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.

If someone wrote a post asking if all working class people are sweary and crass but honest hard workers there would be outcry. Please reconsider your generalisation.

This. I find the op’s question really weird as if all ‘posh’ people are alike.

I knew some posh types growing up and I work with a couple. The ones I know are all labradors and agas, and clothes that have holes in, rambling houses with bits falling off all the time. They are genuinely lovely, interesting people, who live lives that they have no idea are extraordinary. The older generation tend to be slightly pickled in gin, and seem to do borderline alcohol dependence in a way that is both alarmingly high functioning, and seems completely reasonable. They never appear drunk, but god I would fall over if I tried to keep up with them. They also have a slightly disarming confidence about them which I think comes from private school.

But they don’t represent all ‘posh’ people by any means. Posh people are just people after all, and people come in all shapes and sizes.

@maddiemookins16mum

They call their tea….Supper.

No they don't. Tea in your context is High Tea ( a warm meal traditionally consumed by a a blue collar worker)

Afternoon Tea
Dinner
Supper

All different meals

In my 64 years of life I have met alot of people from all walks of life rich and poor alike there is good and bad in all of them..if I could pick one group of people then can be snobbish it would be people between working class and middle class or rising middle class can be a bit of a pain in the backside.

How do you define posh anyway?

Port Out, Starboard Home, innit.

Which side of the boat your cabin is on.

I think that there is a tenancy to conflate posh and snob, posh = fine, snob (regardless of who the snob is or their background, and also including reverse snobbery) = total dick

@FinallyHere

How do you define posh anyway?

Port Out, Starboard Home, innit.

Which side of the boat your cabin is on.

So "posh" people have to have been on a ship then?

@FinallyHere

How do you define posh anyway?

Port Out, Starboard Home, innit.

Which side of the boat your cabin is on.

Thats an urban myth

Have their family lived in their home for 500 years ? 300 years?

Did they buy their title in the 1920 crash and were Victorian grocers?

I know each of these. The' poshest' is the 300 years but they are an
Earl. The 500 family dont have a title but do have an Elizabethan fireplace and own a hill.

@Pinkyjack

In my 64 years of life I have met alot of people from all walks of life rich and poor alike there is good and bad in all of them..if I could pick one group of people then can be snobbish it would be people between working class and middle class or rising middle class can be a bit of a pain in the backside.

I agree. The nouveau riche.

@THisbackwithavengeance I have worked for ultra high net worth people. Old money millionaires and billionaires. Without exception, they have all driven old cars. The billionaire drove an 80s Range Rover, the others ranged 2013 Audi A3 to an old golf. They of course had drivers to take them in nice cars but their day to days weren’t fancy. You’d never know looking at them where they lived or what they were worth.

They did buy rounds in the village pub they owned. Staff all lived in grace and favour houses. Some were exceptionally kind, others were kind enough as long as they were happy. One was an arse but rarely at home so it didn’t bother the staff too much.

They are all dickheads in my experience. Very selfish and tight with money. On multiple occasions the posh MDs at work have asked me to do private jobs for them out of hours and they’ll pay me my hourly rate. Then when I’ve handed them the bill they’ve balked and started ignoring my requests to be paid, or brought me a gift worth leas than a quarter of what they owe me and tried to pass it off as payment. It hasn’t just happened once - it’s happened a few times. So I now refuse all requests to do private jobs because I can’t rely on being paid.

A lot of very posh people you'd never know until you get to know them.

Most of the Very Posh (old money, famous for classically 'famous' things rather than 'being famous for being famous', titled etc)... are very scruffy, down to earth and practical people.

Im sure they aren't all like that, but then if they were arseholes I wouldn't call them friends as they'd certainly not have any time for me!

I live in a very posh street with houses that are worth millions (not a stealth boast, as my wee flat isn't!) and they are very much old money.
We often have tradesmen on our street: chimney sweeps (yes, they do still exist ), painters, scaffolders, you get the picture.
Often I see my neighbours - most of them are older - chatting and having a laugh with them. That's true class, being able to relate to most people.

