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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to ask if it's grim moving up north

316 replies

Eugenekrabs1 · 29/08/2015 20:24

I am from the south (England) and have lived here for most of my life. DH is from the north but has lived in the south for many years. We have children who are school age.

Circumstances have changed for us recently and because of this, we are considering a move to H's northern homeland. I'm wondering what other people's experiences of moving their family have been like.

H has friends and family there whereas I (although being welcomed by them) will not have any friends and will need to find a new job. Our kids are not keen to move.

In short, we don't have to move but there are lots of pros to us taking the leap. At the moment I have a list of pros and cons which I will proceed to bore you with....

Pros
Bigger house with little mortgage
Job change for me (something I want)
DH is close to friends and family - lovely for him
Can get a dog (all want one, current house small)

Cons
Taking kids out of schools they are happy in. They will have to make new friends.
Once we sell in the south it is unlikely we will be able to afford to return
No friends/family close to me
Leaving an area I like (but a house that's too small and expensive to extend)
Rain up north

I'd be grateful to hear any tales of similar moves. Is it grim up north or should I just stop being risk averse and make the move?

OP posts:

GoldPlatedShitGibbon · 30/08/2015 12:54

You should definitely prioritise moving somewhere nice over being in exactly the same location as your DH's relatives. Is there a town/village nearby where you'd feel happier? Life's too short to live somewhere ugly. I've lived in Stoke.

juneau · 30/08/2015 12:55

The north of England is lovely and so much less crowded than the SE, where we live. Those open spaces and rolling hills - just gorgeous. OP do you HAVE to move to little place where your DH is from, if you don't particularly like it? How about your compromise and move within x miles of there, or one hour of there? I think if I was going to make such a big move I'd need to be excited about the city/town/area I was moving to. I don't think I could trade a small house in one place for a bigger house in a so-so town. Aim a bit higher and maybe you'll feel more positive about the move.

Shockers · 30/08/2015 13:04

Bit uneducated?!

I've just had a fabulous cycle through deserted country lanes with my two teens OP. Completely free and not a drop of rain in sight .

DurhamDurham · 30/08/2015 13:10

Undereducated?

I'll have to quickly tell my youngest who is off to Uni that as she's been educated in the North for the last eight years she's probably not up to it.

When we moved back to Durham both girls got in to schools which had 'better' results than where they'd been to down South. I find sweeping generalisations very unhelpful.......there are good and bad schools all over the country.

goblinhat · 30/08/2015 13:12

We are not uneducated!!

There are several people in my town that can even read.

Oliversmumsarmy · 30/08/2015 13:15

I left Manchester 35 years ago and would never ever ever go back. Dh has family up there and I stopped returning about 12 years ago because it was making me depressed. I left a large 3 bedroom semi in a good area to live in a grotty studio flat in a seedy area of London and could not have been happier.

The black cloud that you can see as you head up the M6 as you get just north of Stafford stays with you untill you are greeted by the sunshine on your return.

Manchester is damp. That is why the cotton and silk trade flourished there in the last centuries as you need a damp atmosphere to stop the threads from sticking together. The clouds coming in have to disperse their water over Manchester in order for them to get over the Pennines.

Growing up in Manchester was depressing. My dc have grown up in London and love it. They are used to going to a country pub on a Sunday and coming in and sitting with us. Part of the reasons we don't go to visit family anymore is that even on a Sunday you cannot take your dc into a pub. It is not very child friendly compared to London.

Also be careful about everyone being friendly. It can get to the point of being unable to walk down the road without someone making a comment.

How old are your dc? If they are in their teens I doubt they will thank you for it and in a few years time they will be back down in London and you won't see them again.

As a fellow Mancunian who lives in London said to me once "I would rather put pins in my eyes than return to live there"

Snoozebox · 30/08/2015 13:27

Shocked that no one has mentioned the softer water yet!

Manchester is not grim. And I say that as someone who moved away from there.

The wetter weather is made up for the fact the air is just so much more fresh. Think it benefits from more winds off the Atlantic, rather than whatever crappy smog we get in the South, or something.

Snoozebox · 30/08/2015 13:32

Tbh the main reason I like visiting people up a North is because more people tend to tell you what is on their mind a lot more, which I find a lot more relaxing and entertaining, though it depends n your personality. As PP have said, for a more reticent person, they may find it intrusive or take straightforward comments as an affront.

NoMoreRenting · 30/08/2015 13:43

Oliversmumsarmy, Manchester probably was grim when you lived up here but that's a massive generalisation these days. Of course there are deprived areas but surely the same can be said for London. It doesn't make me suggest that all of London is the same. Where I live, in Wilmslow, it is neither grim nor deprived. As I said earlier, we have lived all around the SE (commuter belt rather than in London) and none of those places offered what we have now. Most of our local state primaries are graded outstanding as is the secondary school. More excellent independent schools that you can shake a stick at and a large, vibrant city centre on the doorstep.

It's true, it can be damp although I notice this more north of the city than south of it. Sure we get rain but dh is from Glasgow so well used to that. I'm from the South myself and I cant say I notice it bring much wetter that where I grew up. We moved our young boys up from Guildford and it's the best thing we ever did for them.

