To ask what really posh folk are like?

[hahahayoumustbejoking]

Someone on MN recently said that posh people were very friendly and polite but actually wouldn't tend to get close to people outside their close circle and were quite guarded.

Just wondering if anyone has any other insights or stories of the posh, good or bad.

@Letsallscreamatthesistene

eating anything put in front of you is a golden rule I went to a school with aspirations. After a dinner so vile that over half of it was returned uneaten to the kitchens, we were treated to a lecture in assembly form the headmistress end with the phrase "how would you cope if you were dining out and your hostess served something you didn't like". It was then I realised that the purpose of school meals was to train you to eat disgusting food without a murmur.

What?!

oh we got the lecture too....also the starving children in Africa and what do you think the Queen does....the trouble is that we knew that the Queen sends a list ahead!

@MistressoftheDarkSide

Don't know many but one titled couple I sort of know are very chilled and hold small festivals in their grounds which they participate in and enjoy..... in fact didn't even realise they were titled until after we got handfasted there. Great experience and quite surreal, I think they fall into the English eccentric mood quite well.

As a sixth former I went on an open day to Oxford as it was thought I might finally pass my maths O level and stand a chance on my English skills - ha bloody ha - anyway, we had tea with an undergraduate in their study and when I said that Lapsang Souchong (?) tasted like Dettol to my uneducated palate he asked me if I'd like to leave via the second floor window....as a sensitive 17 year old in the 80s this confirmed my lowly status and probably subconsciously put me off applying notwithstanding my academic failings.

So it really does depend on the individuals I guess.....

That undergraduate was a pretentious tosser and I would argue a wannabe try-hard rather than properly posh.

It is ingrained into the properly posh that the rudest thing one can ever do is make someone else feel uncomfortable when you are offering them hospitality. A properly posh person would have asked you what kind of tea you liked and moved the discussion on politely.

Someone has already been asked what posh is...the only posh person i have ever known in terms of born into the right circle, on first names with the Lord Lieutenant of the County etcet was working as a nurse. She wasn't a good nurse (I forcibly retired her) and was batshit crazy. She had a weekend evening do near our workplace (day facility) and was busy that day so brought her evening stuff with her, let herself in with her work keys and showered and changed in the building. Security saw the lights and called the police and she was most annoyed as she had intended to sleep at work after the do as she didn't want to drive home after drinking!

I have a couple of posh friends.
One is a bit Wellington boot and stinky dogs all over the place. Staunch Labour voters.
The other is designer only, hires a yacht for a week every summer (I looked it up, £75,000 for a week, without the hired help) debenture tickets to all the "important" sports' events etc. Tory through and through.
They're polar opposites to each other really. Adore both.

According to MN folklore, posh people are generally salt of the earth types who drive ancient Volvos and buy rounds in the pub for the village folk.

But as for anyone who has had the temerity to do well in business and make their own money, they are beyond the pale being just crass and "nouveau".

I knew a posh family. The son and daughter were lovely, very friendly and they had beautiful manners. They didn’t often socialise outside their own circle and had unrealistic expectations about other people’s finances (for example they knew my annual income and didn’t believe that I couldn’t afford to buy a bottle of champers on a night out).

Their equally posh cousins, on the other hand, were rude, arrogant, snobby and generally vulgar. I remember asking the daughter why her and her brother were so lovely and her cousins were such dicks and she just laughed and said “my mother says it’s because they’re new money” which shocked me as I didn’t think there would be a hierarchy within the upper classes. I suspect the real reason was what the brother answered, which was that his parents had brought them up to be polite and well mannered whereas the cousin’s parents simply hadn’t.

I've never met any proper upper-class people.
Lots of "faux" posh though who think they are better than others because they went to grammar school or some other stupid reason

I get the impression that the proper posh lot i.e. landed gentry types with titles and manors in the country and all that rarely wash as in have showers or bathe.

As a sixth former I went on an open day to Oxford as it was thought I might finally pass my maths O level and stand a chance on my English skills

You should have been older. O’Level Maths wasn’t a necessity for Oxbridge in my day …

I know someone whose father sat in the House of Lords, hunted with royalty etc. She is delightful. Kind, funny, generous, thoughtful

And I'm sure she would be just the same even if she weren't posh

If you're not one of them you'll never be fully accepted.

This is true of pretty much any social group.

The ones I know are charming and friendly but you aren’t really one of them. I don’t think they deliberately exclude others but they seem to speak a language of their own.
The overwhelming confidence is quite amazing too

They call their tea….Supper.

@ChequerBoard

Yes, I've come to realise he probably wasn't terribly well-bred after all 😁

Ironically I have been accused of being "posh" myself - my Nana went into service at 14 and absorbed every aspirational scrap of etiquette she could, passing it all down religiously. And she was a voracious reader. In my teens I read alot of Dornford Yates, the "Berry" books and other stuff that my peers sneered at. I used to rather aspire I suppose.,... and I have just binge watched Downton Abbey and rather enjoyed it though it's obviously quite the work of fiction.....

