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

feetlebaum it's not a term I would use now except for 'posh frock' or in a jocular way, but in the 1950s I think it was more widely used.

Penstemmon I remember going to afternoon tea with someone my DM knew who was very posh (I was about 8) - there were delicate cucumber sandwiches and lovely little cakes. I had a couple of sandwiches and one cake; the lady offered me more but DM said 'Rose has had quite enough, thank you, Mrs A'
I could have eaten the plateful (therefore I probably wasn't 'Posh')

My father wore steel capped shoes for some reason. He was a GP!

Was his surgery based in a particularly "rough" area Galen? Perhaps he was worried someone might stamp on his toes.

"Posh " was the children who "went away" to school.

They were 'Extremely Posh' Soutra

I only knew one or two but I longed to 'go away to school' (too much Enid Blyton?)

rosequartz - get you with your Corona pop order!

Probably why I have so many fillings, vegasmags
- although we didn't seem to drink much of it - we drank more of what my DM called 'Corporation Pop'

I didn't think of people being posh or not, but there were certain things that I knew existed and didn't think were in the realms of possibility for me, such as horse / pony owning, ballet lessons.
I also longed to go to boarding school and, strangely enough, there seemed to be a small chance of that at one time, when my grandmother suggested she might contribute to the cost, but nothing ever came of it.
I am sure, now, that I would have been miserable at boarding school, among people with very different backgrounds to me.

Our street was full of posh people because a van came weekly and took their laundry away and then brought it back with little stickers in the corner of table cloths and napkins. Parcels delivered from the store in town instead of carrying it home yourself.

Corona pop, that brings back memories of begging DM to let us have Cherryade. It was delivered on a Thursday.
Posh was people who had a dining room separate to eating in the kitchen, holidays abroad and who drove new cars (not us I hasten to add!)
Boarding school was used as a threat to me rosequartz so not so much Mallory Towers (I wish!), I think 'posh' was used as you say.

It really didn't occur to me to define people as posh when we were young, until, that is, some of my school friends were sent off to boarding school when we finished the primary phase.

I am sure that many people in the small town where we lived, thought that my family was posh because my parents owned a shop.

The posh people had their laundry returned wrapped up in brown paper and string. We common folk had bagwash retuned in a pillowcase.

In the house we lived in for the first 10 years of my life, we had a very long garden and I remember when I was about 4, and being nosy, or possibly inquisitive, I would often look under the fence of the house that was sideways on to ours. I must have done this quite a lot and miraculously on one occasion right at the same time I was having a good old nose, a freckle faced, red haired girl about my age on the other side locked eyes with mine and so began a childhood friendship. It wasn't long before we were both going under the fence, where there was a dip, into each others gardens. This friendship endured right the way through junior school until we moved house. However, we went to different schools, me to the local state Catholic junior school and my friend to somewhere that had a very smart uniform and where apparently her parents had to pay fleas! I do remember thinking how inconvenient it must have been for them having to gather up these fleas all the time just so she and her brother and sister could go to school, they didn't even have a dog so it really had me wondering just where they got all the fleas in the first place. My friend and her family also disappeared to Delhi for long periods of time and when the family came back I would be invited round to her house for tea and then she and her sister would show me all these wonderful things they had brought back.

I have an enduring memory of their very clipped accents, a treasure trove of amazing things. However one single item defined them as posh, not the flea paying school that my friend or her siblings attended or the frequent trips to India. It was a BOAC shoulder bag, my god it was posh!

Terribull that was very Posh!!

Even by association you must have been a bit posh

'Posh' - was taking fish and chips home - in a brief-case... was playing Bingo and shouting 'Semi-detached!'

I don't think so rosequartz I really coveted the BOAC shoulder bag though and I did get to touch it I think I thought it was a mandatory item required for airline travel, both glamorous and posh. I liked the idea of flying then, I briefly joined the girl guides because of the hat which was similar to that of an air hostess. The irony is that whilst I like to travel, I actually hate getting on a plane and have to have Diazepam at the ready.

Chloe 1984. I don't know what your Mother would have thought of mine. She painted her nails and smoked Sabrani cocktail cigarettes and always wore gloves. Nothing could be further from the truth when using the word posh about my family, but she had style.

I'm quiet surprised by what some of you thought as 'posh' (horrible word) We had the separate dining room, the indoor bathroom, I had my own bedroom, we had salad cream and other things mentioned.
We also lived on a council estate and mum and dad both worked in a factory. Mum was very conscious of decorum and manners.
There was certainly nothing 'posh' about us though

PS we had the Corona order too

I've just remembered that after we had a loft conversion when I was 7, we had a downstairs loo as well as the bathroom upstairs. The former was very useful when I wanted to lock myself in with a book.

People sometimes comment on my name or my accent (which is really unremarkable) so I just tell them I can't help it because I'm just very posh. They always laugh! Not sure what that means!

Iam my mother too! I could write reams about what she considered common, but only what she considered posh, or better class, by inference.

ninathenana - no need rub it in about the Corona!