This is the truth about being posh… from the lecherous coked-up Cotswolds husbands I have to endure at parties to the maddening ‘busy busy’ women: LADY SYBILLA HART

The brilliant TV series Amandaland has taught me so much but, weirdly, the main message seems to be the utter pointlessness of aspiring to be, dare I say, ‘posh’.

Amanda is a woman most people consider exceptionally plummy, but as I watched the series it just made me want to run in the opposite direction. Give me her down-to-earth, hilarious friends Fi or Della any day.

On paper, I appear posh and I certainly had a very privileged upbringing. My father is a peer (which makes me a lady), we lived in the ‘Royal Triangle’ in Gloucestershire and didn’t want for much.

From 13, I went to an all-girls private school in the Cotswolds, very like St Trinian’s, called Westonbirt.

It wasn’t particularly focused on academics, though more so than my previous school which recommended ‘The Gels’ only took one A-level, which was always art. I was given a very strange look when I announced I wanted to study modern languages at university.

I am 45 years old, by the way – all this was happening in the 1990s. I remember one teacher sighing when I got a low grade in French just before a major exam and then saying that it didn’t matter as I was only going to marry a rich person or ‘work in a glossy magazine’ (I ended up scoring full marks. That showed her.)

When I was a child, my father sat in the House of Lords and, despite a fair amount of fluff at the edges, what I really remember is his tremendous work ethic.

Watching Amandaland reminded me of the importance of that kind of hard work. Increasingly I find ‘posh women’ tiresome, particularly the ones who pretend they need to work and are ‘busy busy’, for example, when, in fact, they don’t and aren’t.

Faffing around with fabric swatches and playing shop with organic candles, really? It makes me tire of the inauthentic nonsense of ‘poshness’ and feel almost anti-establishment.

Posh husbands can be even worse, often a bit lecherous. They have animal nicknames and braying voices and think they’re ‘hot’ when they’re not. One such specimen asked me the other day if I was ‘on the nosebag’, a reference to cocaine.

I am not keen on the stuff, mostly because of the misery it leaves in its wake and, anyway, what’s wrong with a good old glass of wine?

So, what else do I reject from the world of posh women conjured by Amandaland?

The white leather trainers and expensive tiered cotton floral dresses, for starters. Most days I look like I got changed in the dark for the school run, barely dressed with mismatching trainers and hair that makes me look slightly crazed.

I do own a floral dress but it’s a hand-me-down my mother gave me in a pique of de-cluttering and was gleefully accepted on the basis it was clean.

Amanda is also obsessed with ‘interiors’ and building projects. Why bother? I cannot bring myself to get remotely interested in interior design, at least not in the way Amanda is. I love beautiful things – I am married to an art dealer, after all. But conspiratorial whisperings about neutral tones in a mud room or Farrow & Ball paint colours – especially a heated debate between Stiffkey vs Lulworth Blue – are enough to make me want to hurl myself into the sea.

I know being married to an art dealer sounds posh. It’s not, really. Most do it because they love paintings, not because they’re decorating the walls of their castle. Being married to an art buyer would be posher.

As for posh school mummies, I find it impossible to listen to tales of who is or isn’t ‘a full-boarding family’ and when Tottie’s exeat is.

As with curtain swatches, I find myself yawning within seconds. If anyone starts banging on about how tragic it was when they couldn’t get to Gordonstoun when their son broke his arm on Burns Night, my answer is always the same – don’t send them so far away then, love!

I send my children to the local comprehensive (though, unlike Amanda, I do so gladly). It’s not so bad – in fact, it’s downright brilliant.

I am most at home in the company of those playground mums – a diverse, funny, brilliant bunch who don’t take themselves nearly as seriously as Cressida and Percy and wouldn’t want to get stuck in a lift with them either. Or Amanda, for that matter.