Utterly bored and frustrated by living in a small town

[saltnpepa]

We live in a small town and I am so bored and frustrated by the mundaneness of it. I'm from inner London and here I am in the middle of effing nowhere and all the families are white and middle class and wear Boden. There is no crime and no bad behaviour from anyone at anytime. Nobody swears or cracks jokes, there's no vibrancy or creativity, everyone is the bloody same. The mothers are polite and very decent and the husbands are all doing the right things and I only know of one single mum. I stick out like a sore thumb and am sick of rubbing people up the wrong way unintentionally just because I'm different. My kids love it here as does my rather conservative husband, I feel like running down the street naked covered in talcum powder and jam just to cause a stir. It is a 'nice' life but unstimulating and I worry that my kids will grow up to be just like the locals.

[christinarossetti]

I'm sorry to hear about your experiences of not being helped phlebaconsiered, and I'm honestly really surprised.

I've heard about people not giving up tube seats for pregnant women, but honestly never experienced it, nor on buses. Even now my children are school aged, others still offer me and them their seats.

I've always felt that the advantage of there being more people around not in cars is that there is always someone to help. I was mending a puncture at the side of the road in the dark on a busy London road one evening and a launderette owner came out with a torch and bucket of water for me.

It was a 'I love London' moment (though I appreciate that you can have these moments in small towns and villages too!).

[SunnyBaudelaire]

I am surprised too, having found London a friendly and fluffy place where a pregnant woman can get a seat easily and random strangers offer help with buggies on the tube. In addition I have always found London to be a place where you can strike up conversation with practically anyone.
But then ones reality is often reflected in ones own attitudes if you know what I mean.

[christinarossetti]

I think that the Romany community experiences prejudices pretty much everywhere Gilrack but I agree with you that this was definitely much more overt and partisan in the small town that I went to school in than the city I live in.

[TheFnozwhowasmirage]

I've heard some nasty racist rubbish in our tiny village,from someone who'd moved here from Tooting. She described a child as 'half caste' and then,talking about a friend of her DC's,described them as chinky and pulled her eyes into slits with her fingers! I've lived in the countryside all my life and never heard anything like it and did pull her up on it.

[SunnyBaudelaire]

yes I am afraid that coming from London does not preclude arseholeness.....

[Gilrack]

Did they make you join the Woodcraft Folk?

My FB timeline's studded with Woodcraft posts!

Maybe this is where I'm going wrong I haven't seen any info locally about learning to make hearty stews from wild fungi and rotting tree bark, but perhaps everyone's hiding ... in the woods. Which you have to drive to and pay to enter, all the land here being owned by various corporations.

[OTheHugeManatee]

I think you sound ungrateful and self-absorbed, OP. Most of the population of this planet would give anything (and indeed sometimes do risk everything) to live somewhere clean, affluent, quiet and low-crime.

If you don't like where you live, then move somewhere more congenial; don't just sit there sneering at the community you live in. If it were anything other than the white middle class you'd have been marmalised by now for your nasty, narrow-minded bigotry.

[phlebasconsidered]

No, Sunny, it was nothing to do with my reality being reflected by my attitude and a lot to do with living in Homerton, I imagine. The local rag wasn't known as "The Hackney Stabber" for nothing. Although friends who still live there assure me that there are now artisan bakeries and everything.

[SunnyBaudelaire]

ooooh not the 'murder mile'?
oh well as long as focaccia is available!

[CheesyDibbles]

Phlebaconsidered I used to live in Homerton too! I both miss it and am glad to have moved in equal measures.

Ah, memories; being spat at in Bethnal Green because I couldn't tell two men where they could wash their hands . Witnessing a car-jacking in Clapton. The druggies down the road managing to burn their house down... someone setting our bin on fire in the middle of the night. Shielding my kids' eyes as a man got stabbed across the road.

It was also a vibrant and interesting place to live and I do miss a lot about it. That sounds odd considering what I have just written - but true.

I moved so my kids could have a safer, greener place to live. No regrets - and last time I checked, I wasn't wearing any Boden and I'm no bigot.

[Gilrack]

I moved so my kids could have a safer, greener place to live.

See, I would have moved from Hackney to Wandsworth Common for that

[CheesyDibbles]

...oh yes, and getting stones thrown at me as I walked past the local secondary school, I was heavily pregnant at the time.

[ggggllll]

Yeah, I left not so much because of the vibrant London culture itself which I grew up in and was part of (as in an actual Londoner not a yuppie "Lahndahner" from the home counties) but because the community where I lived was wiped out and became something infinitely more unfriendly and unpleasant. I was one of the last of the people I knew to scarper, and now my facebook is full of old friends who either ended up in the sticks, or emigrated for a happier life.

If people understood how even relatively crap rural places are basically like paradise on earth to some people, they might not think boredom was such a big deal.

Personally, I have embraced it and become a proper yokel, and only return to the city for business.

