The North

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

I've seen yet another thread where the OP is lambasted for being in a SE bubble (she was in a bubble tbf, but a bubble of incredible dimness), and many posters talk about The North as a place of scant opportunities, cheap housing, low wages and general divorce from The South, which is generally considered as the land of milk, honey, opportunity and high house prices.

It's very divorced from my experience of both places. I'm from an area in The North that is one of the wealthiest political wards in Europe, I went to work in the city after University (25 years ago) and despite having a very middle-class upbringing and accent, my flat vowels were treated as something of a curiosity (and they're really not that flat, everyone up here considers them 'southern') and Sheffield, my home city was, and still is, perceived as being some 'flat cap and whippets' place, despite having one of the highest proportions of professionals per capita in the UK.

My take from that experience was that born and brought-up Londoners are the most parochial people that I'd ever met. I had a much more 'worldly' experience being brought up in thr middle-class North than that of the supposedly urbane Southerners.

But still it goes on, people speak of The North as some kind of otherworldly shit-hole where the denizens scrabble around for cheap terraces on MW jobs and anything worth happening happens in The South.

Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, Durham, York, the smaller towns and places where there's a huge amount of creativity, wealth creation, and professional people living fine and prosperous lives, and have for generations.

I just cannot understand the stereotypes that divide us so badly.

And yes, I also know and understand industrialisation and post-industrialisation that has affected certain areas of the UK. I'd say the area of the UK that's been hit worst by post-industrialism is the Midlands though. But no-one talks about that, or the poverty in the SW, it's always THE NORTH.

[Doobigetta]

I think I grew up in the same place as you, OP. And the one thing that annoys me more than Southerners thinking all Northerners are impoverished peasants is Northerners thinking all Southerners are posh.

[Witchend]

I have lived both up north and down south and there are advantages and disadvantages of both.

However on mn I see the opinion that up north is a friendly paradise of wonderful opportunity and down south is a criminal infected smog.
It's far more often running down southerners (as this one, not even thinly disguised is) than the other way round.

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

It goes both ways Doobie.

(I'm guessing you're from Ecclesall).

[WineIsMyCarb]

You're only saying that @Witchend as you are clearly a criminal infected by the smog. How's the jellied eels?

[JockTamsonsBairns]

I don't think I've ever heard "up North" being described as a place of wonderful opportunity on Mumsnet

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

No Jock, it doesn't sound quite right.

Cheap houses and NO JOBS is what I often hear.

[x2boys]

It can't be that bad the BBC moved to Salford within lived in Salford 20 odd years ago most of it( not all) was fairly grim,it makes me smile that it now has Media City

[x2boys]

When I *

[Rivergreen]

When I went to uni in the late 2000s (down south), put of my close friendship group of approx 8 people, 5 had never been north of Birmingham, apart from one had flown to Edinburgh for the weekend. The other 3 friends were Northern.

It was considered shocking that I hadn't been to London before I was 11, but they thought it was perfectly normal that they hadn't been North.

And the three of us Northern friends are still the most widely travelled of us in the UK, both in the North and South. It's a shame to be so unaware of what the UK is really like.

All these friends are from the South East, btw. I think the mentality in the SE is often different to the SW: apart from 3 months in summer when the SE decamps to Cornwall, the SW is largely forgotten too.

[Rivergreen]

Oh and I spent the length of my degree with people (gently and not meant to offend, but still) making jokes about hot pot, pies, whippets, flat caps and cotton mills. When one friend came to say she mentioned how surprised she was that we lived in a detached house: "I thought the north was full of terraces"

The Scouser in our friendship group was also mocked for being "potentially light-fingered" until they objected and said it was offensive.

[egontoste]

The South doesn't = London. Where I live (Bedfordshire village), I don't feel we have anything in common with Londoners at all. We're pretty rural and there's a local accent. The biggest event round here is the annual duck race. We even have flat-capped corduroy-trousered yokels. And no buses on Sundays. And house prices are bloody ridiculous.

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

Of course, the SW is a playground.

And Scotland to some extent.

Fuck the middle though.

[x2boys]

I think people used to think Greater Manchester was all.just like coronation street @Rivergreen a reporter from a national paper ( infamously ) wrote an article about the village my parents live in ( without having actually visited) and described the cobbled streets and rows of terraced houses ,it's actually a very nice middle class village with lots of open areas and considered quite well.to do .

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

Having sais that, North Wales is the playground of Cheshire peeps.

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

The Llyn Peninsula mostly.

[NameChange84]

Totally agree OP. I'm what some people would refer to as "posh" but grew up and still live in the North in an area that has alot of millionaires, I was privately educated, I have an RP accent. I have lived in London as an adult but much prefer Manchester and Leeds and feel there are brilliant opportunities here and that you can have a much better quality of life up here.

At a London university scholarship interview I was asked where I was from. I replied and the leading academic interviewing me said "oh, your life must be just like Coronation Street then." .

[SwingoutSisterSledge]

I'm a Northern girl born in Newcastle and believe I am so lucky to have a great modern city . The Beautiful countryside on my doorstep as well as our outstanding coastline wouldn't live anywhere else.

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

Haha Namechange, I was asked at an interview in the City what my parents did, when I said one was a systems analyst and one was a professor of maths whose speciality was particle astrophysics and gravitation.

And then I was the only person for years to get 100% on their internal maths test.

Was a bit flummoxy for them.

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

My interview for Imperial was good though. I got an unconditional offer.

I went to Manchester.

And spent much time in the Hacienda.

[x2boys]

Ah the Hacienda ,good times were had by all😂

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

They were x2.

[lanbro]

@SwingoutSisterSledge totally with you on that! Had a 3 yr break at uni in Leicester and whilst lots of friends stayed there I couldn't wait to get back!

[Witchend]

JockTamsonsBairns Fri 08-Nov-19 23:48:10
I don't think I've ever heard "up North" being described as a place of wonderful opportunity on Mumsnet

NameChange84 Sat 09-Nov-19 00:24:55
Manchester and Leeds and feel there are brilliant opportunities here and that you can have a much better quality of life up here

[Hoppinggreen]

X2 my work means I spend quite a bit of time in Salford Quays visiting the posh apartments that have been/are being built there. Most of the people I deal with can’t remember when it wasn’t somewhere you would admit to live, let alone aspire to!

[Dowser]

Well we are definitely being infiltrated by southerners.
I was at our towns fireworks display the other night..coastal ne town..and I heard southern voices..expressing how good it was and how good it was oop north.

I was very tempted to say ‘Oi, keep your opinions to yourself or you’ll not get out of here alive’

But I didn’t want to look like a throw back to the Andy Capp era.😂