MetallicBeige · 30/08/2015 13:44

Distributes emergency parmos to Q and Rocker.

I feel for our uncultured, uneducated and unable to go into a pub (since when??) children. There are plenty of museums and culturally enriching things to do in the area, just because they aren't in London and more spread out, it doesn't mean they are somehow of less value or less educational.

The one thing that sticks out with some posters on this thread is the deeply ingrained notion that people are by accident of birth all of the above, somehow a bit...lacking in comparison to people born in the south?
Some of the comments are priceless and I doubt the people making them would even consider the generalisations that they are making to be insulting, but they are.
I always assumed that it was a lazy stereotype - the northern caricature, but it is alive and kicking amongst some.

Floisme · 30/08/2015 13:50

Yes it's grim. Now bugger off.

Shockers · 30/08/2015 13:53

NoMoreRenting · 30/08/2015 13:55

Yes, I'm getting too seriously caught up in other people's ridiculous stereotypes.
I think it's because I'm a Southerner! I I remember the pitying looks we got many years ago when I told friends and family that dh's job was relocating. Some genuinely feared for our safety and that of our boys.

MultiShirker · 30/08/2015 13:56

Yes.

I find this hilarious. There are far more well-educated cultured professionals in the North than the lower middle classes of the SE could even imagine. The Universities of Durham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, & St Andrews are ancient ones, while Manchester, York, and Lancaster outdo most of those in the south.

Manchester Library was the first free public library in the country. The Walker Gallery in Liverpool has an extraordinary collection of 19C art; ditto the Manchester City Art Gallery.

Saltaire and Port Sunlight are the sites of some of the most utopian and original experiments in urban living in the country, on which many later public housing estates were based (eg Bournville).

I could go on ...

But I think we should all just keep quiet about it. I don't want townie southerners coming here & messing it all up.

RockerMummy184 · 30/08/2015 13:59

Distributes emergency parmos toQandRocker.

Love this! and also has to go down as another deciding factor when assessing the move. Where else in the country could you get such a delight?!

Jemimapuddleduk · 30/08/2015 14:09

I live in one of the North Manchester old mill towns that gets constantly slated on mumsnet (by people who mostly have never even visited to be honest). I bloody love it. There is lots of open countryside near by and I have made loads of new, like minded friends. I find it super friendly and welcoming. I work in Manchester and have a night out there once a month or so. It's an amazing city that is constantly developing and improving. The choice of restaurants and bars is amazing.

MultiShirker · 30/08/2015 14:10

Great hits of Northern food

The best & the greatest in a class of their own: Seabrooks crisps

Morecambe Bay shrimps
Eccles cakes
Lune River salmon
Ribblesdale cheese
Fish & chips in Leeds
Chinese in Manchester

And of course Manchester curry

I remember when Greggs was Birketts ...

redshoeblueshoe · 30/08/2015 14:14

Born in London - living in Manchester - I would rather poke pins in my eyes than move back down south.

No children in pubs

Uneducated

monkeysox · 30/08/2015 14:19

Too much of a generalisation lulu.

Marton linthorpe and Acklam are all nice too. Nunthorpe is part Middlesbrough part Redcar and Cleveland councils. Even the village proper has its bins collected by Middlesbrough council.

Have you been to mima or Southfleet Road or to the university or Stewart Park.

Stokesley is not part of Middlesbrough.

Middlesborough isn't a city either.

Yes there are some areas I wouldn't wish to live in but your comments were wrong.

monkeysox · 30/08/2015 14:26

A friend of mine went to Cambridge uni. She has a strong geordie accent another student actually said that she thought all northerners were thick. Ffs.

Pastamancer · 30/08/2015 14:28

Manchester is lovely, I have family there so we went there every year. We would usually be there for a week and I have to say that it hardly ever rained when we were there. Normally the weather in Manchester would be better than here in Cornwall. A major bonus to the north though is being able to hear those gorgeous accents all the time. They also know how to pronounce vowels properly like us, it seems to be just the SE that says barth, grarss etc.

QforCucumber · 30/08/2015 14:37

At least there are some here sticking up for our little town - I grew up in great ayton and now live in marton, living in middlesbrough town centre as a student for a while. Though I wouldn't choose to live in the centre now as a grown up the 3 years I was there (literally slap bang in the middle of it) was great, the rental wasn't looked after but the neighbours were wonderful and now southfield road has been pedestrianised and the new uni buildings it really looks like a comparison to the leeds, york and manchester campus'.

UTB hahaha

RockerMummy184 · 30/08/2015 14:39

MultiShirker Fish & Chips in Leeds? Noooooo, Fish & Chips in Whitby!!

monkeysox · 30/08/2015 14:46

Yes rocker Whitby for fish and chips. Although there is an excellent take away in in great Ayton

RockerMummy184 · 30/08/2015 14:50

Oh monkey I can't get past a Petch Pie and a Suggitts from Ayton! Might have to branch out next time I'm there though.

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