To think people are generally happier in the South of England than the North?

[TigerPath]

I've lived most of my life in the North... major cities like Manchester and Leeds, pretty Lake District towns and villages, Harrogate, York, a small town in the Dales etc... I've moved around a lot.

A few months ago we moved to the South Coast. I've noticed the people here seem so happy! They are friendly and smiley. They ask me if I need directions when I look lost, without me even approaching! They bend over backwards to help and just seem so content and positive. This includes nursery managers, Tesco staff, estate agents, taxi drivers, waitresses in pubs etc.

It's much sunnier here, in fact so bright I feel disorientated at times. The town is full of flowering trees and bushes and blossom- every street looks like a beautiful park! So maybe it's the climate. I'm used to rain and drizzle and cloud.

What do others think?

[Dolly80]

AgathaF that's really tickled me. I can envisage all the Midlanders with a rota "what day is it? Are we happy or miserable today"

[Yukduck]

I will let you know in a few years when dh and I retire. We can't wait to tour the UK discovering all the places we have longed to see from one end of the country to the other and stay in B&B's. The warmth and welcome of the locals is a big part of how much you enjoy the areas.

We live on the South coast. People are very friendly if you have a dog or small children but you only ever get to exchange information on the dogs or babies in the brief conversations!

Northerners have a reputation of being warm and friendly and we are looking forward to finding out!

[Highsteaks]

Do people really notice a difference in personality between north and south? I have found there are lovely people and right cunts from every corner of the UK.

However, I remember going up to Liverpool for a party and getting in a taxi. The driver kept going on and on about how horrible southerners are and how he always find them much more aggressive and miserable than northerners (and especially Scousers of course). He kept going on and on about it and getting more and more goady obviously in the hope.of getting a rise out of us and proving his point. We of course maintained our characteristic Southern dignity

I know he is just one bloke, but whaddadick.

[LarrytheCucumber]

Most miserable people I have met was when we lived in Birmingham.

[limitedperiodonly]

I have made literally thousands of journeys on public transport and can count on the fingers of one hand the occasions when I've seen a pregnant woman or an elderly person not be offered a seat.

MissHooliesCardigan people used to leap up to offer my 90 year old mum a seat on the tube and were visibly disappointed if she said she was only going a few stops and it was easier to stand. Other passengers would then create a protective cordon around her in case she got jostled

[limitedperiodonly]

Did you tip him Highsteaks?

[x2boys]

i,m in the northwest bolton to be precise the weather has been lovely of late lifes ok here i,m not unhappy neither do i make sweeping generalisations.

[Shirkingfromhome]

Maybe you caught them on one of their miserable days Larry?

[LarrytheCucumber]

We lived there for seven months! I am happy to accept that we were just unlucky, but we couldn't wait to move.

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

Stereotypes run deep with the North/South thing - my sister came to visit Yorkshire and was genuinely shocked to see countryside. "Where are all the factories?" she asked, "I didn't realise it was so green" She'd also packed heavy winter wear for the middle of summer because she'd expected it to be at least 10 degrees colder. She'd only travelled 150 miles but apparently had expected to visit a 1960s mining town in deep snow.

[MissHooliesCardigan]

OneFlew When the DCs' cousins visited from Wales, they were genuinely shocked that we have trees and grass and birds in London.

[PartyShitter]

Can I ask where OP lives? Not an exact address for stalking purposes, of course.

I've lived in a few northern cities and have family in Surrey & kent. It's a mixed bag wherever you are and whichever particular place you visit, for example Liverpool has never been anything but incredibly warm and friendly to me but when I visited a small pub in Manchester it felt incredibly hostile and a group of chaps actually said 'go back to where you came from' (which is the north west, actually).
When I visit family in the south it does feel like a holiday. The weather is most definitely better, Kent has a much better microclimate than anywhere up north. The people are as equally a mixed bag as up north though and I think the more touristy areas tend to have friendlier ppl than if, for example, you visited a local pub in a town where you might feel like a bit of an outsider.

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

No, sorry MissHoolies - I refuse to believe there's anything green or natural within the M25.

Ah the joys of having cousins from different regions - I remember meeting up with my Cornish cousins and spending most of the afternoon debating who spoke "normal" and who had a weird accent.

[parmalilac]

I'm a northerner, lived in the north, south, and Scotland, and find northerners are definitely the friendliest overall. It would be unusual to go to a shop or wait for a bus or whatever, without some friendly chat from random strangers. Lovely, and I miss it, not the same in Scotland either.

[FutureGadgetsLab]

Do people really notice a difference in personality between north and south? I have found there are lovely people and right cunts from every corner of the UK.

True but I do notice cultural differences between northerners and southerners.

[DailyMaui]

I come from Scotland but haven't lived there since I was ten when we moved to London. It always used to hit me how much friendlier people were when I went back "home" to see my grandparents. In fact, where we lived in London, people were downright unfriendly to us and we were told on many occasions to go back home. I do think that has changed now and London is so cosmopolitan that that kind of open abuse to northerners is rarely seen.

I live in a small town in the south east and it is very friendly and my favourite place I've lived. People here are just lovely, honest.

London can be really different from one place to the next - it is made up of so many areas, that you can walk for ten minutes and have a totally new experience. For what it's worth I've lived in Ladbroke Grove, Wapping, Kew, Shoreditch, Elephant & Castle, Southwark near Tower Bridge, Green Lanes... All areas of London with their own charms and negatives. With the exception of my childhood experience, the unfriendliest place, for me, was Kew: which was the greenest and prettiest but which had some of the most snobby and downright rude people I've ever met.

I think London commuters are really unfriendly and I have to deal with them daily - that can knock any sunny disposition. But then dealing with the shitty train service down here can turn you into a snarling beast!