How did you define 'Posh' when you were a child?

I lived all over the place and changed schools nine times (army child) but the most alien place was Stockport. I was teased constantly for my "posh" voice and had trouble understanding the natives for their local accent and numerous strange words for familiar things. Nobody there seemed to have ever before met someone from elsewhere.

I dreamed of an inside toilet. Really really would have loved a bathroom. A telephone.

I thought folks on a council estate were posh cos they had a bathroom.

People who lived in houses where you couldn't see the house from the road. Or people in houses with a doorbell. Or stained glass in the front door.

I am now, by my own definition, 'Posh' because I have a car, a telephone and a four-bedroomed house.
And a coloured telly.

I really don't know why, but the very word "posh" really grates with me! I HATE it!

phoenix - don't let Victoria Beckham know she may fall off her shoes and break her hair which certainly won't give her anything to smile about!

That's probably because you're posh, phoenix!

Or wish you were.

I was brought up in the North East, in a small back to back terrace, I always thought anyone with a garden was posh

Sounds very much like my mum's home. They did put in a bathroom after my granddad died (he wouldn't have a toilet in the house). Growing up until I was about 7 we didn't have a bathroom either. We had a bath in the kitchen with a lid, the WC on the landing and a basin in my bedroom, mum & dad slept on the pull out sofa in the sitting room. It was not a 'self contained' flat either!

This thread is turning into a Monty Python sketch. Someone's going to mention the shoe box in the road soon. Lol.

My best friend Margaret lived in a large detached house with steps up to the front door which I thought were terribly posh and she had a swing in her garden which was even posher. My mother always maintained that POSH stood for 'port out starboard home' in the days when the British sailed out to the orient in the time of Colonial rule domination. It was something to do with the sun shining in your cabin in the morning/ evening but not sure which way round!

haha! No from that situation we moved to the 'colonial' life and had a whole bungalow to ourselves with all mod cons in Africa!!

(to Petra)

Sorry but you are all wrong. I didn't know the word posh as a child because I didn't hear it, but I was certainly aware that when I was asked, aged 14, by a new boyfriend, if he could ride his horse around our grounds when he came to stay, and I had to reply that it would be a very short ride if he did, well that was when I realised that we were not 'posh'.

When he came to stay? At 14? My dad would have had a fit!

No, they knew each other, my parents had arranged to meet up on holiday when we were all on a Club Med holiday,and as I was one of four, he was one of five, they were hoping for peace and quiet and that we would all play together nicely. We did. They wanted to clear off somewhere over half-term and as we had all got on well, asked if my parents would have him and one of his sisters.

When I was at junior school in the fifties, I was very friendly with a girl whose family's lifestyle couldn't have been further removed from ours. They lived in the only detached house in the area, her father had his own business, played golf and owned a dinner jacket, and they cruised every year. My mother didn't exactly approve of this friendship; "they're too posh for the likes of you" she would say. In fact, these people had no airs and graces whatsoever and were very down to earth. Whenever this girl came to my house, my mother was never entirely at ease with her. Our friendship lasted throughout our school years, until we both started to work sand I moved away from home.

janer you were posh! To go on a Club Med holiday! wow!

Every year... Yet we certainly didn't think of ourselves as posh. We always knew so many people with far more than us. My mother struggled to keep four of us clothed with what my father gave her, I know he had money problems. It's all down to what he saw as priorities, in the end. He had a wealthy family and a good upbringing, but lost and made money by turns. One day we seemed to have money, the next - all gone. He gambled with businesses, not in casinos. I think we would all have been a lot happier with holidays in Cornwall or Broadstairs and not having him threaten to cancel Christmas every year.

I don't remember ever thinking about whether we were "posh" or not, or whether anyone else was. I was aware, though, that there were certain things I had that my friends did not have, and certain things they had that I did not.

I remember being rather envious of a friend who always went abroad on holiday and who also went to ballet classes (something which I yearned to do). I imagined that she lived in a much nicer house than our own but when I went to her birthday party I was surprised to find that she lived in a very modest little house.

As a child I read a lot of books and so I vicariously went to boarding school, entered my pony in the local gymkhana, went to the seaside on holidays etc. and yet I don't recall thinking of the people who actually did these things as posh. Certain actions though were definitely deemed posh. To raise a little finger when drinking tea was posh, to wear gloves and a hat was posh and I have no idea why, but to have a salad was also considered posh. As a child I was forever being teased for using posh words.

My parents considered anyone who went to work in an office in a collar and tie 'posh'. When I met DH they didn't like him at all ' not our class' because he worked at the Town Hall and wore a collar and tie to work. They had lots of views that were just inverted snobbery really.

I grew up from age 8 on a big new Council Estate. Not far away was a sort of village where really well off people lived. The village was surrounded by three large council estates and the village residents were finding it hard to cope with the influx of common people.

They all had cut glass accents and we called them "posh." Times have changed and really posh accents seem to be a thing of the past.