Middle Class Problems

Aren't fish knives nonu-U?

I used to use toast racks for holding papers. The gaps weren't wide enough for our slabs of bread.

flickety, we're taking the piss!

I am constantly amazed by Gransnetters obsession with class and their desire to prove they either are or are not middle class.

Does any one really give a toss what socio economic bracket anyone they know and like falls into? Of course it tends to be different with those one doesnt like.

Would this thread have run so long and so eloquently it it had been called Working Class Problems? lets try one, 'Oh dear they have cut my benefits I will have to cancel the holiday in Thailand/sell the BMW' or does that make people feel a little uncomfortable. If so, why?

Leaf tea, Chatsford teapot with filter, giant teacup at breakfast time; other times red bush or Earl Grey in various mugs - Denby, John Lewis, and my favourite, a Highland Stoneware special. Not one of my very 'middle class' professional/academic friends uses anything but mugs!

Mine too - toast rack that is. Although she came from a very very poor family with 13 children she still used a toast rack!!!!!

Sook For some unexplained reason I have three toast racks but only use any of them when I have house guests. My mother always used a toast rack at the breakfast table.

My youngest DS school used to and probably still do use Port Merrion crockery for every day !!!!!! Is my son middleclass, went to a private school in a beautiful house with a walled garden. They make their own bread rolls for lunch and have 2:1 and 1: 1 tutoring, Not sure about samphire tho. although we have picked a little Holme -next-the-sea and had a nibble, does a nibble count or does it have to be a whole pot full?

I have collected Emma Bridgewater sponge ware mugs for years and use them daily. They have a factory shop not too far from where I live Ea and when they have a sale on it's nigh impossible to get into the shop for Americans with trolleys stacked high with the best bargains.

For everyday I use Denby Arabesque I believe it now considered an 'iconic' design. Mine has been painstakingly collected over the years from car boot sales and charity shops.

I love Home and Bargain Nellie but I buy Covent Garden soup in bulk when it is in the clearance corner same for Cranks bread.

My husbands grandmother was the best. She is the only person I have ever known who used a toast rack at the breakfast table. Tray cloths and china for afternoon tea and scones and fish knives and forks for fish and chips from the local chippy.

Flower, you should see our bookshelves!!! Vertical or horizontal if they're lucky , our books!

Mind you, we don't have much in the way of crockery or cutlery where anything matches anything else. I'm a smashing washer-upper!

I drink loose tea out of a bone china cup (no saucer thought; what does that indicate?) and teabag tea out of a mug, usually chipped because of my smashing abilities.

This thread is so funny. I love how we on Gransnet digress. I holiday a lot in Blakeney, Norfolk and samphire has always been for sale on rickety tables outside gates in that area for just pennies. Norfolk residents could be be profiting from sales this year, bet the price goes up.
If you are not middle class, should you be watching Sky or ITV3 instead of the BBC channels?
I mind the grandchildren all week - am I a Nanny? Oh yes of course...that's what they call me!
I have a cleaning job in a private house too. I don't mind it when the lady is at work but when she is out having her nails done I feel a little miffed. Hey ho - she's paying me, I'll not get my knickers in a twist over it. Off to check the make of the kettle now

Only if your beach hut has it's own window cleaner Flower I'm afraid.

I use my Waitrose bottle carriers in Aldi.

Does having a window cleaner help and having access to a beach hut in Walberswick?

What about professions does the profession not denote middle class rather than income?

I once read that having books lying sideways on ones bookshelf is seen to be middle class. THATS ME SORTED [SMILE]

You REALLY NEED to buy a HARRODS carrier bag from eBay or amazon then use that all the time!

I drink Yorkshire Tea in a mug from the Churchills Factory Shop just up the road. However few of our mugs match well. If I really want to be posh I could use my late mothers Royal Doulton bone china tea set in a fetching sage green. That should improve my social status.

I buy Baxter's soup which seems a bit classier than your average, but I then cancel that out by buying it in Home Bargains who do the Lentil and Vegetable that Asda don't sell.
It's the sort of shop I go to for good prices on branded goods and then sneak out of with goods in a different stores carrier bag. The trouble is that usually an Aldi Bag rather than M & S. I clearly haven got this classy shopping thing right yet have I?

I do have china mugs The older generation around me only used mugs for coffee, tea was always in cups with saucers and there was a 'best' tea service, always china. Funny really.

Ps! I only drink tea when pregnant! I'm now 68. I drink coffee.

Yes..that's why I'm such a failure at this middle-class lark, Sel! My granny, on the other hand, never had a mug in her house - it was always cups and saucers.

I DO have a china tea service, wedge wood platinum. A present to my father from a patient my mother hated, so I inherited it!
The last time it was used was when my mil visited! (She's been dead for at least 15 years!)
Personally, I use a mug. It is however Dunoon bone china and one has a skeleton and the other the coastal shipping forecast areas!

Mugs? Mugs? Oh my dears, I despair

I'd love to drink my tea in a old T.G. Green cornishware mug,a Emma Bridgewater naahh! Never! Expensive doesn't mean your tea taste better!

Don't worry merlot, so am I! My kettle's a Russell Hobbs and I think my mug's from Asda....

Oh dear, Deeda. I'm not crazy about samphire or polenta. My kettle doesn't whistle and is a Wilkinson's cheapie. I'm drinking PG tips in a Tesco mug and watching BBC1. I'm such a middle class failure