Why are Northeners so much nicer?

[forgiveormakehimpay]

I'm from The south east, 40 mins away from London by train.

I've come up to Liverpool to see an old friend and what?! It's like a different culture. People are so lovely to us?

My child has a disability and people have been brilliant. I know I'm generalising but literally, guarantee a hard look from lots of people when out in my own area back home

People here are just so.. personal? Very friendly and kind.

Why aren't people in the South East like this? Mostly they aren't anyway! Mostly just keep themselves to themselves etc And I'm not even talking about London

My mum lives in Billericay and people there are vile.

@neverendinglauaundry spot on

I've lived in both the North and the South.
While admittedly you are not going to find people going out of their way to smile and chat on a zone 1 tube ride at 8.30 on a weekday morning, Londoners away from the centre are friendly enough. Random neighbours, dog walkers and shopkeepers would always let on and exchange pleasantries. We lived in a then-ungentrified bit though - maybe the poshos are more reserved?

To stereotype further and no doubt massively offend people I find Lancashire (going to stretch this to Liverpool/Manchester), Glasgow, and Northumberland superfriendly, especially bearing in mind I have a distinctive estuary accent. Yorkshire less overtly friendly - I get the impression they know Yorkshire's brilliant (for it is) and want to defend it from incomers at all costs .

I'm from the SE in a very rough working class town. The people here are lovely, really friendly, whereas in the next town over, the more affluent people won't give you anything, let alone the time of day.

I think it's more to do with the type of people you meet in an area than the geography.

I was born and brought up in the North but moved south about 25 years ago so I've lived roughly half my life in each area.
From my learned experience I would say northerners are not more friendly than southerners. There are friendly and unfriendly people wherever you go.
Maybe you were being more friendly when up north because you were somewhere new and that friendliness was reciprocated?

Recently went to funeral in Yorkshire and bought a round for some people I knew and some I didn't. My friend accused me of "throwing London money around". They apparently only buy two drinks at a time.

Also I find them massively chippy about the south-east.

Come on! It has to be pajamas worn to bed with or without underwear 😁

I’m a southerner (Essex) and generally prefer northerners. I agree they’re friendlier. I also love Scotland.

For me, though, the real divide is between town and country. The U.K. is suffocatingly overcrowded. And when you cram too many people together they start to piss each other off. I have lived here all my life and it seems to get busier and nosier every year. Two horrible new estates are being built as I speak, which means even more people and cars. The atmosphere has got worse as well. And it’s hardly surprising.

I bet it’s true all over the world - the more people are crammed into a particular area, the nastier and less friendly they become. You do get the reverse, of course, where people in small, isolated villages become weird and hostile to all outsiders, etc. The nicest places are probably small towns with relatively small populations and plenty of space. They produce the friendliest people.

If you think the North is friendly, it's nothing on NI. The people are friendly there to the point we were worried as to what their motif was 😂 The woman who had shown us into our self catering apartment used to 'pop in' every day to see if we needed anything and she'd end up staying for hours giving us her whole life story. Another time we were out for lunch and the cafe owner came and wiped dd's nose, telling us all about his 'wee uns'. I wasn't sure whether he was just reminiscing or to expect a call from social services.
If you stop and ask anyone for directions they jump into the car with you to actually take you there. Once you get over your initial suspicions they are the best people ever 😁

What about thanking the bus driver etiquette? Where I live in the NW it's standard to always thank the bus driver when you get off, but in London I notice that this doesn't seem to be a thing (obviously not possible on those busses where you get off in the middle rather than at the front next to the driver's cabin).

Could always yell "thaaaankyou" flamboyantly towards the front end so to speak

We DID order the Seafood Platter in a small village pub in Northumberland & that was "news" for a few days "those Manchester people comin up here and flashing money"
Although Northumberland is "awash" with fabulous pubs/eateries - but this wasn't one of the better known

I know the garden centre! Loved it there 🙂
Mooch round, coffee and cake, then hit up the petting zoo!

You see, I find this fascinating. I'm Scottish. From a medium-sized town. On the whole, people are chatty in places like the checkout in Tesco, but I also find that the stereotype "nippy sweetie" grumpy sharp-tongued person is alive and well, and we coined the adjective "dour" for a reason.

