If you're northern do you find southeners a bit patronising sometimes?!

[doyouknowwhatimean]

NC for this as a bit of a rant! Just had to get it off my chest as have met someone recently who is a prime example of what I mean and I find it reallty annoying.

Just to explain I don't mean ALL southeners! So don't say they're not all like that - I know! Lots of my best friends are southern ;-) There's just a certain type.

I'm born and bred Yorkshire. Sometimes I meet people from the south who seem to think we all live in some kind of Hovis advert or were born down a pit. They think all out houses cost £2.50 and we've never heard of flat whites. I don't have an accent particulaly but sometimes when I say where I'm from I can see the perception changes.

A (fairly senior) work mate in London asked me if I was from a pit village (he just assumed I was as I'm northern). DHs grandfather asked me if I had ever heard of Waitrose. My MiL thinks we have lots of spare income because we pay "Northern Prices".

Friend of a friend I met recently was saying she could buy half of Manchester for the price of her 4 bed in the home counties. She seemed surprised I went to private school as if they don't exist north of the Watford Gap.

I just find it really annoying!!! There is a ton of deprevation in Yorkshire (thanks Tories!) but also in London and across the SE too. There's also culture and nice areas in most parts of the UK.

To be honest it swings both ways, I live in London and have heard all the flat cap/whippets/grim up north unfunny jokes and equally every time I have been up north seeing family, I get the posh soft southerner jokes. I used to spend a lot of time in Leeds with work and predictably got ribbed for where I came from, it was mostly harmless (if at times a bit tedious). However, strangers in bars and pubs could occasionally be quite rude and hostile when hearing my accent which I always found odd. Most of the time I just sucked it up but on the rare occasions I took the piss back it was remarkable how thin skinned some folk were, they could dish it out but not take it.

Grew up (mostly) in the south. Have lived my entire adult life in the north.
It works both ways to an extent, but southerners are - in my experience - far more patronising of the north than the north is rude about the south.
For example, I live in a very expensive part of the north. I work in a company with colleagues based around the country. I get sick of people based in the south thinking that houses cost 2p everywhere in the north when more often than not the houses in my area (and in plenty of other places in the north) are far pricier than in large swathes of the south. They just cannot compute that some crap town in Hampshire is actually far cheaper than a "posh" town in Yorkshire. For example, a school friend of mine recently bought an ordinary sort of family house in rural SE England for about 650k. Around where I live, you'd need well over £1m for a similar-sized house. My brother and I have almost identical houses but his in in the south. He was joking about buying two of my house for what his cost... Until he found out mine cost more than 50pc more than his.
The most frustrating thing for me is people who think if you're any "good" at what you do, you'd have moved to London.
For example, a very good uni friend of mine is a very highly regarded doctor in her field. But even my own mother has asked (multiple times) why "Jane" hasn't worked in London and why she's based in the north... As if we don't have world class universities and hospitals here.
There's a very weird perception that I've come across that everyone lives in Johnny Briggs/Coronation Street type terraces and we all race pigeons and breed greyhounds OR we're all living in footballer mansions (which presumably cost 5p). I had a colleague say to me "you never really think of the North having middle class people in it". I asked him how he thought towns and cities across the north operate without lawyers, accountants, business people, doctors etc. He was stumped, liked he'd never really considered that you could work in one of those professions and not live in the south of England.
And then a great friend of mine, who's from Northumberland, was asked why she didn't "sound like a Geordie" (such much to unpick there...). But when she said it was "because I'm middle class" the questioner again seemed flummoxed. "HOW", they thought "can you be middle class but from the North East?!".

So yes. Just a few examples, but there's certainly some odd ideas about the north among some from the south.

Yes I know @MandyMotherOfBrian it was Dorset and I thought when I typed someone would point that out!

I was meaning that it was as if we lived in a bygone era

Fair enough. As you were 😂

Totally forgiven @MandyMotherOfBrian I'll buy you a pint of bitter to make amends

I'm Scottish and all English are southerners to me, I think the distinction is England specific. I don't especially find the English patronising.

Assuming all people from the north east are geordies really pisses me off.
Dh has a southern aunt who actually asked if we used snow chains when it started to snow during a visit, gave me a laugh.

This, and I’ve known northerners with what seemed like massive chips on their shoulders who branded everyone southern as ‘posh snobs’.

One such woman was a fairly close friend when we were living abroad. I once asked her (after one such pronouncement) whether she thought dh and I were snobs (we’re both southern and in fact dh went to an elite independent school.)

’No!’ she said straightaway, and evidently meant it.
‘Well then.’
But the attitude was absolutely ingrained in her.

I've never encountered the whole "Southern = Posh" thing. Think most people would imagine London is fairly high on crime etc.

