Moving from Scotland to England-Differences.

[IcedBunsForMe]

I'm planning a move from Scotland to England in the next year. Still finalising area now that I have it narrowed down. I know that it isn't like moving abroad but there are still some differences including water charges and prescription charges.

I know that every place is different but if you've made the move from Scotland to England.Or vice versa. What differences did you notice. Practical or cultural? And what did you miss? Morning rolls for me.

TIA

The banter. I moved from Scotland to the South of England and seemed to offend everyone with my Scottish piss taking sense of humour. It did not go down well.
They won't take Scottish notes and the water was shite, couldn't ever get my shampoo to lather. Summer's were too hot, I remember temperatures of up to 40c, sleep was elusive. Bars and clubs closed ridiculously early compared to Scotland.

I'm planning to go the opposite way and will move to Scotland. Bit worried about the anti-English sentiment tbh!

I like fish with skin on tbh and here in Norfolk you can definitely get curry sauce and gravy if you want it. Water is appalling though. Genuinely awful. We descale our kettle at least once a week. We moved from a place with a well/bore hole years ago and the water board used to test it annually and said it was around 300% better than the water provided by Anglia Water.

I use outwith but I work with a Glaswegian woman who probably introduced it years ago. It's so useful.

Bars and clubs closed ridiculously early compared to Scotland

That is true. I went on a weekend break to the Scottish Borders and on the night we arrived, we didn't even go out for a drink until 10.30 pm and it was intended to be 'just the one' but when they didn't chuck us out, we just stayed and the next think we knew, it was about 1 am and that was just a fairly normal pub in a small town.

The one thing that always throws me is use of the word 'stay'. Scottish people use this to describe where they live, whereas English people would only use stay to describe somewhere temporary like a holiday or possibly sleeping on someone's sofa for a few weeks. But if a Scottish person asks 'where do you stay' they want to know where you live, not where you are staying while you are visiting Scotland (for example, I think, in my experience anyway).

Shampoo lather is soft/hard water. I don't think I could cope with hard water, as well as shampoo not lathering, it fucks up all your appliances and taps and people seem to be endlessly battling limescale. Our water is very soft and I've never descaled anything in my life.

I really notice that the puddles are cleaner in Scotland. I moved from the west of scotland to the east of england, so there is much less rain where I live now. There are rarely any puddles at all and when it does rain, the puddles are dirty brown, so you wouldn't really want to jump in them. I still like to jump in puddles when I get the chance, even though I am 45.

I think the stopping distance on the motorway is longer, and I think that's because there is less rain to wash the oil off the road and make it nice and grippy. The motorways here are also often made of concrete I think instead of tarmac, and it is much louder to drive on.

In scotland, I noticed that big black cars would drive very aggressively up the fast lane of the M8 and slower drivers would get pushed off into the middle lane, so there was very good lane discipline. In England they don't do that so sometimes lane discipline is bad. There are also often a lot of very big lorries driving one behind the other, and they come right up to the back of cars, which is really scary.

The weather is an awful lot better here in the south. I get epic seasonal affectiveness disorder when I was in Scotland, even in summer, and I'm not great in the south, but definitely better.

It's much easier to get sunburned in scotland because even with the sun is hot the air is cold. In england, when the sun is hot, the air is also hot, so I rarely get caught out.

I walk a lot more in england but that is partly to do with my local community. People are chatty and friendly here. In scotland I rarely walked anywhere so never chatted, and that was very isolating.

They don’t use the word ‘outwith’ 🤷‍♀️

England isn't one homogenous place, I don't recognise a lot of the so called English traits above.

Which area are you looking at moving to?

I'm in Lancashire and Morrison's have square sausage (I grew up eating it despite never having lived in Scotland for some reason!), our local takeaways all do munchy boxes, and no skin left on fish here. Local chippy has an array of curry sauce, Irish curry sauce, gravy etc

I have never had fish from the chippy with the skin on

Caughtinanet - me too. There’s plenty of banter in England - pp obviously just don’t get it. I live in Scotland and the puddles are definitely muddy.

@blackteaplease

Lots of the things people mention depend where you live. I'm in Devon, surrounded by fields on the edge of a village with friendly locals and nice water.

