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Loving the common thread so much thought we should go “POSH”

(114 Posts)
Sago Thu 11-Aug-22 13:48:45

My mother had an endless list of things deemed common, I thought it would be fun to do her posh (I hate the word) list!
She would actually say poash just to make it sound poasher!
She also had the habit of lowering her voice a few octaves when saying anything French.

Anything French or disguised as French ie, Jacques Vert, Pâté, Croissants.
All M&S food
Colmans mixes (really)
Conservatories
Earl Grey tea
Cruises
Long dresses
Dinner Dances
Asparagus
Wedgewood
Any foreign holiday destination except mainland Spain.
En suite bathrooms
Anything with a hint of peach or apricot, her house was a shrine to peach and apricot tones?
Weddings in marquees
Double barrelled surnames
Play for Today
Good Housekeeping
Tablecloths
Any food sat on top of a doily.
Being able to recite any
Embellished towels
Pearls

Alan Bennett would have had a field day.

Blinko Sat 13-Aug-22 13:21:35

I seem to recall Prince Charles referring to HM as Mummy in one of his speeches not too long ago. It sounded very strange to us not so posh folk…

Dizza25 Sat 13-Aug-22 12:47:47

Calling parents mummy and daddy throughout life. Unlike my 3 who dropped mummy and daddy for mum and dad at about 10 years old.

However, when my 33 year old daughter wants something it’s still, “mummeeee” !

hollysteers Sat 13-Aug-22 12:39:58

“…..an air of dowdy elegance” Osbert Sitwell.

sodapop Fri 12-Aug-22 12:50:25

Yammy

""Posh people used Fish Knives and forks for the food from the "Chippy".

We received a set of fish knives & forks as a wedding present Yammy. We were really hard up with not a bean between us ( both nurses) but at least we could eat our fish supper with the correct utensils grin

fiorentina51 Fri 12-Aug-22 12:24:51

maddyone
FIL was lovely. Quite a character but very kindhearted.

Squiffy Fri 12-Aug-22 12:13:24

Years ago, one of our neighbours, in her sixties, was a cleaner for a Lady. Lady X would pick her up in her battered, rattly old Mini drive her to her home to work, make her lunch and bring her back home. Lady X was often seen in her very un-posh car around town. She was proper posh!

On the other hand, a colleague of mine never just took her shoes to the menders, she always made an announcement to the entire office that she was taking her Cardin (or whoever) shoes to be repaired. Similarly with her clothes when they needed to go to the cleaners. Not proper posh!

Callistemon21 Fri 12-Aug-22 12:12:22

Aveline

Rich doesn't mean posh.

As Dolly Parton said:
"It costs a lot of money to look this cheap"

Auntieflo Fri 12-Aug-22 12:06:33

We think that my uncle, dad's brother, had delusions of grandeur. I don't remember him at all, but dad used to say that when he visited, he would stand at the door into the garden, hands in pockets rattling small change, and saying that "he was taking the air"

Aveline Fri 12-Aug-22 12:00:11

Rich doesn't mean posh.

maddyone Fri 12-Aug-22 11:40:24

I love that story fiorentina. Your FiL sounds like a lovely man.

GrannyGravy
The linen feel napkins are lovely, and you don’t have to wash and iron them. Some of the posh good restaurants use them, and of course I buy them in Waitrose the supermarket.
I remember being taught how to wash, starch, and iron a linen napkin at school in Domestic Science. I think life’s too short to iron a napkin. I’m thinking of taking them all to the charity shop.

Annaram1 Fri 12-Aug-22 11:40:01

A number of ladies were in the hospital waiting room and their names were called out by a nurse when it was their time to go in. The nurse kept calling out "Mrs Sidebottom?" with no response. Finally there was just one woman left. The nurse asked why she was still waiting and the lady replied "My name was not called." "What is your name dear?" asked the nurse. The lady replied "Mrs Siddybottome."

nanna8 Fri 12-Aug-22 11:33:35

My kids must be posh because they went to private schools and university and we have a swimming pool. Very different definitions of posh in my country which is interesting in itself. We don’t have an aristocracy, thankfully, unless you count those descended from convicts!

Yammy Fri 12-Aug-22 11:33:25

""Posh people used Fish Knives and forks for the food from the "Chippy".

