A woman from the North of England has shocked the country by putting the heating on in October.

Denise Dufite, originally from the northern town of St Helens in Merseyside, has been living in London for the past 30 years and has gradually lost her innate northern tolerance for cold weather.

“The clocks have gone back” she said. “I’m cold. Can’t we put the heating on?”

With this one statement she succumbed to the pull of southern-ness and gave up all claim to being a Northerner.

“I’m shocked,” her partner told The Rochdale Herald. “She still pretends to be a Northerner. Until recently she watched rugby league, drank pints and smoked fags. Now it’s all about Bake Off, wine and vaping. She’s not the woman I met!”

Visibly upset, he continued “A while ago she went up to Liverpool for a long weekend and when she came back her accent had returned and she was drinking pints of Guinness again. I thought everything would be ok. Now she’s gone and got herself a Vape machine and she’s back on the wine. She’s becoming southern again. It’s really upsetting how quickly she’s slipped back into it after doing so well.

“I know people say ’it’s an illness, she can’t help it, you need to be supportive’ but it’s hard. I blame the pushers. When so called friends are pushing her into vaping and suggesting she join them for a bottle of prossecco in a local wine bar there’s no escape from it. It’s peer pressure at its worst.”

Arthur Coalpit from The Campaign To Keep Northerners Northern told us “This kind of thing is happening more and more. Northerners move down to London because the streets are paved with gold and everyone’s a millionaire and they get drawn into the southern way of life. We’ve set up a ‘Quinoa Helpline’ for those in need of mushy peas and scraps and it’s proving to be quite successful but, it has to be said, once you’ve moved on to Quinoa it’s usually too late.

“We did have one woman from Cleckheaton who’d moved to Kent in the nineties. She phoned us to say that her husband wanted to call their new baby daughter Araminta and what should she do? I had to explain that things had gone too far and she should probably have him put down.”

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues dealt with in this article please use the hashtag #northernersinneed.

Thomas Thomas is Sub-Editor for The Rochdale Herald. Thomas is proud to support such causes as "Cornwall for Jam First" and "Drop Scones Not Bombs". His personal motto is "Fuck it, why not?"