Things I noticed upon moving from Scotland

Definitely the Sunday opening hours.

Language difference but I've successfully introduced out with to my office.

Temperature. We moved from Edinburgh to Exeter in early September and I'd already been wearing my winter coat. I spent weeks wandering round in shorts and t-shirt as it was roasting.

Yes! We moved to Edinburgh from Gloucestershire in August. I left in shorts and t shirt and was wearing a winter coat by the time we arrived. I had to buy a down coat shortly afterwards and find the gloves and hat I never wore usually in Winter. The temperature difference is massive. Walks wise, yes there are amazing walks in Scotland, but sometimes it’s hard to find nice woodland walks / countryside that doesn’t involve driving some distance . It depends on location of course.

I’ve lived in both, and the main thing I always notice is how much more traffic there is on the roads in England. I’m not talking about the city centres of Edinburgh or Glasgow where it’s as much of a nightmare as anywhere else (especially with the deranged Edinburgh City Council running the show!). It’s the motorways and the roads between places. I guess it’s just down to a smaller population overall and most of it being concentrated in the central belt, but it’s literally noticeable the moment you cross the border on the motorway. It’s like 50% more cars just appear out of thin air.

The system for buying houses in Scotland is much better but their legal system can be a lot more conservative and annoying in other areas.

The temperature, the rain, the wind, the getting dark at 3pm in December - yeah, I don’t miss those. On the other hand, light summer nights until 11pm are just gorgeous, and contrary to popular belief it does get hot in Scotland in the summer! Though people do still strip off and sunbathe the minute it hits 17° which is pretty funny.

Outwith is the best word ever, and I say that as an adopter rather than a native speaker.

allowed to beat your kids. Dont have to go to local school. Outsider means someone from out of the area not properly integrated and nothing to do with the crust of the bread. Sometimes it doesnt rain for the entire day. You can go for an evening walk without being eaten alive. Have to use proper campsites

oh and get into massive debt for your kids university

Another thing I noticed is that people don’t thank each other when driving in Scotland and don’t say hello when out walking in the same way. I had to learn to avoid eye contact when out and about.
In the S of England, people will be friendly in a surface way but it’s all quite superficial. There’s a lot of surface politeness with complete indifference underneath. In Scotland people are more direct, but also ruder.
I don’t find neighbours friendlier in Scotland. Haven’t noticed any difference at all in opening hours!
Higher rate tax is set at a higher level in Scotland too.
The other thing to note is that England varies greatly. Yorkshire or Cumbria are quite different to Dorset or Norfolk. I
moved to Dorset from Edinburgh and was very puzzled when neighbours gave us bottles of wine to welcome us to the area. Can’t imagine that in Scotland.

We moved from Edinburgh 1987. Have bought & sold a few times whilst down here. My only piece of advice is to rent were you want to live for 6mnths. It takes pressure off you.

We moved the other way last April.

Difference 1. Sunday opening. In England larger shops have 6 hours when they are allowed to open. Often 10-4 or 11-5. Supposedly to protect "Family" Sundays but actually meaning that you can't get the shopping done early or late but have to do it in the middle of the day.

1. Bank Holidays. They are national so what feels like the whole country will head off somewhere making traffic dreadful. It also seems to rain on Bank Holiday Monday.

1. Midges are not a thing in England. Other than the Lake District.

1. Footpaths - there is no automatic right to roam other than in upland areas so there are marked footpaths/bridle paths across the countryside. Which is easier in some ways as you can plan routes using OS maps but obviously more restrictive in others.

1. You won't necessarily get kids into your local school - especially if you move at a point that isn't a starting school point. You will get assigned whatever school(s) have places in the right years regardless of distance (could be 3+ miles) and you might have a 6 year old at one school and an 8 year old 6 miles away... You might also end up driving past several schools you didn't get into to reach the one you're assigned because of tiny catchments and sibling priority.

I lived in relatively rural bits of England so most of my differences are "legal" than attitudes.

allowed to beat your kids???
Is this a Scottish or English thing? It’s not clear but I don’t know anyone around me (Cumbria) who beats their children so presuming Massive generalisation?

