Toffs

I've been reading a review of a new book on Patrick Shaw-Stewart and it's nearly made me sick. Educated at Eton then Oxford he was a member of "The Corrupt Coterie", a group of students who regarded themselves as superior to everyone who hadn't gone to Eton, superior to those others who had, superior to everyone who was not British. They partied from Saturday to Monday in grand houses. They were all in love with Lady Diana Manners, whoever she was, and they all joined up to fight The Great War in which most of them were killed. Apart from their courage and patriotism I don't think there is anything that can be said about them that is complimentary. Shaw-Stewart, when an officer in the army, said of "the men" under his command: "I dislike them all pretty heartily because they nearly all smell".
Associated with this "band of brothers" was Duff-Cooper who had a position in governemnt in the Second World War. He was a descendant of William the Fourth on the distaff side: a mistress of the king's bore him a son whose blood came down over the years to Duff-Cooper. Incidentally, Duff-Cooper's neice was the grandmother of our own prime minister, David Cameron. So he's of royal blood! No wonder the queen was smiling when she met him ("one of our own").
When I think of this lot, toffs, especially the Corrupt Coterie I think also of the man I saw in a top-hole in a colliery I worked at while a student: he worked in a very narrow sloping tunnel, cut the coal in the seams with a pick-axe and pushed the coal down the shaft with his boots to fall into a truck placed beneath. All day. Not paid much then. Not enough to party into the early hours. Just slog and more slog. "Nearly all smell" my foot! From my experience of miner's houses in the South Wales valleys, they were all clean as pins and if there was a smell at all it was of carbolic soap.
Has anything changed?