To hate the town in which I live?

Wisbech is a weird place, 90% of the town is hideous but that bit along the North Brink looks like something out of a Jane Austen novel.

That’s what people said in 1982 -85 when I was there but the bullying drugs violence 12 year olds etc having sex was shocking, I absolutely hated it! I know Gaywood Park was even worse. A lot of my extended family went to Spring Wood which became a much better school than KES. I couldn’t handle it became very volatile and a school refuser where once was high achiever. Mother was on the breadline single parent and I managed to get a full scholarship to an independent grammar school in Wisbech otherwise as the delightfully vile year head of KES said to me I would be lucky to scrape a pass in any o level, instead I have Masters degree and spent many years as an academic, because I got out of that school and KL the place where hope dreams & aspirations go to die! My mother was calling it a carbunkle on the world from the 70’s, it’s a total shit hole.

KES was the 'good' school too! Should've been at mine, the things I saw!

Obviously entitled to your opinion but having had a much more extensive experience of Kings Lynn over 53 years and my family dad sister aunts uncles cousins old school friends still living there, having grown up and been educated at school there and Wisbech, best friend and mum live in Cambridge Nephews & Nieces in Norwich, I know all of those places VERY VERY well, and since then having lived in some of the roughest most deprived parts parts of Newcastle and London and in a south coast vibrant city with the poorest housing estate in Europe, NONE of my criticisms of Kings Lynn was just about the prolific drug and violence problems, BTW my mother worked for social services there so we certainly heard about it at a deep level, for me it’s also about how bloody boring and dreary and lacking in opportunities it is, young people who are both bored and deprived of opportunity are often disruptive! I have taught at a LOT of schools & universities the past 30 years and few places were as dire as KES school it was the most miserable experience there, so I went to school in Wisbech instead. Good that you seem to appreciate it so much because you and yours have had a good experience, every single person in my family who got a higher education left and never went back, the ones still there are those who never went beyond school. Its not an aspirational place on the whole. Because some kids do well and leave for university like yours doesn’t mean its a great place for everyone. Not a single member of the younger generation in my family has gone back, there’s a reason for that, no jobs, boring low aspirant and a lot of drugs and violence. I live in a city with the highest number of drug addicts per capita outside of London and yet I have never ever felt as vulnerable and affected by it as I was living in KL. I couldn’t wait to get out saved my life !

It's slightly worse than an average bloody town, @plominoagain. My sibling used to be racially abused walking to school, in class, on the way home, at work etc etc. I myself had to grow up around people making ignorant racist and homophobic comments like they were not an issue at all. I taught English as a second language there for a while between graduate and post grad degree and the stories my students would tell of the prejudice they faced every day were heartbreaking.

I've lived in KL and I've lived in Whitechapel and I can tell you I'd choose the latter over and over again.

There are barely any jobs in KL or surrounding areas for people in the creative industry and West Norfolk has some of the lowest adult literacy rates in the entire country.

Oh for gods sake . It's just an average bloody town , no better or worse than anywhere else . I work in London, in actual shitholes where people flock to and pay ridiculous amounts of cash and call it 'vibrant' and its considerably better than that. Personally I think Norwich is a dump . Come to that , Cambridge is just as bad . Drug addicts are everywhere. Crime is certainly no worse than anywhere else- and you see that by the police's reaction to actual crime. Things that my force treat as bread and butter get a much more enhanced response in Norfolk . Is the education fabulous ? Not much worse than anywhere else . It's got all of my 5 kids into decent universities . Are people narrow minded ? No worse than those who slate a population of 50,000 as all being a) racist b) stupid and c) right wing .

I moved here in 2005 . It is what you choose to make it . You can turn up , bitch about everything not being like the lovely Home Counties , and then sell up in 3 years time complaining bitterly about how unfriendly / nosy everyone is , or you can find the good in the place , of which there is plenty .

Thats hilarious KL survivors are us 😂

I feel like I need to start an online support group for King's Lynn survivors here! We need each other!

Same interested to know. Hope she got out! Personally am mystified as to the waxing lyrical about Norwich its a very small myopic city. Its’s where we all used to go for “big nights out” from KL, in 80’s but now I have family there & visited the university with my son a few years ago I was not impressed at all. Small, insular, not a huge amount of choice or things to do. If comparing it to the rest of Norfolk obviously hands down Norwich is best and great, but compared to other UK creative cultural cities then it’s really uninspiring. My advice is get out of Norfolk quickly & don’t look back I never did!

