Now we know who is middle class - next, who is posh?

[Takver]

following on from this thread I was tickled yesterday by two definitions of what is posh:

• talking to a friend about croquet, which I think is a really tedious game, her answer was that only posh people play croquet, and that the problem was that I was not posh enough . . .
• and description by dd's friend (age 8) of the woman her mum cleans for that she is 'really posh, she has double sky that you can record on as well as watch, and a fountain that looks like stone but is really made out of plastic, and loads of trophies from horseriding' So now I want the collective wisdom of MN - apart from croquet playing and fake stone fountains, what is really, really posh ?

Dittany - I suspect the lads who said "doors to manual" about Kate Middleton would have found something equally annoying to say about someone truly upper class. But I agree it's not nice. And it's not a breathless sucking up thread at all - you have a tendency to turn everything into a hard and humourless fight. Life doesn't have to be like that.

gooseyloosey had it right with the point about the uc putting people at their ease regardless of who they are or their background. Having something pleasant to say to whomever you are thrown in with, and being gentlemanly is what its about.

hmc I am not implying that you should feel "awkward about your roots" although you should perhaps feel awkward about your "issues with class". I am always mystified why MNers (motto: don't be judgy) have such a thing about class, especially the MC. I think that our class system is fairly harmless - I would rather have that than the murderous tribal hatred they have in some countries.

You may have a MC job, hmc, but that doesn't make you MC. People tend to stay with the class that they are born into. If you live the MC life then your children may be MC but, as you have demonstrated, you have stayed with your original working class roots. You are comfortable with the class you were born into, as am I.

The middle classes are tedious and humourless aren't they? They daren't get drunk. They daren't say what they think. They daren't wear what they really like. They daren't send their child to a school they really like, they have to follow the crowd.

I don't feel very caught up in the British class thing as I am first generation British from Irish immigrant parents - they arrived in the sixties to signs saying "No blacks, no Irish". The people kindest to my parents were the well-educated toffs.

Ah you see all this is what the upper classes want you to think. You think they're jolly decent human beings because they deign to speak to you while really they're robbing you blind.
There is one huge difference between the upper class and the working class. The former have all the money. And land. And power. And all the choices, longer life expectancy, castles....

There are awkward buggers wherever you go. Class doesn't change whether someone is a decent person or not. There are posh arseholes and working class arseholes. There are no middle class arseholes because that might sound a bit common.

I'd like to think that the better educated people are, the more likely they are to be liberal and caring about their fellow human beings. I mean, imagine being pig ignorant enough to write-off swathes of humankind with their "no blacks, no Irish" sign.

Consolingly, Swedes, I think that statistically they are (clearly there are large numbers of well educated Daily Mail reading, frothing at the mouth exceptions).
I seem to remember that 'years of education' is a good predictor of opposition to capital punishment, support for equality laws, and the general liberal selection of goodies. Hence why MPs (who may have many faults, but are generally reasonably well educated and thinking people) vote consistently in favour of many liberal reforms that the majority of people in the country would vote against, given the choice.
Which is an interesting dilemma for those of us liberal types who would like more local direct democracy, but perhaps that is for another thread.

"Well they didn't put signs like that up in the House of Lords, the Stock Exchange or the Garrick Club. It didn't mean the attitudes weren't there though."

I really don't understand what point you are trying to make. My well-educated parents arrived to a sea of hostility. That makes me feel terribly sad. We had a terribly hard life in our early years. Much harder than most of you could even imagine.

this thread was fun while it lasted!

Drags Haralambos book off the bookshelf and blows dust off 'Chapter one - Functionalism ...'

It's utter bollocks to say that middle class people are insecure in who they are and are constantly eager to be something else. Some people are, yes, but I don't find a hotbed of insecurity and social climbing amongst my middle class friends. yes, a bit, amongst those with "lower middle class" backgrounds but the rest of them couldn't give a shit. They are who they are.

I was brought up in a working class area where it was virtually a crime to be middle class. The people I knew were fine, but from those I didn't know the aggression and jealousy could be overwhelming. Just a bad were the snobby working class mums who wanted their daughters to be friendly with me because I would be a good influence. So bollocks to the theory that the working class are all happy as they are. Not that they shouldn't be, nor should they feel they have to stay "in their place", but it's crazy to say they're all the same.

As it was such a poor area, mere middle class plebians like me also got to spend a lot of time with properly posh folk. I found, and find, the same mixture of people in the upper classes as I do in the working and middle. I really hate the disgusting spectacle of upper class girls throwing themselves at the most "eligible" man in the room, regardless of whether he is evenly vaguely pleasant. The plan for the girls, from the word go, is to marry as well as they can. And when women from different backgrounds come into the equation they are horrified. One of my (titled) friends did marry a girl from a middle class (but hugely wealthy) family. All the way through uni the other girls were constantly slagging her off, starting untrue rumours, and excluding her where ever they could. All the time they were flirting with my friend and trying to get him into their beds. When he married her, had children and was blissfully happy they were all amazed.

oh kathy, hear hear.

There is never an awful lot of humour to be had in threads about class. Quite the opposite. It's just not a funny thing.

but it is 'life' pointydog so why not find hmour in it?

I agree with SuziSeis.

I've come across enough 'class' threads on mn to know that there is very little humour in it as a topic. That's all

Kathy is a bit chippy and confused. She is terribly keen on the one hand to knock those who went to Oxford via Eton, but terribly keen to let you know that she shared a staircase. wtf.

My ds did ask me if we could pay for him one year at Eton so he could go to oxford tee hee!!

Those who have dissented from the 'toffs are lovely' general statement all seem to be chippy.

I agree with her and I don't find her chippy.

I'm not posh - although my mother did hunt with the Beaver and Quorn. Which fact caused a brief rift as I told the DCs that granny used to murder foxes for fun.

'hunt with the beaver and quorn' - is that slang for 'was a vegetairna lesbian'?

(I might have found humour)

[Ducks head and hides under table for crime of wanting to giggle about different definitions of what is posh]

I have to confess here that having been an 'outsider' most of my life (one of very few incomers in rural village as a child, newcomer to university, emigrant for the last 10 years) I've never had any bad class experiences (beyond being bemused by people called Gervase as a very young and innocent 18yr old). But I can see that it would be much less funny if you're caught in the cross-fire, so to speak.

Dh's aunt sat next to someone at a wedding who, when asked what was new in their life, replied "Well, we've just extended the deer park up to the main gates".

Dh's family is pretty posh - they have an aga and a million animals and he has the poshest name going. I lower the tone nicely though, and I am cleverer than they are.

wilbur it is not my favourite name is it????

hint - i JUST posted it on another thread!