Social Climbing and Kates family

[GabbyLoggon]

Kate Middletons family must be top of the league in respect of Social Climbing...

Lets make it more personal than royal

My Family? A big one, there are just 2 of us who were bone fide Social Climbers.

How are your tribe doing?

I assume the first step towards moving into a different class is by getting your kids in private prep school

How about social descenders? well, the author who wrote 1984, went to Eton and down the mines.

Gabby - they are middle class. Upper middle class but middle class all the same.

*keep, obviously. Not leep!

I've know a few vv upper middle classes and a few aristo types. I've always got along with them OK, in fact pretty well but I often find your classic middle-class types really tricky. Weird.

Well, on the university front ... I went to uni in Scotland at the same time as the pair them, and apparently the applications from females to most of the Scottish unis went through the roof at that time. For e.g., in my year I think the ratio shifted from majority male to about 40:60 in favour of women.

St Andrews is a very small town - I'm sure William socialised with all the "classes" while he was there - you can't really avoid them

Nancy66, no it isn't!

I have one uber toff friend who is not superior at all - in fact she's so scared of coming across that way that she goes too far in the other direction.

Essentially there are some absolutely lovely poshos and some horrible ones - just as there are in every other social rank too

If the Royal Family want to become more popular by marrying into the 'middle classes' they should at least make it fair.
Have a reality T.V show where eligible girls get voted out each week by the public presented by Simon Cowell, the winner gets to be a royal princess.

The difference between middle and upper class is absolutely nothing to do with money.

I think my favourite comment ever which truly encapsulates class was when Alan Clark dismissed Lord Heseltine as 'someone who bought his own furniture'

I'm pretty sure I read that Kate Middleton changed to St Andrews on her mother's instruction, because William was going there. Allegedly.

All the seriously posh folk I know have no issue with class and money. Certainly they're at home with musicians, artists and olligarchs who have often only had their money for ten mins.

It's the middle middle classes who are tricksy. It's as if they can't quite believe that someone from the lower orders has more money/success/a better education than them.

So they're the ones who spout the new v old money shit.

I think serious aristos would have looked down on Alan Clark to be honest - his money was new (Victorian) and came from wool, and when he bangs on about Michael Heseltine, he forgot that his father actually bought their castle and all the stuff in it.

Alan Clark's family were really upper middle class intellectuals. AC's wife was actually a lot posher than he was and from landed gentry (she used to point out her family's entry in Burke's Peerage, apparently. Needless to say AC wasn't in it).

WHY do I know this useless crap?

OP Are you asking if people should try to better themselves socially?

DH always says that it is good for society if a child can out "perform" (forgot exact word but that's what he means)their parents,

I'd be pleased if our children happy and fulfill their own potential but I do understand what he means.

Of course if DC's do outperform us I look forward to spending their money in return for the money thy suck from us!

Dominatrix-I totally agree. People that are properly posh couldn't give a stuff about most things the 'social climbers' fret about.

I agree with Dominatrix-in addition they don't put carpets over friends and expect people to take shoes off at the door!

what's the difference between social mobility and social climbing?

I'm glad that my family were social climbers or we would all still be agricultural labourers. I think the first is supposed to be good Pelvic and the second is Hyacynth Bucket-reallly they are the same.

I can't imagine anyone in history has gone from having a father who was a miner to a daughter who is a queen? I think its great for the royal family and will be good PR for them.

To be fair, LQ, is that the best example of a successful royal marriage?

Kates great great grandfather was a miner in the north east and his wife was a domestic servant. We have a lot of museums round here which recreate this sort of life and it was extremely hard and poverty striken. That is not that far away from Kate in years and I think it's totally amazing (in a good way) that in a few relatively short years her family have risen this far.
Can you imagine her coalminer relative being told a near kin of his would be marrying a king and living in a palace. Good on them I think. Think it's great we have social mobility (although wish Kate would have got a decent job when she left uni)