What does 'effortlessly middle class' mean?

Excellent reply!

My late father-in-law felt himself very elevated (Oxford Don).
When I met him, he looked down his patrician nose, and said "Well now, girl - which social class might YOU fit into?"
I was only a humble nurse, but feisty with it, so I told him I was in a class of my own.
Looking back, I realise I was far too good for that snobbish family!

I don’t ever think of class, take people as I find them.

M0nica, my father went to great efforts to appear less 'posh' and quite 'ordinary' when working for himself as a builder - while my working-class mother did the complete opposite. It would make a great comedy show.

Still, the upper and working classes tend to get along just fine. They have quite a lot in common.

I have twice dealt with men with the entire country estate look: cut glass accent, barbour, green wellies, Agricultural land rover, the full pack, who were perfectly ordinary and had deliberately adopted this persona because the real deal were their clients for their businesses and by appearing to be one of them, they did more business and got more referrals.

He's probably terribly posh with RP but the accent is just an affectation ?

Actually, I do like Adam but I like Monty too
Anyone who gardens, in fact!

Adam Frost lives in one of the Burghley Estate houses doesn't he?

Calistemon

^I was a gardener so consider myself working class. Monty Don is a gardener and middle class. Roddy Llewellyn was a gardener and a baronet who ahem , 'mixed with' royalty.^

Who's the other TV gardener? Is he working class because he has a strong accent?
Adam Frost

No, he's Adam the tv Gardener

Never mind his accent. Have you seen the stately pile he lives in?

My dear friend begins nearly every conversation with “ being brought up in a working class family”.
I have never understood why she needs to do this.

I was a gardener so consider myself working class. Monty Don is a gardener and middle class. Roddy Llewellyn was a gardener and a baronet who ahem , 'mixed with' royalty.

Who's the other TV gardener? Is he working class because he has a strong accent?
Adam Frost

No, he's Adam the tv Gardener

I'm effortlessly, contentedly, proudly, no class at all.

Urmstongran

And I’m happy to be thought of as working class. ?
It’s what we are after all. I like things nice though. Manners. Table set for meals with all the what nots.

Yes I agree with you Urmstongran good manners are wonderful and transcend class.

I'm effortlessly, contentedly, proudly working class.

I was a gardener so consider myself working class. Monty Don is a gardener and middle class. Roddy Llewellyn was a gardener and a baronet who ahem , 'mixed with' royalty.

It's all far too complicated. Shall we all just be us?

JaneJudge

Not many philanthropists shout about it either

exactly. That is another thing which I consider vulgar, being boastful.

Not many philanthropists shout about it either

One thing is for certain, money does not indicate class. Trashy ostentation is vulgar. I think the old divide of whether you had to work for a living doesn't apply now, most people have to work for their income, even if that 'work' is managing an estate of thousands of acres. The reverse snobbery of some on the left really irritates me, the inference that if you earn a 'salary' rather than a 'wage' makes you some sort of a class traitor, and the snippy comments about people like Sir Keir Starmer who got where he is on his own ability, whereas I think is to be admired for this.

I too would like to be stylish but goodness me it takes some effort

I'm not stylish with even the maximum of effort, Nightsky

I think that I can get on with all classes, does that make me ‘effortlessly middle class’?
If I’m in the middle it’s less effort to go up or down?

Let’s not forget the lower middle classes and the upper middle classes.
Are they effortlessly lower middle class? Are they effortlessly upper middle class?

RP rules me out of being middle class!

It's neither good nor bad.
It just is.

I've had people say to me in a very sneery way that I'm posh. I just agree. Takes the wind out of their sails. Why is being middle class apparently a bad thing?

Calistemon

LauraNorderr

The aspiring classes apparently make an effort to use a napkin rather than a serviette, to say ‘what’ instead of ‘pardon’, to sit on a sofa in the sitting room or, worse still, the drawing room instead of the lounge. Whereas effortlessly middle class do it all effortlessly including going to the loo and not the toilet without much effort.
So in conclusion more Imodium needed for the effortlessly middle class.

What about those who say settee not sofa, lav not toilet, use paper napkins, not linen or even use kitchen roll when they've run out of the paper ones?

Beyond the pale!!?

What I'd like to be is effortlessly stylish, whatever class I am ?

I too would like to be stylish but goodness me it takes some effort.

Aveline We all allocate ourselves into different perceived classes

You may, I never have. In fact I have always protested against there being any class system in this country. For every aristo or whatever with the right school and university pulling strings, there is another whose grandfather gambled everything away, and the current holder went to a state school and is a bus driver or similar.

Middle class is taken to mean wealthy people with big houses and large cars - and anyone who, as we used to say, wears a suit to work and works in an office, which included the most lowly bank clerk.

Working class is taken to include a prosperous tradesmen - plumber, electrician or the like, we know and like quite a number. they own nice houses, shop in the same farm shops we do and drive onlease SUV's, which are used for work. It also includes gig economy and zero hours workers in retail and hospitality in big cities.

The whole class system is ridiculous and completely out of line with how the country actually works and is only kept running because the Labour Party would be lost without it.

I think you're a category in your own right.

I can't claim to be working class any longer.

Being retired, am I now effortlessly middle class?