I live in Durham, which is like York in being a middle class University and Cathedral (on second thoughts, I shall capitalise that) city and therefore Not Counting; but unlike York in being smaller, and without an affluent hinterland (we're surrounded by pit villages, though the pits are long closed) and so maybe counts after all.

Certainly the miners' strike was very immediate here, and I bitterly resented its treatment in Billy Elliott - I may well use your word 'borealism' to describe the sense of 'appropriation' it gives me.

Good point about the selective nature of 'realism', too.