@Blueleah

They are all dickheads in my experience. Very selfish and tight with money. On multiple occasions the posh MDs at work have asked me to do private jobs for them out of hours and they’ll pay me my hourly rate. Then when I’ve handed them the bill they’ve balked and started ignoring my requests to be paid, or brought me a gift worth leas than a quarter of what they owe me and tried to pass it off as payment. It hasn’t just happened once - it’s happened a few times. So I now refuse all requests to do private jobs because I can’t rely on being paid.

Ime theres a huge difference in attitude between new money and old money

@WiddlinDiddlin

A lot of very posh people you'd never know until you get to know them.

Most of the Very Posh (old money, famous for classically 'famous' things rather than 'being famous for being famous', titled etc)... are very scruffy, down to earth and practical people.

Im sure they aren't all like that, but then if they were arseholes I wouldn't call them friends as they'd certainly not have any time for me!

Good point. Selection effect.

Maybe the reason for the Mumsnet trope about posh people being salt of the earth, unsnobbish types is that the ones who aren’t like that would never have spoken to them anyway.

I taught at a nursery school where a lot of the children came from extremely posh/rich families.
I can confirm that as parents some of them were absolutely lovely, some fussed too much and some were just absent - we only saw the nannies!

It interests me that the word POSH comes from boat tickets stamped with the word POSH (Port Out Starboard Home) for journeys between India and Britain. They were the better seats. Interestingly I know that an airline still used Port and Starboard to distinguish aircraft left and right until they sadly went bust.

My husband and his family are super posh. His father was a company director, brother is a Group Captain in the RAF and they live in a huge pile in Henley. I am from a council estate in Glasgow and his family couldn't be nicer or more welcoming. I love them and we get on like a house on fire. His mother once told me that the 'middle classes' are the worst snobs.

I think that often 'niceness' is down to self confidence; if you like yourself you tend to be more open to liking others.

In my (limited) experience, the truly posh are the least snobby, as they have nothing to prove. Those who are desperate to be considered posh are always curating their friends and interests to meet their own aspirations. The 'aspiring posh' can be real pains in the neck!

@IngridTails

It interests me that the word POSH comes from boat tickets stamped with the word POSH (Port Out Starboard Home) for journeys between India and Britain. They were the better seats. Interestingly I know that an airline still used Port and Starboard to distinguish aircraft left and right until they sadly went bust.

Sorry that's an urban myth. www.snopes.com/fact-check/posh/

@IngridTails

It interests me that the word POSH comes from boat tickets stamped with the word POSH (Port Out Starboard Home) for journeys between India and Britain. They were the better seats. Interestingly I know that an airline still used Port and Starboard to distinguish aircraft left and right until they sadly went bust.

That’s just a mythic backronym with no basis in reality.

@CliftonGreenYork

My husband and his family are super posh. His father was a company director, brother is a Group Captain in the RAF and they live in a huge pile in Henley. I am from a council estate in Glasgow and his family couldn't be nicer or more welcoming. I love them and we get on like a house on fire. His mother once told me that the 'middle classes' are the worst snobs.

That isnt super posh

That Upper Middle Class.

I used to be a PA for a very wealthy landowner. I went to boarding school and had a very privileged upbringing, but this family are on a different planet....!

I never think of myself as 'posh', but I had to phone somewhere to change an appointment for my boss. The chap at the end of the phone asked who I was, and I said I was his PA. He said "Blimey - if you are as posh as you are and you are a PA, then he must be 'proper posh'". It did make me laugh.

To answer the question, people are people, whatever strata of society you come from - there are nice ones and awful ones everywhere!

I've lived in quite a few different European countries and no one is more obsessed with class than the Brits - it's utterly mystifying.

yes it is an urban myth.....and what is even more (to me) intersting is that the article mentions P and O but the Article is illustrated with a Blue Funnel Ship