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.

Onlychild… it stats with an I.

But to be honest, I heard that all the big ones in London were the same.

I just didn’t fit in at all.

I have kids now and if they want to go to uni, I would urge them to consider the overall experience they will have, not just getting into a top university.

@2021ismyyear

Onlychild… it stats with an I.

But to be honest, I heard that all the big ones in London were the same.

I just didn’t fit in at all.

I have kids now and if they want to go to uni, I would urge them to consider the overall experience they will have, not just getting into a top university.

So it's the one I went to for my Master's. I think it's actually slightly better than some of the non-London 'red brick' unis in terms of snobbiness and sloaniness because of all the international students. The one I went to for my undergrad was much worse!

Yeah unfortunately the international students all hung out together too. So it didn’t help me feel any more included.

The posh people I lived with were on another level. They thought I was “adorable” with my “common accent”. One person I lived with would often stop me mid sentence and repeat back words I said in a faux Essex accent.

They were alright but we had nothing in common and they never fully accepted me. I wouldn’t have been good enough girlfriend material or the sort of friends you introduced to your parents.

They found me quite interesting I think. They couldn’t believe I didn’t know how to ski or understand why I needed to work over the summer. They were all privately educated yet little old me from my common 6th form college actually did better than them all at a-level.

@DobbyTheHouseElk

I think the farming bit came about as part of the war effort, I've just done a quick google and there's a baronet up the line....

And a tragic scandal in 1926 involving said author's grandparents...

Dunno why I'm bothering being cryptic as it's all in the public domain - said author is John Brunner 😁.

Never met him or any of the children but they have been in touch with other members of the family who were researching the family tree.

My great aunt reportedly said she would marry a millionaire from a young age despite her humble origins - hats off to her for achieving it!!

Ugh they sound awful! I didn't really like my classmates much either - most were European but still very spoiled and clueless, had never worked, parents still completely funding them well into their late twenties to do a second Master's, etc. I was also sneered at for not knowing how to ski, as if it's something every child learns at primary school. Absolutely no concept of the money and privilege needed for a ski holiday.

I'm lower middle class and speak with a fairly standard middle class accent so I didn't get the same mocking as you but one of my friends was from Essex and I honestly think people truly believed she was thick because of how she talked. She did her undergrad at Cambridge and got a First!

There are only two kinds of people in this world. Nice ones and not nice ones. Everything else is superfluous.

@MistressoftheDarkSide

I was thinking of another famous sci fi author. As you were...

@DobbyTheHouseElk

No worries 😁 there are probably loads out there....

Thinking about it though, the lack of family closeness does reflect the "us and them" idea - Great Aunt demonstrates the fluke nature of her marriage, but I like the sort of romanticism of it all. And I believe when her husband died she was trotted off to a cottage in the grounds with a very modest stipend as the "family money" was ringfenced in trusts etc. No concept of trickle down etc....

On principle I'm all about the hard work for rewards thing, although it's not as easy as it used to be, but I still hope for a distant and benign posh relation who might favour me in a will....never going to happen of course....

The comments about posh people not understanding how others can be truly on their uppers are best explained in that Pulp song I think, Common People. Posh people generally have back up.....

@malmi

Does anyone know what the working class are like? I heard that they are hard-working and honest but others say they are ill mannered and eat junk food. Which is it please.

We're the cream of the crop.

‘I thought people who are actually posh don't care about social climbing.

Aren't social climbers those who aspire to be posh but never will be?‘

I don’t think it works like that.
I think people who are almost at the top of the social hierarchy can still be keenly aware of the levels above them.
What about Deborah Mitford (the daughter of an earl) being determined to marry a duke?
I am also thinking about posh mantelpieces/desks with the framed photo of the house owner with the queen…or other posh invitations still casually on display years after the event. And people I have met who are far posher than me but still take the trouble to name drop.

I think social climbing has more to do with personality tbh.

I've found the "posher" people are the more down to earth/grateful they are! The ones "pretending" to be posh! I.e flash cars on finance, living beyond their means etc are the opposite

Yeah,because you can generalise totally about a big group of people defined by an incredibly subjective term.

@Starseeking

I knew a few extremely posh people, a couple of old Etonians and one who attended Downe House, Kate Middletown's alma mata prior to moving to Marlborough.

The old Etonians were lovely lovely men, so understatedly confident, impeccable manners and treated everyone absolutely the same. One of them is now one of Prince George’s godfathers, so they are literally part of the aristocracy.

The lady who went to Downe House was always looking down her nose at the rest of us. She would offer us raffle tickets for whatever her latest "charidee event" was, but not actually invite us to the event, lest she be seen with us. She was really quite fake.

