IN his recentlyreleased book, “Adventures on the High Teas”, writer and broadcaster Stuart Maconie went in search of Middle England.

He spent half a year travelling round places like Bath, Tunbridge Wells and Bourton-on-the-Water, but he really needn’t have bothered.

If it was Middle England he was after, he should simply have pitched up at Wimbledon. Never can so many copies of the Daily Telegraph have been in the same place at once.

It’s easy to mock England’s upper-middle classes, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable so here goes.

For a start, what on earth do they wear? Yesterday, as a sun-baked Centre Court crowd was watching Andy Murray warm up against Robbie Kendrick, it was possible to discern a pair of salmon pink cords, a brownand- yellow striped waistcoat and a mustard blazer. And that was just the women.

It’s a strange British truism, but generally the more money someone has, the worse they dress. Little wonder Eton doesn’t do a GNVQ in fashion.

It also doesn’t teach much in the way of tennis on the evidence of some of yesterday’s Centre Court attendees.

For a proportion of the annual SW19 crowd, Wimbledon is part of the social season. It’s Royal Ascot without the horses, Henley without the rowing, Arsenal without the distraction of 22 idiots kicking a ball around and getting in the way of the Sauvignon Blanc.

“Who’s that over there,” a woman wearing unfeasibly large sunglasses asked as Venus Williams was preparing to serve against Stefanie Voegele, and she wasn’t talking about the woman who was due to be returning.

It could have been a satirical comment on the parlous state of women’s tennis, but I doubt it. More likely, it was an expression of annoyance that the reigning women’s champion was delaying the start of lunch.

Still, each to their own, and if England’s landed gentry weren’t to congregate on Wimbledon every year, it’s doubtful that the flowers would be quite as nice.

That’s one side of Wimbledon, but it’s not the only one. Murray’s Mount lies a couple of hundred yards from Centre Court, and it caters for spectators who do not have show-court tickets.

Here lies a different tribe from the shires. This is more Daily Mail than Daily Telegraph, more picnic box than Pimm’s, more four-bed semi than four-acre lawn.

It’s the housewife army that turned Tim Henman into an object of national affection for so many years, the madcap middle-agers who queue for three days solid just to get a glimpse of Sue Barker.

They’re every bit as potty as their more well-heeled neighbours, but it’s a quirkier, more heartwarming pottiness than the one displayed by the Centre Court socialites.

Take Jane Harris for instance. She’s 56, she left Cornwall at 2am yesterday morning, and she offered me a scone with clotted cream within five minutes of me sitting on the opposite side of a bench to her. Bonkers, but brilliant.

There were hundreds of Janes waiting to cheer on Murray, and most were simply happy that he was starting to smile a bit. “I’m glad he’s had a haircut,” said my Jane. “And I’m even more pleased that he’s no longer obsessed with that ridiculous baseball cap.”

Fair play, though, she knew her tennis. “I managed to get a glimpse of Wozniacki on Court Two earlier this afternoon,” she said. “Do you think she’s the real deal?”

At that point, I just had to nod my head wisely. As the denizens of Centre Court would say, it was time for a late lunch.