(TRS, by the way, is full of interesting little surprises.  I don't believe, however, that he was every truly a prole.  Being 'working class' in England is a complex concept, is it not?  I seem to recall him once describing himself as a 'good bourgeois'.  I approved. 
My wife is from a more deprived background than I.  Her siblings see themselves - now - as 'middle class'.  How horrid: all redolent of hostess trolleys in the 'lounge', a hand at contract bridge, membership of the golf club.  No curiosity, no conjecture, no imagination).

Re:  bourgeois — Though in my younger years, I used the term in a pronounced (bored?) smear - it should be anything but. 

I don’t have any time to go into it. And maybe the situation is too complicated in your country but I think part of the problem is the denigration of the bourgeoisie. It leads to a host of problems. I mean I like to have a laugh with some of your great pop culture from the terraces. But really that’s no way to live. Am I allowed to say that over there?

I might even argue as Orwell before me that there is something fundamentally decent about the middle class. Especially one that is open on both ends.

Pretension is everyone’s right. For some a phase  for some a way of life. A pick and choose type of thing. Just some preliminary thoughts.

What we probably don’t have over here, that you have over there. Is the judgment the minute one opens one’s mouth. I mean here there are probably telltale signs. And I’ve been told that I sometimes speak a particular way that marks me. But I think the differences here are so subtle that most people aren’t going pick up on it.  When people say you sound educated here it may say more about them than you!

Certainly that whole Brahmin mid Atlantic thing isn’t as prevalent here as it used to be. And there are a lot of posers within that. And those posers or those people on the edges, or some of the most vicious of all. But as you get older you realize that a lot of the people that you didn’t care for, can be good people and you just have to except a few things to get along with them. Look at me trying to be all full of equanimity,  I can’t believe it.  Or am i reaching for another word I can’t quite place given my tired state.

As to OP and wearing Brooks and feeling fake, one shouldn’t. The Brooks is open to all.  They don’t call it the brethren for nothing.

I was being unfair about Bridge.  Chap I worked with years ago was a regular player.  I liked him very much: 100 per cent reliable. 
Class remains something of a minefield in England.  Higher education, especially if some of the rough edges have been erased/subtly altered can still mark you out.  Less so now that every other bugger is part of the modern 'education racket'. 
My first wife was as posh as you can imagine.  Her mother despised me.  A fully paid-up Leftie, but her daughters had both attended private schools.
Funny old world.