Londoners - don't be so scared of interacting with other people!

[backinthebox]

I had a proper wtf moment yesterday.

We went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, me, DH and DCs 12 and 9. We do love a good roller coaster. We didn't know which rides we were going to go and and being a bank holiday it was quite busy, so rather than by tokens at each ride we bought a stack of them. We had a great time and when we'd been on everything we wanted to we had 6 tokens (£6 worth) left. We needed to go and get our train so thought we would give them away on our way out. The tokens are valid for all rides, so could have been used on anything from a child's carousel to a roller coaster.

We approached a family who had just arrived and asked them if they had just got here and did they want our unused tokens. The woman just stared at us, shook her head, put her arms around her children and herded them off without a word. Oh, we thought. Weird. So we approached a young couple we had just seen entering WW, and offered the tokens to them. They looked at us and gabbled 'we don't need them' then scuttled away. The kids were bemused by this. Not being deterred, I watched another family with children arriving and took DD to offer the tokens. I assumed a family would not be going to Winter Wonderland with kids for the drinking, so a few ride tokens would be on their list of things to buy. They didn't make eye contact and mumbled 'we'll buy our own.' By this point we definitely needed to be heading off for our train so we set out across Hyde Park. We saw a pair of blokes, one on the phone saying '.... see you inside in a minute...' I asked them if they were going in to Winter Wonderland and they looked at me - one nodded and the other shook his head at the same time. I get it that it was dark, but we were a family of 4 with kids, so hardly axe murderer material!

Eventually we managed to give them to a couple heading that way. The woman said thanks, but held them between forefinger and thumb and passed them instantly to her partner as if they were going to explode.

My DH (who works in London) and my kids (who only go into London for theatre and museum trips) were so amused by our inability to give money away that we decided after the first 3 rebuffs that we would carry on till we managed to give them away. It took 5 goes, and everyone looked at us as though we had 2 heads.

It's no big deal, but this exact attitude was what caused me to move out of London nearly 20 years ago and not look back. I've lived in various northern cities and travel extensively round other major cities around the world with work, and nowhere has the 'we don't talk to strangers' attitude quite like London. It was the busiest and loneliest place I've ever been. It's weird, and a bit sad.

I am a Londoner, have 2 children, but never went and never will go to that touristy trap. It's for mugs from 'outside'.

From my experience of living in London for 10 years

• in everyday life/commuting/around town, Londoners guard their privacy (and get used to batting off ticket touts etc)
• in any sort of problem or crisis however the Blitz spirit comes out and people are really helpful
• but please don’t bumble around and slow things down or you will look like a tourist.

I'm a born and bred Londoner and proud to be so.

I've always had and given help when needed. Yeah, we might carry a buggy up the stairs without chatting, we might be matter of fact, but we're knackered and trying to get from A to B.

Sweeping statements are lazy, offensive and small minded.
We're mostly a warm hearted bunch, but we don't tend to fawn over people. If that's taken as unfriendly, that's on you.

“but please don’t bumble around and slow things down or you will look like a tourist“

This is possibly one of the reasons me and London struggle to get along. I’m more with Ferris Bueller. Don’t like to miss stuff.

“It's for mugs from 'outside'.“ It’s for anyone who wants to go, but you are nicely demonstrating the ‘them and us’ principle there, with an insult thrown in for good measure. Just out of curiosity, where would a Londoner go to a funfair then? It’s an awful long way to get to one ‘outside,’ and they are all much the same in terms of crowds, loud music and high prices, but good fun. The rides at WW tend to be bigger than the other big UK fairs such as Hull Fair or Nottingham Goose Fair, but you’d get the same big rides if you went to a fair in Germany (I’ve been on some of the rides at the Munich Beer Festival, same stuff only with more beer and singing.) Or are funfairs only for provincial mugs?

The population of London is bigger than Wales and Scotland put together - are you suggesting all these people have discerning taste? The derisive comments about 'outsiders' only visiting these tacky places seems ironic when lots of people who identify as 'Londoners' were not born in the city, they were indeed born 'outside' of the city, in other parts of the UK, EU or Internationally.

That really does give away a lack of understanding of London. Virtually no one who lives here is from ‘round here’.

Really? Says who?

I was born & raised in London as were all my school friends who still live in London. Same for my DH (who I met at uni) & his friends. Our children are all growing up here. Plenty of my neighbours are born & raised too.

Fwiw op it's instinctive for me to back away from someone giving me something, particularly if it's free! However i'm very polite & friendly.

Oh & unfortunately every single one of us has at some point gone to WW.

No I like a funfair. We always go when we are on holiday in Wales. The rides are £2. No queues. No pickpockets.

It’s one of the many reasons I hate Winter Wonderland. It’s not a normal local fair. It’s extortionate, charmless and not of London. It’s just been plonked here, despoiling our nearest park, making the area impossible to traverse at certain times of the day and ripping people off in plain sight.

So no, this Londoner does not go to Winter Wonderland. Been once. Hated it passionately. Will await my summer hols for my next go on the dodgems.

