Insular towns and villages

[Cactus1982]

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?

Arnside?

Village I grew up in in Lincolnshire is like this, apparently the village has been ruined by newcomers and people from down South 🙄

[quote Heartofglass12345]@Zancah it's hilarious!
People wouldn't go to Spain and complain that people were speaking Spanish would they lol

South Wales isn't even predominantly welsh, I can only speak a bit of welsh.

How does your mum know they were speaking English before she walked in? Could she hear them?

It's a welsh conspiracy [/quote]

Look, I understand your stance on this, but funnily enough, English speakers can generally understand English when it's spoken, even as background noise. It has, like all languages, pace, cadence, particular tics, volume, emphasis.

This is why you get comedians who can appear to be speaking a particular language whilst actually speaking nonsense, made up words.

I can detect, at work when a couple of my NHS colleagues are no longer quietly conferring in English but in a shared Indian language. I wouldn't have been able to follow their chat in the preceding English, but I knew they were now not speaking English.

Disclaimer: I DON'T CARE.

But don't go assuming an English person doesn't spot 'the change' within a couple of moments if the language switches from English to Welsh, as they enter a shop of pub.

@JesusWearsPrada

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.

I moved to Cumbria as a child for several years. It was very much like that.

@miljea 👏 well said!

I'm mildly surprised to see Dent and Rothbury mentioned upthread, both places I've visited more than once and been in pubs without anyone setting the hounds on us.
I live in Sheffield, and neighbouring Stocksbridge has this reputation but I've never spent any time there so can't confirm.

I've lived in Suffolk, Cornwall and the West Midlands in my life.
Christ on a bike it was hellish in some places.
My years in London were a fucking dream.

Basically nowhere is safe to move to .

Haha, I moved to Suffolk when I married DH, who is definitely a villager. Essentially anyone who is local round here is related to him in some way. Took me a while to catch the drift of the Suffolk dialect too.

I took a job at the village school and DH is related through marriage to three members of staff .

Not quite Hot Fuzz territory, but nearly. The village magazine has our London friends howling.

I went to Wales and it was like this, started speaking in Welsh when they realised I was English

Oh that old one. 🙄 this does not happen. Fucking complete bollocks and something read in the Daily Mail

This is why I live in a big city and always will!

Does Timothy Dalton run the local Somerfield?

@thatonesmine I was coming on to say Stocksbridge. 😂

My friend lives in a village like this. Even some of the locals won't go in one of the pubs because it's a 'you made me miss' type pub. We visited once a few years ago and got the third degree off two of their neighbours. Where were we from, how long were we staying, would we mind asking friends to cut their Holly tree back (not in their way/view just decided it was overgrown) and to remind us to pick up after our dogs ffs.
The other pubs in the village seem friendly but they have to because they want your money. In one of them you have to walk through a huddle of landlord and his gossipy mates to get served.
Another village near us is also like that. We viewed a house there before buying ours and even though the place looks very pretty, it has a vibe that we would be unwelcome. Lots of actual curtains twitching and people staring.
We're on the edge of a small town right near countryside. Brilliant location without anyone knowing everyone's business or being made to feel you are an outsider because you have lived elsewhere. I hate gossips and gossiping and nosey, interfering territorial type of people.

I’ve been in pubs in our old city like that, including the one at the end of our road! They had an excellent pop quiz and dh and I entered and won. The announcement was “the winners tonight ON THEIR FIRST VISIT EVER is Mr and Mrs fuckery.” Dh just leaned over and said “drink up”

@Gwenhwyfar Wasn't going to post but heard my other language in that clip

Also, I can relate to what you posted (quoted below) because it happens in the rural villages in my home country too. Posted something similar on a different thread.

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

Rural Lincolnshire.

@Keeping2ChevronsApart

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 😂

I moved from London to a city in South Wales. The moment you mention that you moved there from London, it's common to find a chill come over the conversation.

It's in no way insular here, but the attitudes towards Londoners (even though I've now lived in Wales for longer than I lived in London!) are less than positive.

Note - it's specifically London and not England that they dislike! If I say where I grew up (English city, not London) then it's absolutely fine.

I can only imagine the facebook group for the more insular villages would implode if you said you were moving from London. Maybe throw in a comment about having a £1m budget to buy a new home, as you'll be selling your two bed flat in London

Happened to me in Bala too!

A pub in Yarmouth Isle of Wight.

Once stopped off at a pub off the M40 and the landlord took one look at us (crumpled, tired, hungry) and asked us to leave! I think we were not fitting his client criteria (it was a naice village with gentleman farmers at the bar).

@mewkins

Happened to me in Bala too!

I bet it happened to lots of people despite the denials on here. I walked into the shop where the 2 ladies were having a full conversation in English. The second I asked a question about where I could find an item they were frosty and started speaking in Welsh afterwards. It absolutely does happen.

The Wirral.

"I'd like to be friends with you but I can't because my family wouldn't like it." Have had quite a few women say this to me in the time we have been here. (Long story why we ARE here. If I'd known I would never have agreed. Can't wait to leave.)

True of a lot of places in Dorset ime. My parents moved to a Dorset village in the early 90s with me & my siblings. They got jobs in the local community & are now considered locals but when we have had family / friends of family from the other end of the country visit they are looked at as if they've grown extra heads or something. It's really bizarre.

But if villages in Europe are insular... people say it’s charming and call them “close knit” and “traditional”.

Frankly anywhere can get in a groove and be frosty with newcomers. I have been in my road 17 years but will live in “Debbie’s house” ... until the last “original” resident has moved on. Very irritating!

@Thisbastardcomputer

I went to Wales and it was like this, started speaking in Welsh when they realised I was English

I have never experienced this in 25 years of living in Wales. Welsh speakers speak Welsh because it's their language. They don't tend to speak to each other in English just in case they get the chance to ostentatiously switch to Welsh in front of an English person who may or may not turn up at some point.

I have experienced the opposite though, thousands of times, Welsh speakers politely switching to English when I join the conversation, to accommodate my pathetic monolingualism.