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.

My experience of Nottinghamshire mining villages (albeit 25 plus years ago) is that they hate people from the next street, let alone 150 miles away.
However, as an adopted Manc of more than 20yrs but originally from the south and fairly posh sounding I've never, not even once, had any trouble in Manc pubs - even in the crappiest of areas (and boy have a visited a few).

Completely agree with this. I love taking the piss. I love having the piss taken out of me. One of my closest friends is from West Yorks. I'm from SE England. We both live in Greater Manchester and take the piss out of each other for our accents, the words we use, and all sorts of other things.

Ribbing people is one thing - that's part and parcel of life. The absolute savage rivalry of towns just a few miles apart is an example of that.

Patronisingly assuming someone is "thick" or "poor" because they're from the North or angrily assuming someone is "a Tory" or "rich" because they're from the south is totally unacceptable.

When the second lock down was decided I was in a shop when it was announced. A woman in front of me said to the lady behind the till that ‘this is all down to the northerners, they should learn how to stick to the rules’. You can imagine my reaction as I’m from the northeast living in the south east. When she heard my accent she visibly recoiled like I had the plague 🙄 The woman in question still sees me around the town and keeps a firm distance between us 🤣

Haha Londoners look down on everyone.

From some of the "I love London and wouldn't live anywhere else" threads on mumsnet I get the impression that it is mainly mumsnetters. They think that anywhere outside of London is completely devoid of any culture.

I am South London born and bred, but have lived most of my adult life in Yorkshire. No amount of money would entice me back to living in London.

I have no skin in the game as I have a foot in both camps. I haven't encountered any rudeness, just puzzlement when I first moved to Leeds from my work colleagues. It was more a case of "why would you want to move out of London to come here?"

Omg I cannot stand all that Yorkshire born and bred bollocks like they're completely superior to everyone else.

😆

I don't know if I feel a bit sorry for Midlanders that they get largely ignored in debates like this, apart from Brummies. Maybe they like being left out of it though!

fortunate? They have obviously never been to Lancashire, to be born there is to be totally fortunate.😁

@RampantIvy we live in Bath but lived in London a fair bit too at various points- thing is with London- I really liked living there but only in certain bits - I'm very fond of south west London and my son lives in a flat share in Belsize Park which I like too - but that's my issue - I can't afford to rent (or buy) a lovely big 4 bed semi in great order in those areas . It all comes down to that really- it's not that I don't like it there. Reason we live here is that it has many of the things I like about London- but housing (although still expensive) is still doable for us.

It sounds like London and Yorkshire have similar attitudes. I’m south east but London is different .The rest of the south and north have a different slant.
I don’t really doesn’t go north ( no real reason to) except up the M6 but I think most counties have a different sort of feel to each other. Even places like Suffolk and Devon look similar with their cottages, farms and sea but have a different vibe.

If that patronising attitude still exists, it's rare and dying out. I'm a southerner who generally prefers northerners. I've known other southerners who think the same way (my cousin, for example). But I've never met a northerner who prefers southerners! Cities like Manchester and Leeds are no longer thought of as grim and post-industrial. That stereotype has died away. Also, you hear so many different accents in the south that no one would even notice a geordie or Mancunian one. My work colleague is from Liverpool, for example. I don't think I've ever heard anyone even comment on this. The main stereotype is that northerners are more friendly. That really is the only stereotype I'm aware of.

There are plenty of stubborn myths about the south as well. The most ridiculous is that southerners are rich and posh. In fact, most people in the south are jammed into tiny rabbit hutches on vile new housing estates. Frankly, people in the north often enjoy a much better quality of life. Where I live (rural Essex), it is now so crowded that you can barely move. I feel like I'm suffocating. The traffic is awful and the countryside is being ruined by endless house building. To many southerners, Scotland and the north of England are now attractive places. I know of several people who've moved to Scotland or Northumbria in search of space and a better life.

Well I was talking with a colleague from the south about the salary for a vacancy and she commented that it depended on location but there wasn't a massive difference. I joked that the Scottish one should be higher since we pay more tax and she informed me sharply that they have a cost of living crisis. I didn't point out that we have that too plus higher fuel/energy charges and it's generally colder...

I'm not saying anyone has it easy but does she think the cost of living issues stop at Watford?

I am UK born and have lived in a number of countries snd a number of cities in the UK. I believe there is good and bad in all people. The sort of attitude cited here can be found in different parts of so many places. For example, northern and southern France, Western Australia and the Eastern States to name 2.

But with stereotypical comments such as this, the first problem is people believing that the Watford Gap is in Watford, Herts. It’s in Northamptonshire, not the southern Watford.

I know of several people who've moved to Scotland or Northumbria in search of space and a better life.

Gentle correction @JaneyGee it is Northumberland. DH is from Northumberland

I find that north vs south and London vs everywhere else views are far more polarised on mumsnet than they are in real life.

The South Yorkshire village I live in has locals, and incomers from all four corners of the UK and we all rub along quite nicely with each other. We don't have a local shop for local people here

The company I work for in the Wakefield area has employees from all over the UK and Europe. No-one gets patronised or thought less of because they aren't originally from Yorkshire.

@Crikeyalmighty I love Bath. I have family near there and vist when I can. I especially enjoyed the Christmas market last year.

@RampantIvy

"The South Yorkshire village I live in has locals, and incomers from all four corners of the UK and we all rub along quite nicely with each other. We don't have a local shop for local people here "

There is one, but as you have family in Bath you just haven't been told about it.

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.

TV has a lot to answer for on this.

A few years back there was a dramatisation of a family for a real life event. The family are well respected and well known. They are northern middle class (which I do think is different to southern middle class) but definitely undoubtedly middle class and easily identifiable as obviously middle class.

The TV drama whippetified them into working class.

This wasn't just how I felt about it.

I remember a number of locals comment on how they'd deliberately 'northerned' the family and turned them into less well spoken and more 'gritty'. A couple new the family personally relatively well and weren't impressed.

It was actually offensive.

Northern drama do this ALL the time. You won't see a detached nice northern property with a lovely garden. Nope it's the land of the grim terrace. Nice Victorian semi? Naaaa let's find some horrible ex-council properties. Or it's all bloody footballers wives with garish decoration.

There's absolutely no middle ground.

As for the cost of living. Apparently households in Manchester now have less disposable income than those in London due how house prices and rents have sky rocketted so much in the last couple of years and wages haven't kept pace. Manchester is genuinely on the verge of tipping into being London #2 with all the building - minus the good transport links.

I can vouch for this!

None locals are surprised when I tell them that locals have different types of conversations with each other to non locals and there's a tension between the two groups.

Ach well , my parents both from London or environs moved North . 60 years ago Occasionally get Southern Jessy as a joke. They are as MC as you could get. But I agree with you @doyouknowwhatimean It is a lazy trope to say Northern = whippets etc. Just ignore it.

Does anyone remember when David Cameron had plans to revoke the pasty tax and tax on bingo to appeal to northern voters? It felt like satirical comedy, but that’s obviously how they view us.