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?

Tis True. When I moved to London in the 80's nobody talked to anybody on the tube etc whereas I would gaily engage people in conversation. I moved back North after 6 years, but now travel to London frequently to work and it is still the same, nobody makes eye contact. BUT every time I have been struggling up the steps of the tube with a case a man has rushed to help - probably northerners themselves . If you make the effort though and talk to people, they are just as friendly, perhaps just more reserved.

She should try being a southerner living in a mining village then. Downright rude, cliquey and vile is what springs to mind about the people there who were not prepared to even get to know me because I am "a stuck up southerner" (based purely on my accent)

I moved villages a few years ago to another mining village and the people here are truly lovely. I do think can't generalise areas - you get good and bad everywhere.

I think it's to do with it being a large city, I'm in France & we have the same thing with Paris vs the rest of the country, and Paris is in the middle (well sort of) !

That said, of course Liverpool is the friendlist part of the UK

Mists&MM: I only lock the front door when we go to bed, and friends of mine never used to lock the back door - even when there was no-one in the house.

I think it depends a lot on where exactly you are living. My mother moved to a village in Northumberland (she is originally from the Noth East) and hates it. None of the locals talk to new residents. They are very friendly to tourists passing through, but don't want to integrate new people into their community.

As a result, she is moving to the South west to the village where I live. This place could not be friendlier - both the locals and the incommers have worked hard to build a thriving community that acts like a community.

I think people in northern england are friendlier than people in the south on the whole ....... I lived for 15 years in Milton Keynes (fucking awful dump) and 14 years in the north.

As for the Scots, they are friendly if you're not english

I hate going on the tube where if you smile at people they just stare at you. Do this on the buses in Birmingham or Yorkshire (where I'm from) and they will smile back.

I grew up in Sheffield and moved to North London when I finished my degree, then out to Hertsforshire as this is where DH is from. As others have said, people in the north are friendlier in shops, queues, on public transport etc... I really noticed when I first moved south how you see the same people at the station each morning but no one even smiles
I also think it takes more time to get to know people in the south and that you have to work at it.
That said, I have lived down south for 12 years now and I would not move back. Life is sweeter here

wychbold it's nice to be able to do that. DH Grandmother does lock the back of the house as its been broken into three times from that way

I don't actually know anyone who has a door which once closed can then be opened from the outside...

It's generally true...
Having said that, I moved from England (where initially I found it very hard, assistants being rude in shops, no eye contact, etc) back up to Scotland and I have found that people are in general significantly chippier though they are also very friendly.
I was always amazed when I went to eg Manchester how you couldn't go anywhere without a chat - how do people get anything done?!

NB when I say ENgland I mean one town that was in a bit of a bubble

wrt London, I imagine it depends on where you're living. I spent a year in SE London, in Lewisham, and found my neighbours and the local shopkeepers very friendly. Friendlier than many of those in the SW English city centre I came from. Friends lived in New Cross though - and it seemed that anyone who talked to you was in fact a little unhinged. It seemed best to keep your head down.

Recently I visited London sans enfant for the first time in years, attending a course in EC1. I kept forgetting not to smile or make eye contact with the suits in the lift - they looked at me as if I was a total loon.

When I visited with a small dc (a few times - even accidentally getting caught up in the rush hour) I found people very friendly indeed - including on the Tube.

I've not really been up North. My friend teaches in an urban school in Yorkshire and gets told to fuck off on a daily basis, by pupils primarily but also parents. Doesn't sound particularly friendly to me

I think it's a London thing rather than a North/South divide.

Am a Londoner by birth and central business and tourist areas are not friendly as is isn't where ppl live, just pass each other in the street, so you meet a greater degree of 'not my problem mate'. However my decision to move to Leeds was based on 3 people stopping to ask if they could help when I got out a map.

Have lived in Yorkshire, Notts/Derbys, Midlands & Kent and in each there was a willingness to talk to strangers and general friendliness.

I think people "up North" are more friendly to complete strangers than down South. Even dh commented on this when we went to my home town on holidays.

I don't know, Dinah - I was living in Oxford and whenever we came to London, we were struck by how friendly and professional people were - just nice things like not slamming a coffee down on the table without looking at you, like answering questions in shops gracefully, not ignoring you when you wanted to be served at the bar...

YANBU, I'm from Yorkshire, live in London now, my mate also goes on and on about how much friendlier people are in Yorkshire. Such a generalisation, it completely depends on the people!! E.g. I've always found my local polish shopkeeper in London a million times friendlier that the grumpy mean spirited newsagent in my village in Yorkshire. I'm sure I can think of plenty of examples both ways.

I do tend to find that it's my friends from the north who'll comment on this sort of thing (in a "Yorkshire is better than London" kind of way), my friends from London never seem to get competative about it. Maybe this is because there is a stronger Yorkshire "identity"?

I've lived in London for 17 years now and find people friendlier than they used to be, but I think it's me rather than them -- I'm older and (probably) more approachable-looking now, and old ladies think they have more in common with me than they once did, and of course now I have the DCs who are a badge of something in common with other parents and can be conversation starters in themselves.

Had I moved [anywhere else] a few years ago I would probably now be saying "Oooh, [wherever I was] is so much friendlier than London", but actually as I've got older and more child-encumbered London has become much friendlier than London.

I get that people are busier and I agree that we tend to socialise with work people more. I think this is because everyone travels that bit further and any nights out are done straight after work. Up north you would have time to go home and get changed and go back out again.

What I really dont like though, and it bugs me like mad is when I go back to Yorkshire and talk to my teenage cousins about perhaps giving London a go in their future, the answers always the same "Im not going down there, the people arent friendly down south" god that narrow mindedness I find very hard to deal with.

Maybe I have been down here because I wouldnt want randomers knowing all my business!!

I don't really know anyone who feels that way about London. Several of my friends have just moved down there actually..
I wouldn't want to personally because I found it too big, prefer somewhere small where you can walk across town. Also, it's very expensive! But the friendliness of neighbours had never really occurred to me. Doesn't seem like a good reason to move/not move.

I think some parts of the north are very friendly - I love going to parts of Manchester and Lancashire as i have never met such warm and friendly people.

However I went to Rotherham and I thought I was going to get smacked, so miserable and insular were the people.

Who knows, anyway, I am from devon and we hate you all when you come and invade in August (grockles).

Place with the friendlest strangers in the UK - Bristol wins hands down.

When I go North, I always have to remind myself that when random people (or even checkout girls) speak to you, they are not nutters, just being friendly

But the bit of London I live in is villagey and having had my DC here, I always bump into people whenever I go out.

kittya that is why I moved down here, having lived in Northern suburbia and then bang in the middle of a Northern city.

You need to live in Dorset. It is perfect there all the people, animals, children, shopkeepers, burglars are lovely and always says hello and they never have 'this sort of weather' down there
according to MIL
I hate it.

And we tip... lol

lol at fruitshoots