How to convince everyone at Leeds you aren’t utterly middle class

So, you’ve gone to university. You’ve left home far behind you, along with your AGA, Hunter wellies, and trusty Land Rover. You would have left your Barbour behind too but mummy insisted and got a bit tearful about it, so you took that. You drew the line at her suggesting you get Ocado deliveries to your halls though.

Despite your abandonment of organic avocados and your Burberry scarf (“Mummy, I can’t take it to uni, it just isn’t cool, you wouldn’t understand”) your middle-class-ness will never quite leave you, but here are some pointers on how to shirk all the great responsibility that comes with owning a Nespresso machine.

Hide that Waitrose and M&S food

Seriously, pretend it’s 1929 and Stalin is coming to requisition all your grain – or your Waitrose Alaskan salmon pate and M&S chickpea and lemon hummus. From the second you sharpie your name on that shit, it’s game over. You’ve blown your cover. You can’t pretend that Whittard’s salted caramel hot chocolate isn’t yours, either. You’re just going to have to drink it. It’s a hard life.

That Jack Wills jumper you thought was inconspicuous?

Think again. That little pink pheasant logo is about as subtle as a slap in the face. It may not look like much, but those few stitches are the absolute hallmark of the middle class. You may as well have brought a cheese selection, 1884 vintage port, and some cream crackers to last night’s pres with that level of subtlety.

There’s no hiding that voice of yours

It’s going to take more than willpower to knock sixteen years of private education out of you. You expected to go from saying ‘gl-ah-ss’ to ‘gl-ass’ overnight? You have a lot to learn. Other words to strike off your vocab list include ‘totes’, ‘bugger’, and ‘babes’. And your attempts at Estuary English are even worse. Everyone can hear you trying to slur out the ends of your words and if anything, you now just sound more posh. Nice one.

You’ll whip out photos of your country estate without a second thought

Rookie error. Home is bound to come up in conversation and everyone will be eager to share stories and photos and whatnot from their past lives. Suddenly you’re swiping through photos on your iPhone for all the world to see, mournfully looking at a snap of yourself, head to toe in tweed and dotted in rosettes, astride your thoroughbred horse as you hack through the English countryside. You never learn, do you?

Prosecco is posh?

You will likely say some such thing, confused and increasingly ashamed with your bottle of Bottega cradled in your arms like a baby. You’ll then try to redeem yourself and drown the shame simultaneously by neglecting to have your drink chilled and served in a slender glass with a raspberry garnish, instead necking it from the bottle, insisting you only bought it to be ‘ironic’. But you make a mental note: some £1.87 Lambrini is the way to go for next time.

Basically, put your Lenin poster in the bin where it belongs and wear your Joules slipper socks with pride. Your little Corbyn badge and edgy safety-pin earrings are fooling no one. Admit it, you’re a sloe gin-making, pheasant-shooting, Waitrose loyalty card-holding, Ted Baker-buying member of the bourgeoisie. Just embrace it and be yourself – everyone will thank you for it.

That said, you might want to keep the fact you voted Leave – and purely because you copied your parents – on the down low. Just a suggestion.