This beautiful/amazing/welcoming/friendly Yorkshire I’ve never witnessed

[Agsjsgkahs]

I appreciate this is probably provocative

But I’m from Yorkshire, a shit hole town in West Yorkshire, very close to where happy valley was filmed. I lived there for 18 years and went to school in a neighbouring, and also not great town.

I now live in Scotland, but wherever I go people clock my accent and tell me what an amazing place I’ve come from, amazing to live, couldn’t imagine ever leaving, x,y and z live there. So friendly and welcoming.

The town I am from is inherently racist and the schools are more or less (unofficially) segregated on race lines. Racist language seeps into many conversations, largely but not exclusively, aimed at the Asian community.

I went to a Catholic school in a neighbouring town and even this attracted harassment. My friend who is mixed race (her own description) was called all sorts of horrible slurs and told to go home.

People who claim benefits were hated upon, and most people seemed to think they were paying everyone else’s benefits. (My party trick is to tell them what being a net contributor to society means).

We of course have a conservative MP. And I would say are a new Tory heartland.

I have also lived in North Yorkshire which was not much better, and definitely even more racist and xenophobic.

I’ll give it to the county that it’s green, and maybe parts are nice to look at. Not West Yorkshire.

I have never lived in South Yorkshire or the East Riding so maybe this is the Yorkshire people speak of, but the West Yorkshire I left four years ago and North Yorkshire I left weeks ago certainly isn’t.

So basically, is it just me that’s sick of being told I come from some paradise, that really isn’t

I'm in South Yorkshire, and don't recognise the Yorkshire you are talking about.

Huddersfield? Halifax?

@RampantIvy

Thanks for your reply.

And yes I’m from a place near Halifax.

I hear you OP.

I live in West Yorkshire. I don't recognise what your talking about either. However, I'm originally from Scotland and I can probably insert my home city into your post and make the same comments! There's good and bad to EVERY area of the UK.

I’m glad someone does.

I did go to a diverse secondary school, and I think it opened my eyes to just how badly so many are treated

I’m from East Yorkshire, and I do love it here, but there’s good and bad everywhere.

The problem lies in people, not places.

I'm from West Yorkshire, and all you've said can be amply demonstrated. People are grumpy and sarcastic too. But I am comparing to the glorious north east where I now live, and where they really are friendly and witty and helpful.

Thanks for everyone’s replies

I do agree the problem is people, but I have found the culture in Yorkshire to be unwilling to challenge these things, brush it under the carpet, this is a great area. It was the same for the nhs hospital in Yorkshire I worked in, the place I work now is far superior.

It’s a mixed bag op. I went to school in North Yorkshire in the 80s. Lots of racist comments, homophobia. Not very open to outsiders. Yorkshire folk are also very direct, to the point of rude.

BUT also old fashioned in a good way - neighbourly, down to earth, people say hello on the street and in shops.

I think it’s improving - getting less racist and less homophobic

I've never experienced this friendly Yorkshire either

I feel like Yorkshire is one of those places that you have to say is lovely and friendly, because you'll be judged if you don't. It has a cult following

I also grew up in possibly the same town (though I suspect I'm older than you as it was Tory my whole childhood before switching to Labour). I completely recognise the racial segregation in schools that you talk about and the casual acceptability of racial slurs. I think it's changing. Even my mother in law has learned that the corner shop doesn't need a prefix starting with P.

There are some good things about it too. I honestly think it's a beautiful part of the country and miss the hills. There are some really interesting environmental initiatives there too - it's a place of two halves really. I loved knowing everyone, whereas now I barely know my next door neighbours.

@Foxhasbigsocks

Thanks, this is interesting. One of my parents is from Yorkshire but has immigrant parents. They are a similar age to you based on the school years

The direct to the point of rude is something I have and one thing I don’t mind.

It’s everything else

@OrangeSharked

Thanks, this is what I was meaning ! I just didn’t realise it til you summed it up better 😂

Its a bit like Cornwall really. If someone says their from Cornwall everyone goes "on lovely, I love Cornwall what an amazing place to live. Lovely beaches in st ives". Some parts are lovely but like everywhere when you actually live there its not like when your holiday

@Eskarina1

Thanks, I used to think it was changing but I was there for a visit days ago and overheard a cashier in the supermarket calling the delta variant the p* variant.

Op I also have and love the directness. Yorkshire charm is being slightly stuck in the 50s, but there are some bad things which come with that too. I have a love hate relationship with it really

I just moved away from a small town in West Yorkshire, I'd say about half of the people were lovely, other half had a really closed mindset.

Whilst the town was lovely on the surface, there was quite a big drugs and antisocial behaviour problem

Was your MP Craig Whittaker or Jason McCartney?

I think people not from the area imagine that parts of West Yorkshire are all like Holmfirth and Slaithwaite or Hebden. They forget or ignore how divided communities are in Kirklees , Bradford or Halifax. I think people just imagine Brontë country or whatever and ignore the inner city areas and the little terraced houses and run down areas and the divided communities. I don't think anybody in the world would say Keighley is nice but it's just a few miles from Haworth and the start of the Dales. It is an absolutely beautiful part of the world. I live at the edge of it and it's glorious. However there are some social problems the same as most places. You might not get the same division in villages in North Yorkshire but they are often exclusively white or people are priced out by holiday homes or people moving from cities.

I do find people in Yorkshire and over the borders in Greater Manchester and Lancashire pretty friendly. People do chat to strangers in queues and on buses etc. But I don't think it's exclusive to the North but maybe areas where people are just a bit less rushed.

@Eskarina1 pressed too soon.

I for one do not miss the hills but that says more about me 🤣

I don’t recognise the everyone knowing everyone else. I think that applies to non immigrants/ descendants only.

I think we might be from the same constituency area but a different part

It's so much easier to enjoy a place when you're oblivious.
I've had quite nice days out to eg Keighley and Cliffe Castle or the sculpture park near Wakefield which are in West Yorkshire. And amazing curries in Sowerby Bridge. Or spent ages at the media archive in Bradford.

It is edgy too and maybe I dont notice that side as much because I don't go out to pubs in the evenings.

But Hebden Bridge for eg is ridiculously picture postcard (also edgy if you know whose kids have developed a drug addiction and started hanging round the park you have to walk through but if you went on a holiday you'd not know that).

I think people want to say something nice about where you're from. It shouldn't erase your experience but honestly I love west Yorkshire and lived in North Yorkshire too and thought it was fab.
Im also Scottish and I wonder if being from Glasgow has inoculated me against a lot of edginess.

I feel very strange going somewhere like Cornwall where it seems like everyone is very well-to-do. I'm sure that's not the whole picture either!

I’m from the Calder valley

I lived in west and then south Yorkshire for 3cyears and it was bloidycawful. I swore would never go back. Dreadful place with lots of deeply unpleasant people. And i mean unpleasant in a way i have never encountered since and i have lived all over.

The issues I described are only a few of the issues.

There’s also drug and alcohol issues, anti social behaviour, poverty etc.

The racism and casual conversation incorporating it, and the divided working class always blaming downwards annoyed me the most. As did blaming yorkshire bluntness for it.

Or using Yorkshire bluntness to excuse this *

@Antiqueanniesmagiclanternshow this resonates with me. Thank you x