There's also a fairly unpleasant undercurrent of sectarianism and prejudice that influences how people interact with others.

But in the other hand I have also had experiences of people like the Glaswegian lady who was delighted to be in "such a nice queue".

I think that part of the data problem here is that lots of people experience other parts of the country to where they live in visitor mode, so they perhaps have a subconscious openness to interacting with other people when out and about that they don't have when they are rushing through their busy day-to-day lives. Other people take that and their cue to respond positively. I know that I have lots more pleasant encounters in my now home city of London on days when I am relaxed.

If you think people in billercay are vile op, maybe you should look at your own behaviour to see why that might be.

I've always lived in the south but visit the north (or my interpretation of it) as my parents grew up in Cheshire and I go to Manchester for work fairly regularly.

I think northern people are a bit more bubbly and friendly, might also partly be due to the accent.

If I'm being honest, living anywhere near London has become really quite miserable over the last 5-10 years. I think the constant sitting in traffic jams and queues takes its toll on your cheeriness.

I'm not saying that there's not traffic congestion in the north and it's all beautiful rolling hills but I feel my quality of life has fallen considerably in the south.

I understand that there's an acute need for more housing in the south but adding considerable numbers to already creaking public services and at-capacity transport infrastructure isn't making some of us southerners feel very perky.

That said, I've had some lovely chats with total strangers in coffee shops in London recently so it's not all doom and gloom.

I'm from the NW but have lived in London a long time. Definitely no thanking bus drivers in London! I said 'good morning' when I got on the bus in Hackney the other day and the bus driver blanked me completely.

Whereas when I lived in Hong Kong, my local bus driver used to wave hello at us as he was driving past (so even when we weren't using the bus!). Different world!!

Well that hasn't done anything to disprove OP's theory 😆

Interestingly, I hadn't picked up on OP's mention of Billericay, but that's where I was referring to when I said "next town along" in my PP.

It is indeed my experience that Billericay people are vile to anyone they think they can look down on. I'm sure they're perfectly lovely to each other, but they're really very sneering about people from less desirable areas. I think it comes from the fact that the majority have their roots in other areas (Basildon or East London/Romford) and feel that they've made it when they got to move somewhere "nice". They somehow feel the need to keep reasserted their superiority.

This is my experience from working in one of their most sought after schools. Parents and children were really vile about anyone who didn't fit their new middle class ideals.

I work in Basildon now and whilst it's true we have more incidence of the kind of social problems Billericay people sneer at, I find people on the whole to be far more decent.

So OP, if you're basing your opinion of Southerners on Billericay people, you're wrong.

Also I cycle all over Essex. Billericay drivers are by far the worst, we don't get the same sort of aggression anywhere else to that experienced as soon as you hit Billericay 😆

@Mother87 I'm dying to know if it's the same one we went to. It was...odd.

I find the opposite! The warmth and good nature of those I’ve encountered in Yorkshire made me want to move there. Newcastle too!! London has changed a lot over the years and East London which had a community spirit feels devoid of character now. All the development and regeneration has changed it.

I find Edinburgh people on the whole present a veneer of niceness but don’t really want to engage or help too much “ so I expect you’ll have had your tea!” Whereas Glaswegians will be giving you your tea without even telling you first! Really friendly and open on the whole with more of an Irish/ scouse kind of vibe and humour. Humour isn’t really a big part of the Edinburgh persona I don’t find as there are some very defined social echelons and lots of exchanging if you know the “ mactavishon- Urquharts”.

It’s a wonderful accent in my opinion. Very rich and warm. Love it! Yorkshire rocks 😎

Well... it was Sicilian and was renting the kitchen in a small pub in a tiny village...apparently there were 'fireworks' between the chef/owner and the pub landlady and the experiment only lasted a few weeks... They're opening up somewhere else in the "market town' nearby soon apparently...

I'm from the NW but have lived in London a long time. Definitely no thanking bus drivers in London! I said 'good morning' when I got on the bus in Hackney the other day and the bus driver blanked me completely.

In South London it's totally normal to thank the driver. Reckon about 50% do it round here...

Not the same one then @Mother87 but I thought it may be as you mentioned the seafood platter and we had many strange looks