I sort of know what you mean OP. I live in London , and when I visit family in Dorset it definitely takes me a while to let down my 'guard' with the numerous people wanting to make small talk. I don't even know why because I live in a particularly dull area of London, I have never been a victim of crime or even seen anything beyond a car being broken into, so it's hardly like I need to be in a state of alert. I think its just a mix how people are when they live cheek by jowl with so many others and the pace of London. It always takes me a few days to adjust to how slow people are as well. Not just driving, but even how long it takes to order a sandwich. Its quite strange how your environment effects so much.

Generally people are very helpful, and I know that sometimes surprises visitors I've had come and stay when they've been travelling with a buggy and cant believe how many offers of help they get. But as a rule,I think most people are suspicious of random exchanges that dont have an obvious purpose as it's not such a common thing when you're living in a city of 9 million. Or for the most part those types of experiences will be people after money.

And Christmas is an amazing time for Londoners to do touristy things as it's empty as loads of "Londoners" have gone to visit family. 🤣

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde:
“To go to WW once may be regarded as a misfortune; to go twice looks like carelessness.”

Just as a side thought, I was wondering when the word “tourist” changed from being a descriptive noun to an insult?

And I would have taken your tokens OP, there’s nothing we northerners like more than getting something for nothing

Except I’ve had my lifetime visit to WW so won’t ever be needing to go again.

Just as a side thought, I was wondering when the word “tourist” changed from being a descriptive noun to an insult?

😁 I love when people go on holiday & complain about the tourists, because like they feel the beauty of the Sistine Chapel much more than the riff raff holding up the queue.

I love when people go on holiday & complain about the tourists

A tourist is something someone else is. We are always 'travellers' ourselves.

*love when people go on holiday & complain about the tourists

A tourist is something someone else is. We are always 'travellers' ourselves.*

A long time ago I was a ’traveller.’ I’m much more of a tourist nowadays and happy to be one even though it’s a phrase that is frequently sneered at. I’ve been to more places than most will ever go to, but often only have a day or two in each place and have come to realise that in many places you’ll never even scratch the surface but if you are prepared to be a tourist you can see an awful lot of the surface. A true traveller is a rare thing. In an age of fast living very few people a prepared to put the tome and effort into really getting to know somewhere, it’s culture and it’s people well enough to call themselves a traveller. More often people dive into somewhere, see the local sights, have a few meals and nights out then leave again. There’s no shame in that, many places are welcoming of visitors and build entire industries around looking after the needs of tourists.

Tourists quite often put a lot into a local economy, even in places which already have other industries and services to support them. Cities in particular have places and things people want to see and do by virtue of their sheer size. In the UK 10% of the economy and 11% of all employment is supported by tourism (my own job included,) so unfortunately for the tourist haters, the whole country relies on them.

I’m a fan of open top buses and have been on them in places like NY and Shanghai and others in between. I walk a lot too, and stop to look at all sorts on the way (which is apparently a big non no in London and causes much huffing and puffing about tourists!) I’m prepared to give most things at least one go before I pronounce them not for me, even if I think I won’t enjoy it, in the name of learning and experiencing. Being a tourist, as this thread has shown, is not for everyone, but it’s also a bit silly to sneer at tourists simply for being out of their own habitat and perhaps out of their comfort zone too. It’s a lot silly to use the word tourist as a put down.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-50331687

What point are you trying to make with your link orangeblossom?

"That really does give away a lack of understanding of London. Virtually no one who lives here is from ‘round here’.

Really? Says who?@

Me too. Most of the friends and acquaintances I grew up with (so, from London) are still in London. We are from a variety of cultural/ ethnic backgrounds too, yet all Londoners. But people I know who didn't grow up here become Londoners too, after living here a while (if they decide to stay I suppose, although property prices makes that difficult if not in social housing.

I don’t know anyone who’s from London who would go to Winter Wonderland - it’s a total tourist trap. So the people you spoke to probably weren’t even from London anyway!

All my friends are here too. But in my bit of London it’s very unusual to be London born and bred. And my point was having London roots isn’t essential to being a Londoner. The concept of not being from ‘round here’ which is what the OP said really doesn’t make much sense in a global city like London.

Ive always wondered at what point does once become Liverpudlian or Mancunian if they move South to North?

My parents are immigrants like many of my friends parents. They don't consider themselves English but have British values.

So the largest city in the EU does not contain anyone who would visit WW? Equally, the fluid definition of what constitutes a 'Londoner' suggests that around 9 million people are rejecting WW and the place is full of 'tourists' - what are the chances of that being true!

I was born in London and lived there until my mid 20's, I consider myself a Londoner but if I visited WW (I probably wouldn't) from where I now live in Brighton does that make me a tourist as opposed to someone who is from Newcastle and has lived there for about 3 years? Are they a Londoner and me a tourist- I don't think I would ever consider myself a & Geordie if I went to live in Newcastle for any length of time tbh!

Good points @Goldenbear