@Mrstreehouse

allowed to beat your kids??? Is this a Scottish or English thing? It’s not clear but I don’t know anyone around me (Cumbria) who beats their children so presuming Massive generalisation?

scotland has more rules protecting children against physical punishment than England does

Following, as have been thinking of a move in the opposite direction for some time!

If I may ask OP, are you moving out of necessity or choice? Since Brexit and the decision of the English to vote in this awful government again I have become very jaded about living in England. I also like the sound of the house buying process and school system in Scotland.

A lot of ridiculous generalisations in this thread, also much conflating "England" with London and the SE.

I have lived in both countries and moved around a lot. If you move to say Northumberland/Yorkshire you really won't notice much difference on a day to day apart from obvious costs like water charges, prescriptions etc. People are friendly, water tastes great etc.. etc.

On a practical note, on my most recent move 2 years ago, the biggest shock for us was the discrepancy in education levels of my DC. They went from being middle/top in their class in Scotland to way behind in the equivalent year in England. It really showed up just how useless the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland really is. It took ages to catch up. And that was a middling not over-achieving primary school they moved to. It really hit home to me how Scottish school standards are sliding under the current government. However I still prefer the Scottish system of not starting primary school as early.

I honestly think some of these experiences are people's hazy memories of trips they took 30 years ago or something as I don't recognise some of them at all! I've lived all over Scotland in my 35 years here and drivers thank each other plenty and walkers always say hello to each other when out.

My DH is English and has lived here 10 years and never experienced any anti-English sentiment or comments. There's a lot more of Scotland than the central belt!

I grew up in Angus and Dundee, lived in Berkshire for a while and now live in Devon. We don't have the free prescriptions or free uni, my tap water is really nice actually, I live in a city but there's loads of green space, river walks, hills and fields surround my city, my local chippie sells deep fried Mars bars and irn bru, Sunday trading is 11am-4 or 5pm but I remember when I lived in Scotland 20 years ago, no shops except tesco opened in my local town!

England is so vastly different I think it's hard to compare but the only thing I can think of that will actually bother me in a couple of years is the fact that my kids won't get free uni. Other than that, it's just like Scotland except less grey buildings and much lovelier weather.

Moved from the Central Belt 25 years ago.
Depends very much where you live in England.

No sectarianism.
Busier, more complicated motorway networks.
Greater variety in choice of schooling which took us a while to understand but our DC received an excellent education.
Yes, we have to pay for prescriptions etc but the career opportunities and earnings have been so much better than if we’d stayed in Scotland, it’s not something that bothers us.
Our local health services here are excellent but I know it’s a bit of a postcode lottery.
Moving house has been straightforward for us but I agree with PP that renting between house moves can be a wise decision.

My DH and I come from fairly middle class backgrounds but the health differences we noticed when we first moved down were huge.
When my DS started school we had to make a family tree which essentially consisted of photos of a load of dead relatives from the West Coast of Scotland.
This was in sharp contrast to the vast majority of English children who had both sets of grandparents still alive and indeed great grandparents.
This made a massive impression on us at the time.
I would say that regular sport, exercise and better diet was a feature of the English friends we made when we first moved down .
I hope the differences wouldn’t be so great now.

We live in a beautiful part of England but there’s something about the Scottish Highlands and Islands which is in our hearts forever.
We do miss the Scottish sense of humour and love a trip down memory lane about Glasgow in the 1980s.

I think some the difference in educational expectations at primary level is affected by the difference between the years.

My DD finished P1 working at a solid P2 level in everything after 2 terms in reception before we moved (followed by a term of doing nothing academic whatsoever in lockdown).

I'd say reception is effectively equivalent to P1 so Y1= P2 more or less. There is a high probability that children switching between systems will be in a different year.

I'm in London , and have to agree that chips here are rubbish! There aren't chip shops as such, the chips are secondary to whatever is the main thing being sold.- fried chicken / kebab etc. They are often limp and soggy.
The water, on the other hand, is much nicer than water in most of the country, eg Devon, Norfolk etc where it tastes very chemical. Don't know about Scottish water.
We have rolls, but morning rolls? Don't know how they'd be different.
I've noticed it's much friendlier the further north you go, in terms of random people talking to you in shops/ on public transport but not sure if it goes deeper than that.