Ordinary, old-fashioned snobbery and the class war are supposed to be as dead as Monty Python's parrot. Well, they're not. I learnt that in my first year at university – not from lectures but while cleaning halls of residence. There, for the first time in my life (having been thought one of the posh ones at home, 'up North'), I found myself on the receiving end of social snobbery. I had spent the previous year as a cleaner for a small hotel and several houses (while standing by my man as he screwed up his A-levels for a second time, in preparation for screwing up his degree). On arriving at university, I thought that I might as well make use of my references and familiarity with the Vileda range of cleaning products, so I obtained the position (mostly on my knees) of lavatory cleaner to young (mostly privately educated) gentleman undergraduates.