As mentioned by previous PP, the lovely ones were the ones who were by the far the richest, and had large family estates (I found out from someone else, not from them). They never talked about money at all.

It’s alma mater.

@cherryberrylicious

I've found the "posher" people are the more down to earth/grateful they are! The ones "pretending" to be posh! I.e flash cars on finance, living beyond their means etc are the opposite

Being 'posh' and having money aren't the same thing. You can make shitloads of money running a pizza business or doing up houses but it doesn't make you posh.

Lol @Cam22, is that all you got from my post?!?

I'm not posh so happy to take the correction, although clearly neither are you, as the majority of posh people I have met are unfailingly polite.

I have a posh friend, I went to school with her, she started of as a solicitor's secretary, then married the solicitor, had twin boys & a nanny to look after them, lived in a small mansion with a swimming pool, boys went to boarding school. She split from the solicitor & rinsed him for a settlement which amounted to millions, bought a house for £1.3 million & lives with an ex footballer. When she was getting divorced she moaned that she had to live in a small flat & had to sell her Range Rover & manage in a brand new VW Golf GTI, the flat was a very posh apartment in one of the most affluent areas of the city.

@SeriouslyISuppose, you’ve nailed it. There is a fetishization of the upper classes I don’t get. These people have been tyrants over the generations.

I agree with Londarch. The very posh people I have worked with are mostly lovely. Never bragging about what they have or bought. It's some of the people that started as say a junior member of staff and worked up that can turn snobby and brag when they have bought and look down at people.

A generalisation. I am ex forces and was commissioned from the ranks which meant I went to Sandhurst for a year. The guys going to the very posh Cavalry and Guards Regiments were really great as a rule, friendly, sociable and inviting. Many were titled. The "middle class" guys were far more snobbish and judged an ex ranker cockney far more.

@Starseeking

Lol *@Cam22*, is that all you got from my post?!?

I'm not posh so happy to take the correction, although clearly neither are you, as the majority of posh people I have met are unfailingly polite.

I dislike errors in Latin phrases, especially when uttered with confidence. Lol

@Cam22

@Nat6999

I have a posh friend, I went to school with her, she started of as a solicitor's secretary, then married the solicitor, had twin boys & a nanny to look after them, lived in a small mansion with a swimming pool, boys went to boarding school. She split from the solicitor & rinsed him for a settlement which amounted to millions, bought a house for £1.3 million & lives with an ex footballer. When she was getting divorced she moaned that she had to live in a small flat & had to sell her Range Rover & manage in a brand new VW Golf GTI, the flat was a very posh apartment in one of the most affluent areas of the city.

But she’s not ‘posh’ at all — she married a high-earning professional, had a wealthy lifestyle based on his income, then her divorce settlement, and now lives with a former footballer, who may be rich, descending on when his career happened, but is almost certainly working- or lower-middle-class.

Money and its trappings are red herrings. What matters is belonging. The people you are discussing may be any or all the things described but these are details. Belonging to a tribe through long standing friendships and family ties creates an unassailable position which can be maintained indefinitely and passed to the next generation. It starts young with bonds forged at boarding prep schools, sharing fun, games and homesickness, dorm raids, In jokes, private language, three cheers for the opposition then match tea together, understanding your parents are friends too and some of your schoolmates are also your cousins. These ties are endlessly reinforced by moving to the same senior schools (Radley, Harrow, possibly Sherborne- don't obsess about Eton; it's a largely UMC school for uber-confident sons of high achievers), shooting or fishing invitations, staying with one another in school holidays, meeting up at weddings and getting drunk together, dating then marrying friends' siblings and friends of friends. In adult life the key questions are never about what you own, but who you know. The more people you have in common, the more total your right to belong. You can't buy this for yourself, and people who attempt it end up trying too hard, missing the cues and reinforcing their own non-membership. That's not to say those on the inside are horrible, entitled, arrogant or unfriendly, any more than any other group- indeed, because good manners are prized these are much to the fore, hence all the glowing epithets on this thread. But don't be fooled into believing that being friendly, charming, unstuffy and welcoming means any more than this.

Of all the posts I've read on topics like this, Hameldown's resonates with what we have seen. We're not and never have been linked by an attachment to a school or an area but DS remains friends with kids he met at seven in prep school. Mainly they are the handful that didn't go the public school route, but into international schools or comprehensives. But it's the thick web of acquaintances and relatives that add up. DH, then BF, came to a cousin's wedding and kept on meeting people he hadn't seen for 10 years-plus. He knew more of the guests than I did.

My friends parents are 'posh' although not cash rich, mainly land rich.
They are perfectly polite but not particularly warm.