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Insular towns and villages

259 replies

Cactus1982 · 20/04/2021 19:23

Has anyone else ever lived or worked on of these places? By insular I mean fearful, mistrustful and in some cases down right hostile to ‘outsiders’? There’s a large village about fifteen minutes outside of the town I live in that has always had a reputation for being like this. Apparently, in non Covid times if you as an outsider walked into a pub there it would go quiet and everyone would stare at you. I always took this with a pinch of salt until I started working there this last week. I swear that as I walk from my car down the street people slow down and stare intently at me as though I’ve got three heads. I know we are living in strange times, but this is very unnerving. I was also asked by someone how far I’d traveled to get there and when I told them they said ‘oooooh that’s a long way’ as though I’d come from Mars or somewhere. It’s not a long way, it’s a fifteen minute drive! I’d never actually have believed it had it not experienced it with my own eyes!

Are there any other places like this in the UK?

OP posts:
StevieNix · 20/04/2021 20:22

A pub in tintagel in Cornwall felt exactly like that.
Lots of villages in north Wales and also oswestry was like it too.

Cindersrellie · 20/04/2021 20:23

I've experienced this! Had to go to the pub with my friend who is a local, who explained to them all what I was doing there Grin

hauntedvagina · 20/04/2021 20:23

@Thefamilybusiness I live near an area like this. No idea why residents insist on calling it a village, it couldn't be further from one. Are you in the Midlands?

EscapeDragon · 20/04/2021 20:23

It was like that here when I arrived 35 years ago. I'm an insider now though. Grin

FAQs · 20/04/2021 20:26

Agree rural Lincolnshire, don’t be coming from London, you’ll be blamed for everything that’s wrong in the world (there was even a Police drama with Rob Lowe, which was pretty accurate ... )

Gwenhwyfar · 20/04/2021 20:27

@Thisbastardcomputer

I went to Wales and it was like this, started speaking in Welsh when they realised I was English
This is a story I hear a lot, but I don't believe it whatever you say. We Welsh speakers do sometimes swap languages, depending on the group, but not in reaction to English people being around. What might happen is that you heard a conversation that was partly in English because some of the group understand Welsh but speak in English or they were all speaking in Welsh, but using plenty of English words so you thought it was English until you got closer. We don't just turn to Welsh to annoy English people.

As regards being from a village, I'm laughing at some of these saying someone who's been in a village for 20 years is not 'from' there. In the rural village I lived in as a small child, I was accepted, but to be really from there you had to be related to other families and have ancestors there! 20 years is nothing in a village where the families have been intertwined for centuries. On the other hand, people married in from neighbouring villages all the time.

Thefamilybusiness · 20/04/2021 20:31

Hauntedvagina
No I'm in Greater Manchester. It's bizarre because if you tell people you're from The Village they know exactly where you mean. Then they ask if you were born there and tell you that you're not a villager 😂
I actually love it here now, it's less insular than it was and it's usually good spirited but I'm in no doubt that I'll never be a villager.

newnortherner111 · 20/04/2021 20:32

@Gwenhwyfar I have been told of the same thing. Happened to my dad's cousin when he went back to his granddad's village a few years ago. He then advised them in Welsh who the local school headmaster was a hundred years ago.

Cactus1982 · 20/04/2021 20:37

Hahahah. A couple of posters have got very, very close to the geographical location! I won’t say where it is, but it’s a large village. Most people are born and die there. Children go to the same school as their parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins. They all work very close by and they only ever come into town on rare occasions (or probably not at all at the moment).

OP posts:
Gwenhwyfar · 20/04/2021 20:39

[quote newnortherner111]@Gwenhwyfar I have been told of the same thing. Happened to my dad's cousin when he went back to his granddad's village a few years ago. He then advised them in Welsh who the local school headmaster was a hundred years ago.[/quote]
Yeah, lots of people claim it happens. I don't believe them.

JesusWearsPrada · 20/04/2021 20:40

Through parents moving house I went to 3 high schools in Cumbria and every one was like that. As were the two towns and surrounding villages we lived in. I still have social anxiety 30 years on.

denverRegina · 20/04/2021 20:42

Dent springs to mind

Keeping2ChevronsApart · 20/04/2021 20:42

Now I really want to join one of these mentioned village's Facebook groups, pretend I'm moving there from London and see the replies I get 😂

RunAwayNow · 20/04/2021 20:42

Have experience of several places like that in West Cumbria.

MozzchopsThirty · 20/04/2021 20:44

Rothbury in Northumberland

Blacktothepink · 20/04/2021 20:44

Norfolk or Lincolnshire towns and villages are like this.

ikeairgin · 20/04/2021 20:44

Harleston, Mendlsham, Framlingham, Bungay and the rest of south Norfolk and Suffolk borders, ime

Northernsoullover · 20/04/2021 20:45

@Thisbastardcomputer

I went to Wales and it was like this, started speaking in Welsh when they realised I was English
Of course they did Hmm if you walk into a pub where they all start speaking Welsh then its a Welsh speaking area. That's what they speak all the time.
zippat · 20/04/2021 20:49

@Cactus1982

Hahahah. A couple of posters have got very, very close to the geographical location! I won’t say where it is, but it’s a large village. Most people are born and die there. Children go to the same school as their parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins. They all work very close by and they only ever come into town on rare occasions (or probably not at all at the moment).
I know a couple of posters up thread said Ribchester which is quite close to … Goosnargh. The very definition of insular. You're not considered an insider until you're at least 2nd, if not 3rd, generation. No diversity positively racist, gossipy bullying, rife with busybodies. Fall out with one person and you have half the village giving you dagger eyes because everyone is related or a fake "aunty" I can't think why we left Grin
Cactus1982 · 20/04/2021 20:52

It’s not Ribchester. No one has actually named the village, but have named the region and another town just down the road in the opposite direction! If you knew where I live you’d be able to guess the name of the village immediately, put it that way 😂

OP posts:
Thefamilybusiness · 20/04/2021 20:54

Oh I like this game, guess the village.
Royston Vasey? Grin

OpusAnglicanum · 20/04/2021 20:54

Yes. When I was growing up, loads of the kids at school hadn’t been to the nearest big town, ever. At age 13-14. It was 12 miles away.

Cheeseandlobster · 20/04/2021 21:02

[quote newnortherner111]@Gwenhwyfar I have been told of the same thing. Happened to my dad's cousin when he went back to his granddad's village a few years ago. He then advised them in Welsh who the local school headmaster was a hundred years ago.[/quote]
It happenned to me too in Bala. Very unfriendly shopworkers. I assure you it definitely goes on

Forgothowmuchlhatehomeschoolin · 20/04/2021 21:05

Where l live can be a bit like that but we are a friendly bunch which DH found very strange when he first moved here cos someone came up to him in the pub and welcomed him to the area as he was obviously "new around here". Dh is from a shithole area of a big city and honestly this totally threw him!

WhySoSensitive · 20/04/2021 21:06

Where I live...
There’s the ‘main’ village and about five hamlets off it. We’re still the outsiders after 11 years!