Come to Croydon 🥰

It's a zombie thread
I wonder if the op did move home? I am intrigued as to where they lived tbh.

As long as you avoid Hull, most of Leeds, a lot of Sheffield, a lot of Bradford, nuts of Halifax, the run down East Coast like Brid and Withernsea, Goole, Selby etc etc then yeah, it's great 🙄😂

Is this Kings Lynn you are talking about? I grew up there. Complete and utter shithole of the worst order. Absolutely full of ignorant narrow minded bigots with totally myopic view of the world. Violence and drug addiction is a significant problem because there is so little on the way of opportunity and so boring. Couldn’t wait to get out at age 20 never went back. Still have close family there but I don’t visit there we meet in other places. My poor aunt has been trying to sell a house there for about 8 years, but she is completely stuck, nobody wants to move somewhere with no charm or opportunities and so much violence. All the younger generation in my family have left it’s a truly horrible depressing shit hole I wouldn’t wish on anyone decent. Hope you managed to leave and start somewhere, anywhere new! There are hundreds of gorgeous quaint towns in England especially around Yorkshire. I am on the south coast its absolutely incredible here beautiful so much to do fantastic lifestyle less than an hour to London but very very expensive, its hard for people to move here if not already here 25 years ago like me, so I would recommend looking up North in a town/village close to Leeds Sheffiled or Manchester that way you have employment countryside city amenities and significantly lower cost of living than southern England, probably not as cheap as KL but then it’s a shit hole so nobody wants to live there, keeps the prices low!

I’m originally a Mansfield girl for 30 years and also lived 3 years in Wolverhampton and personally think the majority of the east and West Midlands is bloody horrible- with the exception of the Derbyshire Peak District. To get to most bits of West Midlands involves the M5 and a constant vista of warehouses and scrapyards and a ton of people pronouncing themselves as friendliest in Britain- whilst also being in my opinion supremely unfriendly . Totally hated it. East Midlands a bit more mixed but some really awful dull run down places and not somewhere I would ever pick. Nottingham isn’t unattractive but it is still pretty rough. Could you not go as far as Norwich OP? I like Norwich a lot

This thread is three years old so the OP might have moved by now!

It's King's Lynn isn't it, I knew from the OP. I grew up there. It was awful.

Hiya your not in Driffield are you? I feel the same I want to move back to Andover there's nothing here x

I was going to ask if you live in Kettering OP, apart from the inbreeding. There is plenty of fresh blood there as it's immigrant central but otherwise fits your description perfectly.

I lived about 7 miles from King's Lynn around 1998 and it was our nearest town., due to my OH job, only lived there for 3 years and it was as you described it now , back then.
Hated the place

Sorry to hijack a zombie thread. I just searched on Google for ‘I hate where I live’ and this came up. Not surprising considering I live 4 miles from Kings Lynn.

@ViciousJackdaw I've escaped in the meantime (zombie thread)! Live in Manchester now and absolutely love it.

Oh for gods sake .

I live just outside Kings Lynn . Yes , it has its problems , but no more so than frankly any other town , and certainly no more than some of the allegedly nicer places in the South East ( Guildford , anyone ? ) My children have all gone to school in the area and I currently have 3 out of 5 gone or going though uni having got in with top grades. I moved here from the south east some 15 years ago , and I wouldn’t move back if you paid me , even though I commute into London on a daily basis , only because I can’t transfer. We got adopted by our neighbours the day we got here , and the only person I know who complains about being miserable , is the person who turned up expecting to behave like this is the Home Counties , writing shitty notes to his neighbours over dogs , and running to the council over imagined infractions , only to have them prosecute him for planning issues . No, it’s not North Norfolk , where you can pay a fortune to park , and then wander round Holt watching everyone else wandering round Holt. Or Norwich , thank God , which also has its share of violence and drug addicts which you can admire whilst at a standstill in the one way system . What it is , is an average town. No worse than anywhere else . If you don’t like it , move . But don’t be surprised when everywhere else is no different .

Oh Norfolk , lol

My maternal great grandfather was from there. Caister on Sea. He left for London as soon as he was able and , to my knowledge, never returned to Norfolk again .
Spent most of his life in Greenwich where he died in 1912