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.

I meant generally not just today 😂
We havent got the heating on yet but also its the rain up North, never ending bloody rain .

I lived in the Leeds area for a year about 10 years ago. I loved it.

Scotland isn't freezing all the time! We regularly have weather you could sunbathe in. People in England (I'm English) have this vision of Scotland being a series of little villages where the weather is always grey. It's utter bollox. We have 2 major cities here and loads of large towns and fantastic sunny weather a lot of the time. We also have amazing scenery, wonderful beaches etc. London when I lived there was filthy, polluted, full of crime and gangs...and look at all the stabbings recently!

Does it never rain in the South Sock?

You'll always get people who generalise though, I grow up and live in Oxfordshire I'm told my accent is posh, but people assume that must mean I'm a snob or have no idea about poverty. They don't realise that Oxford has some really deprived areas and when I was a teen just passed my driving test there was certain estates you didn't drive into unless you had a local in the car as the gangs would throw stuff at your car including objects on fire.

I go to greater Manchester regularly for work and do get asked about my accent a few times. I often think that we'd have more disposable income if we moved up North as the mortgage would be less but Oxfordshire is our home.

Of course it rains but nothing like when I lived up North.
It was sheets of rain.
I found it really got me down but I have a chronic pain condition (work injury).
I was still swimming outside in September .

I have sort of cut to the end, and I can see that what I am about to say will have been covered in some way but: the weather.

Like everyone, I see a weather forecast every day. I also tend to look at the rainfall radar most days.

I am surprised at how often there's a swathe of rain across the Midlands, and the north. It may have swept across the far west of Cornwall on its way, but it hasn't hit Hampshire at all.

So if I get a precious 2 weeks of holiday in the summer, we go to southern Spain! Tho this (Brexit...) year, we went to Canterbury!

Oh, and DS2 is seriously considering Leeds for uni. The surrounding area looked nice!

The North is a big place though and may be it's because we are shielded by the penines but we do generally miss the worst of the weather ,rain,snow etc I guess it depend s where you live? My Grandparents lived about eight miles away from us when I was a child but much higher up and they got snowed in every year whereas we had bare!y a sprinkling of snow .

don't think Olivers is aware that there are Selfridges outside London Chame. She probably thinks it's all Arkwight and Granville style corner-shops

It was when I lived there

Things change though how long was it since you have lived there ?often on these threads people talk about London as though it's the only place where you have 24 your supermarkets , restaurants where you can get all kinds of different cuisines etc and maybe it was 20 , 30 years ago but a lot of places have caught up ,may be not very rural areas but a lot of towns and cities .

24 hour*

It was when I lived there

Which was....?

When did you leave Olivers 1932? There was a John Lewis in Sheffield in the 1970s that opened in about 1938. I can only assume you consider the entire north to be like the small corner you originally came from.

I am surprised at how often there's a swathe of rain across the Midlands, and the north. It may have swept across the far west of Cornwall on its way, but it hasn't hit Hampshire at all

Geography, ocean currents, hills....all intermixes. Which is why it rains in Manchester a lot.

Mind you, I think the Gulf Stream has a nice effect on some beaches in Scotland.

Climate and geography are fascinating subjects.

But come the effects of climate change, then it will be basking down South and you'll probably have mosquitoes. Meanwhile, we'll be growing grapes and making wine up North.

For anyone who thinks London is “The South”. We live in “The South” and it takes 3 hours to get to London from where we live 😂 . It’s only 54 minutes longer to get from Leeds to London!

There’s a lot of chips on shoulders here about North/South. Londoners are like it and so are a lot of people from the North, I know as I am married to one. My experience generally is that the further South you go the less people go on about the county they are from. Except Cornwall, they are similar to Yorkshire and always go on about it

I only mention the 70s as that's when I was born and the John Lewis has been there for as far as I can remember!

Temperature and rainfall in Manchester, Newcastle and London, just out of interest.

Hairyhands that's true regarding counties. No one mentions Bedfordshire or West Sussex, do they?

Sheffield - A City on the Move....

I was there a few weeks ago - looks a great place to live

I remeber lots of places from that film Chom, the hole in the road and Millhouses lido are no longer there sadly!

Yanbu - i love leeds, manchester, york and hull, their history, architecture, culture and all the countryside around.

I have not RTFT, so this may have already been mentioned but I am a southerner and what annoys me is people referring to London-and-the-South-East as if it was all one place. The media are particularly bad at this. There are a huge range of economic, social and environmental differences over what is after all a very large area. You cannot compare Guildford with Hastings or metropolitan Brighton with rural Kent. And don't get me started on bands who think because they are playing London they need make no effort to get out into its hinterland

There are a huge range of economic, social and environmental differences over what is after all a very large area

So so true. - London has a lot of deprivation - sometimes I wonder how it actually works. And there are many areas of the South East which struggle...

Try living in Wales! Even worse.