DH is from Surrey and I'm much posher than him.

OMG just thought of another one!!! DH had a meeting in at v nice offices in central Manchester a few weeks ago and for various reasons had to drive. FiL (Cockney - born AND bred) said "Were the wheels on your car still on when you got back?"

completely agree with this along with the 'soft southerners' attitude & assumption that everyone is really unfriendly & miserable

Am nodding along here and I'm not even British but I experienced much the same in Ireland. I am from a county town, dh from a regional city. Much as I love Dubliners and have many friends, the ignorance of anywhere else was unreal with some people. When DH left work to move back to his city they went to a Thai restaurant and a colleague asked him if he would miss the food!! Presumed its only meat and 2 veg in the 'country'. My colleague asked me if I knew someone from a different county, when I asked why she said she thought everyone knew each other in the 'country', I kid you not. Unfortunately I think some people are very colloquial and unable to move beyond this, regardless of where they are from. When I hear those lame jokes or ignorant comments I remind myself they have only made fools of themselves.

Try being from Birmingham 😅

People saying northerners (particularly Yorkshire people) are just as bad about southerners. Well, that's not my experience. I'm from the south east but have lived in Yorkshire for 12 years. In all that time I have never once heard any northerner say something derogatory about the south or southerners. Not once! Yet I've lost count of how many times my southern friends have slagged off the north. When they found out I was moving to Yorkshire it was all "Oh it's so grim up there, it's always raining, it's so poor you'll be able to buy a mansion up there, you won't earn much" etc. etc.
Also I have quite a posh southern accent and was fully prepared to have people make fun of me up here. Again - this hasn't happened once! Not once! Yet when I lived down south people were always mocking my posh voice. "Oh listen to you, it's like talking to the Queen" etc.
Sorry, many may disagree but I genuinely believe that southerners are much meaner about northerners than vice versa and I say that as a southerner.

This, and I’ve known northerners with what seemed like massive chips on their shoulders who branded everyone southern as ‘posh snobs’.

Yup. We are southerners living in the NW. Kids at school often call ds (16) a tory, and have for years, purely because he has a southern accent. The ironny is that lots of them are pretty right-wing in their views and ds is not. It's just ignorance.

Sorry, many may disagree but I genuinely believe that southerners are much meaner about northerners than vice versa and I say that as a southerner.

I'm sure you're right. Either way around it's pathetic and ignorant though.

Yes but the reverse is also true. I am from the south and lived (abroad) with someone from the north of England. She immediately declared that she hated all southerners, we were all posh and voted Tory. Wouldn’t accept when I tried to explain this wasn’t true, just automatically decided she hated me based on where I was from.

I have the exact same.

YANBU as soon as someone on here asks where to move to that's got cheap housing I literally count the seconds until someone says "up north" in that generic sort of way that it's a very small place! I remember my Auntie telling me that when she went to university down south she had a friend who was shocked that she lived in a house because she genuinely thought we all lived in Coronation Street houses.

How do you know someone's from Yorkshire....

Bloody ignorant culchie's coming into D4 and pointing at the tall buildings and eating with their hands in restaurants. 😉

I married a man from Cumbria and I experienced a lot of negativity when visiting his home town being called a softy southerner and a snob… neither accusation being remotely true. I felt there was clearly a chip on many a shoulder.

I’ve always lived in the south, albeit in many different areas, and I don’t recall anyone being remotely interested in the north or northerners. Of course a lot of southerners don’t originate from here… we’re a very mixed bunch.

I have had that experience yes. For some reason, some people think it's ok to take the piss out of a northern accent. Last time it was someone from the midlands, but was/is just an arsehole.

Try being from Cornwall, apparently we should all be more grateful about selling ice cream to tourists. We're like Disney land for the rest of the country, just a bunch of employees here to wish you have a nice day.

The point is that it isn't really lazy prejudice when based on these issues and inequalities that have lasted for generations along broadly north/south gaps (and elsewhere but if we're talking about those areas, I know there is plenty of rural poverty and problems with housing stock in the SW to name another example). I take your points and won't accept that it is grim up north or anything also that carping at individuals is not constructive but these feelings really aren't based on nothing. Change needs to happen and at one point it looked as though it might with flexible working and talk of govt decentralisation around COVID but then what... The issues are not outdated.

Loads of the people I know who give it all that about being Yorkshire born and bred went to private school and their parents are totally Booths-d up to the eyeballs. I'm from Yorkshire, lived in London for years, and moved back recently. Absolutely every single joke about posh groceries on the several meme accounts about gentrified East London that I still follow applies even more so up here. I can buy a tin of perello olives in three independent shops within a 5 minute walk of my "Johnny Briggs terrace".