I have a friend who attended a posh boarding school, some seven decades ago, and he’s been teaching me the correct way to ask for the salt. No way do you say: “Can you please pass the salt?” Instead, you address the person who is nearest to the salt and enquire: “Would you like the salt?”

At this point, they’re meant to say: “No, I’ve had some, thank you so much for asking. But would you care for some?”

Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco at the Copacabana in Goodfellas.Credit: Warner Bros

“Actually, yes,” you’d then say, using a tone of surprise as if your interest in salt had only formed once the kindly suggestion had been made. The salt would then be sent down the table. Hurrah!

Naturally, this lesson left me conflicted. I was torn between: “How ridiculous, why can’t these pathetic poshos get over their ridiculous, posho selves?” And a second thought: “Oh, goody, I might start doing this.”

Like most people of my generation, I had some terrible early run-ins with the world of etiquette. The parents of the 50s and 60s believed table manners were the world’s most important thing.

This was particularly intense in families like mine – families that would now be called........

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