I think for me the whole concept is tied up with bygone eras tbh.

On my Dad's side I do have a long deceased Great Aunt in Burke's peerage though. A 30s "scandal" as she was very much a rural working class girl who met her beau working as a model in a fashion house.... funnily enough we're not close to her descendants at all .... her son became quite a famous sci-fi novelist though.....

I don't know about being best mates with everyone, but my experience is that truly 'posh' people aren't snobs and can talk easily to anyone, from a binman to a peer of the realm, frankly because I guess they feel secure enough to do so.

@BoredZelda

If you're not one of them you'll never be fully accepted.

This is true of pretty much any social group.

This is absolutely true. People recognise their 'tribe' very quickly, and although those who are nice, decent people will make you feel welcome, they know instinctively if you are one of them.

I know someone rich enough for their house to have a gatehouse where the housekeeper lives , and when they thought about selling it ( a few years ago , Daniel Craig & Rachel Weiss (sp) viewed it )
they are not old money , and to look at them you'd never know they are multi-million aires , but when talking to them you feel they are being polite, but you are kind of wasting their time by listening to you.

How do you define posh anyway? I never really know what it means. It's a very vague term.

But I have mixed with people from right across the social/cultural and wealth spectrum. All I can say is you get lovely people and dickheads (and all sorts of in-between) in every social class and group.

@hahahayoumustbejoking

Another observation (very sweeping admittedly) is that being sociable, a good host, and eating anything put in front of you is a golden rule. No fads allowed.

Lol at this. We have to spend a great deal of time with a very posh couple (titled, live in the ancient ancestral home, loaded) and they are the pickiest bloody eaters I've ever met. They are very good hosts though.

@Edmontine - missing the boat is my speciality

I left school altogether and went to learn backstage and theatre design at drama school, before computers made my creative skills obsolete... ah, fun times - rubbed shoulders with the offspring if celebs there though..... and was asked out by the fifth member of the Pasadenas. Was too shy to accept though.....

If I'd gone to Oxford I might have ended up properly posh Damn maths o levels.

I have a fair few aristocratic friends. You would be familiar with some of them. They are The sort that appear in Hello and Tatler. Some genuinely live in National Trust / Stately Home places and most have second and third homes in Notting Hill / Cotswolds / St Tropez.

I can divide them cleanly into three groups.

1 bloody lovely, aware - and almost embarrassed - by their privilege, extremely welcoming, polite and interested in people.

1. Living in their own world of horses, horticulture and art with not much interaction with anyone else perfectly pleasant but distant.

1. Privileged, vaguely aristocratic beautiful people having "heaps of fun". They are perfectly nice to you but a bit bored and sort of looking over your shoulder for someone more interesting. Campaign for cool causes but have little understanding of the reality of most people day to day struggles.

The ones I am friends with a lost group 1. And they tend to be the riches, most titled.

Caveat. I am not remotely posh.

With a certain type they have very good manners and are very charming, but that’s kind of it? You feel like you get along but it’s just because they are very polite and don’t want to be rude. I find it disconcerting sometimes.

My neighbour is very posh- husband is an investor in London, 4 kids all at private school and have 2 nannies, imaculate big house, ocado and waitrose only, had etiquette lessons up to 25 and wears a sweater over her shoulders etc. She's the loveliest person I've met- completely normal and a bit crazy but entirely unjudgemental. Doesn't mind getting mucky with the kids, but not in a weirdo horsey posh person way.

Her and her family are old money posh, mingling with the royals and all that. I met her parents briefly once and they seemed nice too, her Dad was cleaning the loo and her Mum was eating beans on toast so maybe that's skewed my opinion of them. They're all the kind of posh people that do charity work on the down low and drive good cars rather than flashy ones.

I have another knobhead posh neighbour who is a twatty Karen so it's swings and roundabouts.

@VladmirsPoutine

I get the impression that the proper posh lot i.e. landed gentry types with titles and manors in the country and all that rarely wash as in have showers or bathe.

Where on earth did you get that impression?

@FionasFanjoFondu

I have a fair few aristocratic friends. You would be familiar with some of them. They are The sort that appear in Hello and Tatler. Some genuinely live in National Trust / Stately Home places and most have second and third homes in Notting Hill / Cotswolds / St Tropez.

I can divide them cleanly into three groups.

1 bloody lovely, aware - and almost embarrassed - by their privilege, extremely welcoming, polite and interested in people.

1. Living in their own world of horses, horticulture and art with not much interaction with anyone else perfectly pleasant but distant.

1. Privileged, vaguely aristocratic beautiful people having "heaps of fun". They are perfectly nice to you but a bit bored and sort of looking over your shoulder for someone more interesting. Campaign for cool causes but have little understanding of the reality of most people day to day struggles.

The ones I am friends with a lost group 1. And they tend to be the riches, most titled.

Caveat. I am not remotely posh.

This, especially the last point. (Not the you point, the richest one.)

Although there is also 4. Dickheads, which of course is not a state of being limited to the posh but is about people.