[phlebasconsidered]

Yep, sunny Homerton on the 14th floor of that big tower block off the High Street. I was mugged outside the weird shop that sold offal. I lived there for 4 years and also did a 6 year stint opposite Hackney Downs by the three sisters pub. There, I regularly had prostitutes and pimps fighting outside my door, was broken into three times and witnessed 3 gun incidents. Possibly the most annoying thing was the man who played the bongos every Sunday though.

Of course the markets are all chi chi and lovely now. The trendy eight quid burger eaters probably wouldn't recognise the Cat and Mutton of my nineties. The carpet actually squelched when you went in and there used to be a woman doling out Irish Stew to people in various states of disrepair. They had a tv for the footie though.

I left London when I realised I was merely lucky that I wasn't or my baby wasn't in the way of the bullet at London Fields. We were there for a picnic and witnessed a shooting. Plus, teaching secondary in Hackney was like working in a war zone.

Some people are charmed though. My friend once walked home at night from Clapton to Homerton along the canal and lived.

[phlebasconsidered]

Cheesy, I probably taught those children. Probably wrestled the knives off of some of them. Ah, happy days.

[Gilrack]

Where have all the desperate people gone to? I remember this happening when I was among the first wave of Clapham yuppification but, back then, it was a simple matter of the 'troubles' getting shunted down the road until they finally reached Surrey or Kent. The angry people had originally crossed over the river from Fulham, which was still a bit rough in those days.

It's all a bit mystifying. I do realise the London I miss no longer exists, but 'my' area hasn't really changed that much and I've just spent a few happy hours doing fantasy flat-hunting there.

Derail, sorry - but I am interested!

[phlebasconsidered]

Half of Hackney now lives in Lincolnshire I think. Spalding is full of hackneyites and leytonstoners. A fair few near me in Norfolk and the top end of cambs. It's where the houses get cheap enough. Certainly applied to me!

[CheesyDibbles]

Phlebaconsidered We were near Homerton Station and before that, in Clapton. It was becoming very chi chi as we were leaving - but no rocketing house prices at that point, so we didn't make our fortunes (curses). DH and I used to occasionally drink in the Cat and Mutton and feel very, very old - no squelchy carpets at that point, just loads of hipsters with beards. I really miss Vicky Park - easily the best park in London.

I'm happy to live where I am now. It's peaceful, plenty to do, good schools and it's really easy to get into London if we want to.

[CheesyDibbles]

Phlebaconsidered I'm guessing you may have taught at that school! CCTV and a policeman on the door ring any bells?

[pieceofpurplesky]

I am a country girl. Tiny village, fields, farms and no public transport. I have lived all over from London to Sydney to various towns/villages.
The small town I live in now is just like the OP described. Nobody has ever left ... They are all big fish in small ponds - the local Facebook page is unbelievable with local counsellors backstabbing and bitching, nastiness and racism. My friend moved here from a big city to give her boys a better education - she is Indian and has never suffered racism like she has here.
Maybe some towns are just strange. The people here hate change - heaven forbid when sainabury's wanted to open up here - public outcry - but only because it's too expensive ...
I have loved living in many places but I dislike the attitude and manner of many of the people here - the kids seem to stay at home until marriage and attend the local university. All seem to holiday in the same areas. It really is stepford and was partially why exH and I separated (I needed to escape some of the people and didn't want to be with then every weekend - he did)

[phlebasconsidered]

That's the one! By the timei left it was a full on security entrance like in airports and we were looking into thumbprint scanners to access stuff that could be stolen. It was hardcore. Makes my students now seem like lambs.

That said, those that did rise above the general gang warfare and violence without getting pregnant before exams were hugely driven and some of the best students i've ever had.

I did get used to being greeted by students when out and about, even in the worst dives Hackney had to offer ( The Four Aces, long gone now!) with an "Alright Miss?!" even though they were 13 and it was 2am.

pieceofpurple: I don't see that. Sure there are some knobs where I live, but my best friend is basically the only West Indian in town and she has never had any comments. She used to live in Essex and it was worse there.Yet there are some where i now live who have never even been to the nearest city.

Manners and attitude don't require travel to hone. Merely will and education, and i suspect that a lot depends on the schooling system. That said, where live has the lowest number of parents of children in primaries who have been through tertiary education, plsu the lowest spend per head on pupils in the UK, yet I love my classes and find them totally driven, and their parents too, which is more than i've had anywhere else.

i suppose you have to really research your patch.

[CheesyDibbles]

Phlebas I stormed into that school, past the policeman on the door and demanded to speak to the offender! I don't know what he made of being ticked off by a heavily pregnant woman .

[christinarossetti]

YY to researching your patch anywhere.

I travel all over the UK for work and there are definitely some 'small towns' that I feel comfortable in and warm towards and some that make my skin itch and I feel slightly panicky if the train going home is delayed!