂

Which TV series is this based on?

Everybody was descended from Charles II. You probably are too. He fathered a whole generation of royal bastards but had no legitimate heir. The Royal Family is indeed descended from the Hanoverians, but their claim to the thrones comes from Charles II's father James I. So this just isn't true about the Spencers.

Dinner with the gentry is usually formal. Grand dining room. Properly set table with wonderful china and glassware. Individual salt and pepper, usually silver - salt always in little dishes. Lots of bits and pieces of silver, some decorative or regimental. Cheese biscuits tend to come in a silver box. The whole rigmarole of turning first to the person on your right, and then the left. But dinner is always fish pie or shepherds pie. Nursery food. The really scruffy woman who looks as if she cuts her own hair and is wearing a cashmere jumper with moth holes and frayed cuffs is the marchioness and therefore the poshest. There will be several dogs wandering around: two shooting labradors and something small and not necessarily pedigree.

The drawing room will be comfortable - deep sofas covered in damask or chintz with Tartan wool rugs so that the dogs can lie of them. Piles of Country Life, World of Interiors and Shooting Times. Dog baskets. Lots of photos in silver frames with the royal ones arranged so that you can see them (but not too prominent because that would be trying too hard).

Sometimes, though, it will be kitchen supper. The kitchen is huge with a vintage 4 oven Aga and piles of clutter. There will be lots of le Creuset and more dog beds in front of the Aga. Baskets of iffy-looking fruit and veg on the side and piles of paperwork about farm subsidies. There will be a timetable on the wall with the booking for the shooting weekends entered in Sharpie.

The women are all thin, but not botoxed usually. The men talk about Eton - doesn't matter how old they are, they talk about Eton.
Daughters are interior decorators or work for auction houses. Sons manage rock bands or (if too thick) run the B&B side of the estate.
Cars are generic SUVs or ancient lands. A couple of Ford Fiestas as local runarounds.

Did the Windsors retcon their whole family tree, then?

I saw a detailed line of succession they put out when the Queen died, which traced her descent from the Stewarts, on both sides, making her more Scots than English.

I come from a very MC family. My generation are the first not to have been educated in boarding schools.

School fees in lots of UMC family won't be coming out of income, in lots of these families, there will have been trust funds set up to pay specifically for school fees.

But dinner is always fish pie or shepherds pie. Nursery food.

Not sure about that …..the late Duke of Beaufort had an outstanding chef as did the late Duchess of Devonshire.
I doubt it was always fish pie or shepherds pie.

@Bideshi your point about the daughters always been interior designers is so spot on, although this latest generation I feel are the daughters of the interior designers and are now either yoga teachers, breathwork practitioners or aromatherapists. No idea why.