to be fed up with a friend telling me how much friendlier people are "up North"?

[kittya]

we have both lived down sarf for twenty years and she is going back to Yorkshire because people are "friendlier" there. Ive tried to tell her that this is just a romantic notion and that people wont be knocking on her front door with hotpots all day. I love London, I love going to visit home as well but, I can never honestly say that I have noticed a difference in whether people are nicer or not. My sister would say they arent nicer in Yorkshire just bloody nosier!!

Have I just being down here too long?

YABU, we are much friendlier!

yes you have, its just the manner of people 'there you are love' off the cuff when opening a door and such - its wildy wildy different

I dont know. I have lovely neighbours in London. I get the bus everywhere. I work with loads of people for all over the world (I didnt get that up North so much) and Ive never encountered rudeness that I wouldnt get anywhere else in the country. Maybe Ive been away too long....

I think that people are friendlier to strangers up north- sorry

but not their own . I dont know if its a good enough reason to move back there!! how do you compare it?

I lived in London for a bit but had to leave because it was so througherly depressing. I don't think I met more than 5 nice people in 4 years!

I live In the midlands now and people are much nicer.

i havent found this so far, we moved from south to north 2 months ago and so far I would say its the same.

fernie, we will have to invite you round for dinner and feed you hotpot. Um.. what is hotpot?

My friend's husband moved from London to Newcastle and never once got invited to a works night out, when he left the job no one even noticed!! I mean, he couldve had a personality problem I suppose.

I just think my friend who is going back thinks it will be like Last of the Summer Wine or, Corrie.

I get that people are busy in London and lots are here to work but, I cant say Ive ever seen fights in pubs on a Friday night and most people I come accross are just as friendly as they are in Yorkshire, if you give them the time and talk to them.

yanbu i don't think people are too bad here, i am in london too and generally people can be friendly if you stick in the same area for a while and get to know people

Yorkshire must have some appeal.Of the 12 regular ladys in my NCT coffee group only 3 are local,The rest from down south

oh and one scouser

I don't know if it is just the suburbs, but I find it very hard to go ANYWHERE without conversations with about three neighbours, and Newcastle centre is the same, only with strangers. Saying that, I did meet a southerner on the bus the other day. He was from Yorkshire .

My sister says that, in London, she can struggle up loads of stairs with a case, with not even an offer of help. In Newcastle you would actually get it wrestled off you.

I might just be more used to northerners though, and so more likely to talk to them. Although I have found people more friendly the further north you go.

I have never lived down south only visited, i am oop north and i think we are a friendly bunch - i have apple pies coming out of my ears from friends/neighbours/ strangers this time of the year. If dh is taking a load of mud/ fence/ turf or some such round the back of the garden a random neighbour will lend a hand/ barrow........

Actually, it depends where in the north and where in the south!!!!

I grew up in the North, and moved to London, then out to Kent. I found strangers in London less friendly, but people you work with etc. more inclinded to be friendly. I put this down to in London you've got a large percentage of the people working there who didn't grow up in Central London and therefore more open to finding new friends, where as up North, people I know tend to be nice to colleages, but don't socialise outside work with them other than work do events. (Friends from 'home' find it odd that there were people at a BBQ at ours who were work colleages, when they would keep 'work friends' and 'proper friends' separate)

Also, moving out of London to Kent, I've found people are v v friendly, and much more welcoming to an 'outsider' to the community than the way I remember people being treated up North - although other side of the Pinnies to your friend(where I know a family in a nearby village to my old home who were still refered to as "the new family" - 15 years after they moved in!).

YANBU to be fed up of hearing about it, but it is true .

I am from London, DH is a Mancunian and we've nearly come to blows about how friendly the North of england is. I am adamant that we are friendlier (and funnier and more generous), while he argues for his little bit of the country. It's a moot point really, we currently live in Belgium which I can confirm is much friendlier than Switzerland

What nigglewiggle said.

I am Northern but live in the South.
I talk to anybody

I come from the south west which is reasonably friendly and have lived in the south east, not very friendly, Lincolnshire, reasonably friendly, North Yorkshire, very warm and friendly and the North of Scotland - amazingly friendly. So IMO/IME YABU

Everyone I know who has moved north from the south has told me it is friendlier; people more ready to help out, start chatting in queues/supermarkets/buses. People who actually look people in the face and say hello as they're walking past.

But YANBU to feel fed-up of it, even though I believe it's true.

YANBU - tis a load of crap....

i do not remember living in the North as being like a Hovis ad. xenophobic, inversely snobbish and misogynist, on the other hand...

I lived in London for a while and hated it. It is full of people busy trying to make a quick buck, marking time until they can move to somewhere nicer (see innumerable threads about schools in London and/or locals being priced out of their region by London retirees). They haven't got time to be friendly.
We are nicer people in the Midlands and I may have to admit that they are even friendlier oop north.

Having grew up in Scotland then lived in North East for a few years and now living in Berkshire, I have to say that people ARE friendlier up north. However, I much prefer living down here. Better weather and places to see and go to.

London is defintely more unfriendly to strangers on the whole, it's a product of the lack of space and population density, so I would expect that other large cities in other parts of the country would be similar?

However, you don't have to go far north to notice a difference.

DH is from the Midlands and I'm always astounded that you can just open the front door and walk into people's houses. Even his 90 year old grandma leaves the front door open which worries me...

Where I live you could apparently only do this when the Kray Twins were out and about