Katek Fri 12-Aug-22 11:27:46

A friend of ours used to say he knew he’d made it when his furniture arrived already assembled!

fiorentina51 Fri 12-Aug-22 11:26:31

My late FIL, a small scale builder and decorator was once doing some painting at a local big house, home of a member of the peerage.
One day, whilst up a ladder, the butler came in with the then Dowager Duchess of Westminster. They were introduced and FIL raised his paint stained cloth cap and said,
"Afternoon, Ma'am."
Later on, as he was leaving, the butler gently pointed out that one usually addressed a Duchess as "your grace."
FIL replied in a broad Worcestershire accent, "I calls all women Ma'am, then none of 'em gets offended."
His attitude was that we are all equal and that we treat everyone with the same degree of respect.

I'm not too sure what posh is any more. Perhaps it is breeding rather than wealth.
Whatever it is, I'm not it. Common as muck me!

GrannyGravy13 Fri 12-Aug-22 11:22:50

maddyone

nadateturbe

Linen napkins as opposed to a sheet of kitchen roll (common)

Oh dear, I own linen napkins but never use them. We use, guess what, a sheet of kitchen roll. Mostly anyway, although I buy those linen feel paper napkins for family dinners. I must be posh grin

Oh dear, we use linen napkins all the time in the dining room, only use paper napkins in the kitchen/diner or garden.

I do not think that you can fake class some people just ooze it, whether they are rich or poor. It’s the way they wear the clothes, doesn’t matter if they are designer or primark. It’s the way they hold themselves and how they walk .

Witzend Fri 12-Aug-22 11:09:32

TerriBull

The nuns at my convent school loved the word "breeding" and would announce to the class that certain favoured pupils had breeding, the implication being the rest of us didn't, shock presumably we all came about in a Dolly The Sheep laboratory type of way, except that had yet to happen back in my dim and distant school days hmm

Our dds attended a junior convent school for a few years. The nuns there - or at least the headmistress - apparently worshipped money - she sucked up like mad to the richest parents. It was a standing joke that at the annual prize-giving the Headmistress’s Prize for each year would invariably go to one of a very numerous, absolutely loaded, extended Catholic family - all with the same surname.

I was naive enough to be startled by this at first, but an Irish friend told me it was nothing remotely unusual for Irish nuns (which they were). ‘Sucking up to what they see as ‘the gentry’ was how she put it.

Other than that it was a very good school, though.

Yammy Fri 12-Aug-22 11:08:36

We were considered snobs when we passed our 11+ and often people stopped talking to you from then on.
They even had a Rhyme they shouted at us as we came off the bus. In different villages referring to the school.
........snobs all in a row a pint of p.... will drown you all.
Happy days, where are they all now?

maddyone Fri 12-Aug-22 11:05:16

nadateturbe

Linen napkins as opposed to a sheet of kitchen roll (common)

Oh dear, I own linen napkins but never use them. We use, guess what, a sheet of kitchen roll. Mostly anyway, although I buy those linen feel paper napkins for family dinners. I must be posh grin

Joseanne Fri 12-Aug-22 11:00:19

maddyone

crazyH

Anyone who went to university and ‘read Classics’ as we often hear on Mastermind ….

Haha, that’s my husband you’re talking about. He also read French. Joint honours. I don’t think he’s posh, just ordinary.

grin

I'm saying nothing on the subject!

maddyone Fri 12-Aug-22 10:58:17

crazyH

Anyone who went to university and ‘read Classics’ as we often hear on Mastermind ….

Haha, that’s my husband you’re talking about. He also read French. Joint honours. I don’t think he’s posh, just ordinary.

avitorl Fri 12-Aug-22 10:52:09

In the 1960s I took my cousin ,who was about 5 at the time,to visit my future in laws. After the visit he was asked what they were like and he said they were very posh.They really weren't.
He was asked why they were posh and his answer was that they had Blue Band margarine and shop bought cakes.
My family used butter and had home baked cakes.
It shows the power of advertising! Blue Band was a luxury margarine and shop cakes were for the rich!

Floradora9 Thu 11-Aug-22 21:33:25

I worked in a bank in London in the 1960s where the manager never once spoke to me . He arrived each day sporting a bowler hat but got his come uppance when the bank introduced cheque books with you name printed on the cheques. He always used his middle name as it he had a double barred name so he was known as Mr. John Imrie -Brown . Sadly his printed cheques came in and he was relegated to being Mr. John . I. Brown he was not pleased.

PamelaJ1 Thu 11-Aug-22 20:05:06

My DH’s boss was very posh - kept his trousers up with baler twine?
His, also very posh, wife used to come round to do my pre Natal exercises with me to make sure I did them!
Their , very posh, son lived in the next house door to us with very posh friends. They used to sunbathe in the garden naked.
They were all lovely- I mean the family - not the sunbathers. Some of them not so much!

MissAdventure Thu 11-Aug-22 20:01:14

Oh bum!
Got my threads mixed up. blush
So many similar ones today...