When I arrived at university in 1978 I was driven by my mother in an orange Citroën Dyane with a cardboard trunk containing a few books and my Patti Smith and Talking Heads LPs in the back.
This year students starting university can make a bigger entrance, arriving by helicopter, private plane, MacLaren P1, Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce – or by horse and carriage. This is thanks to the Very Important Fresher service launched last week by Uni Baggage, which charges up to £35,000 to transport teenagers and their belongings to uni in style.
The service is not only aimed at unconscionably loaded foreign students who have not been told that Brits don’t do that sort of thing. According to the company, there is a small but growing slice of Britain that hasn’t been told this either. Increasingly, Brits want to be Very Important Freshers too.