MY dear old mum, rest her soul, was not a judgmental sort of lady. She enjoyed a laugh, even the odd glass of sherry, but she went to church every Sunday and rarely said a word against anyone.

She did, however, treat with deep suspicion a certain class of people who, she said, were always trying to "ape their betters". Most of them, she would opine on the few occasions when she got onto the subject, were "as common as muck".

This was the view of a woman who knew her place in the class structure, thanks to the upbringing of her own, Victorian mother. Neither working class nor gentry, the family was passably well to do, passably well educated, and, I suppose, somewhere in the lower middle of middle class.

I thought of her "common as muck" phrase last week when a couple of elegant (at first sight) ladies arrived for lunch at the Beggars' Arms in one of those German 4x4s which Erwin Rommel could have used as his command post for the Afrika Korps (ask your history teacher, kiddiewinks).

Except for the fact that Jeremy Clarkson says that they have so much off-road ability that they could overturn on a croquet lawn despite the fact that they cost £50,000.

In other words, a typical poser's car the likes of which, I regret to say, are becoming ever more common in this part of the Dales. But then, these two had brought posing to the level of art.

At first we thought they were sisters, because both wore the same expensive suede skirts with silk tops, tooled leather boots, and short coats of some rich looking fur.

They had the same shoulder length blonde hair with dyed in streaks which, Mrs C whispered to me in some awe, probably took an hour to put in and would have cost a bare minimum of £100 each.

Then, at the bar, the younger one asked her "Mam" what she wanted to drink in an accent so broad that, had it been laid flat, would have covered most of Yorkshire and perhaps a bit of East Lancashire too.

This had me gob-smacked, for it meant that either a) the mother had given birth at a very young age or b) that mum was a masterpiece of the plastic surgeon's sculpture. Probably a bit of each, said Mrs C.

They ordered, as expected, the most expensive food on the men and a bottle of red burgundy which, in fact, they sent back to exchange it for "sommat fizzy". They smoked, not just between courses but between bites, and at one stage mum had one cigarette in her food-choked mouth and another smouldering in the ash tray.

When Mum went to the loo - which took a long time because more major surgery was no doubt needed - daughter produced not one but two mobile phones from her handbag and was plainly irritated because she could get neither to work (Beggarsdale is a cell-phone blackspot, I am delighted to say).

What got me thinking about dear old mum was that these two made no attempt whatsoever to "ape their betters".

In mum's day, working class people who had made a bit of brass tried hard to mingle with the gentry: they pronounced the occasional aitch, wore the right country clothes, learned to shoot and fish with a fly, and supported local charity.

These two women made no attempt whatsoever to be ladies. They swore frequently, discussed friends' intimate lives in tones so loud we could all hear the sordid details, said neither please nor thank you, argued against paying for the excellent wine they had sent back - "It weren't reet" - and did not leave a tip.

These days, it seems the nouveaux riche think that because money talks, they have no need to learn simple things like table manners or even common courtesy. Mum's other phrase still applies: "Common as muck".

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.