You want to live like common people? Well, the 3 or 4 year period of university has become a gateway for the children of the upper class into the “average” British experience. Before settling into their pre-established nepo job at JP Morgan (or wherever in Canary Wharf they have easy access to through mummy and daddy), one of the Russell Group unis becomes a playground far away from the realities of private schools and trust funds. From Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Durham, and right up to Glasgow, these Northern Capitals have become the stage where the star studded cast of coddled children can pretend to be “normal”.
So shrug off that Schoffel and play dress up in Fred Perry, second hand sweaters, and alcoholism.
Fun, right?
The British Social System operates on a basis of class differentiation, monarchy at the top and working class people at the bottom: ‘an invisible prison’ of capitalism. We really haven’t changed from the Middle Ages. This system erects boundaries amongst communities based on income. It is a language in and of itself. If you went to your friend’s house after school and they had an ice machine on a double door fridge, middle class. New Clarks school shoes with the doll in the heel? Middle class asf.
Following the destructive years of Thatcherism in the UK, the barriers to education skyrocketed. The economic gap widened. The people – the Geordies, Scousers, monkey hangers, Glaswegians, and Mancunians – were left to suffer, grappling with unemployment, drugs, and poverty without government support. When September suddenly rolls around, it brings with it an influx of southern private school children, infecting these already suffering cities with a rampant culture of classism or ‘poverty fetishization’. If you are from London and the South-East you are already 57% more likely to go to university than if you are from the North, so why not just stay there?
Catalysed by Margaret Thatcher’s divisive (and destructive) tyranny, working class people have been increasingly disenfranchised both politically and economically. All the while, being caricatured as feckless, lazy, loutish, and amoral (think Little Britain‘s Vicky Pollard). The media have demonised the lower class in the social psyche throughout the reign of the Tory cabinet. In 1984 there was the picket of the Orgreave plant in South Yorkshire, dubbed the Battle of Orgreave after they were charged by police on horses. Thatcher, following her rightwing dogmatism, called the National Miners Union ‘the enemy within’. Following the “ideals” of Thatcherism, we saw the rampant rise of universal credit, food banks, homelessness, and council funding cuts. These ‘deep seated economic issues […] ’ ‘underpin the grievances of working class people’. My people.
The “aesthetic” of the working class – historically labelled as Chavs, Wags, Povos – has been culturally appropriated. The nova check print, Fred Perrys, Lonsdale, Sambas, and Juicy tracksuits have been staples in the wardrobes of the working class and traveller communities for eons. I remember seeing an abundance of women with rollers in, fluffy slides, and sparkly lipsy tracksuits walking down Stockton high street. These signifiers become part of the wider collective identity of the working class and have subsequently gained negative connotations. The word chav is an acronym for ‘council house and violent’, because obviously violence and poverty are interlinked… duh! But suddenly, Tilly from London wears her Umbro tracksuit from Urban Outfitters and the term “Blokecore” starts getting thrown about in TikTok comments – catch yourself on kid.
Social suffering is the string connecting these counties, no matter how many miles lie between.
Where I am from in the North East, a total 1,250 people are recorded as homeless, 360 of them are children. We have the highest number of alcohol-related deaths in England (25.7/100,000, compared to a national average of 15). The experience is forgotten, the aesthetic is stolen, and not even a twinkle of recognition remains for the people and their hardship. For the southern students coming and renting a space in these cities, this is a 3 year transient condition. But for the natives – it is our everyday.
Our capability to endure and ‘make do’ is reduced down and tokenised. Drinking, drugs, pubs, pool, and poverty are mere props on a stage – put back in the cupboard when it’s reading week or Christmas time.
University is meant to be a place where the playing field is levelled out. But for many, the uni experience consists of the ski trip, unemployment, and parents buying them a flat. In Glasgow, large numbers of Londoners flock across the Scottish border in their pre-established private school friendship groups, only to create cliques in Murano.
If I hear the word Hackney one more time I’m going to scream bloody murder.
In Durham, the home of the Miners Gala, only 7.8% of graduates actually come from the North-East. To sleep with someone from a working class background is to ‘roll in the muck’. To be working class, to them, is to be equivalent to shit on their fresh adidas sambas or hokas.
When the degree is done, 2:1 acquired, and the real world comes crashing down over the days of societies and smoking areas, we know where they are going. But where does this leave the rest of us? Simply scraping by waiting for SAAS or SFE to roll around to afford a loaf of bread for the week (definitely not from Waitrose)? Letting old men in pubs buy you pints with 5p to your name just to enjoy a friday night escaping your damp, moldy flat?
It is baffling to feel like a minority in your own hometown, overtaken by a cacophony of ‘rahs’, ‘baccy’, and ‘Arabellas’. The person sat next to you in your seminar is so close, yet so far away. But for at least 3 years we are their equal, or are we?
Swan Soul Stories 
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