To think there's no identity in the south east?

[catsarenice]

This is inspired from lots of other threads that crop up but mainly the scone and santa ones!! People from certain regions/counties seem to really have their own identities and pronunciations etc. I am from the south east and can never say 'we pronounce it as .... where I live'. I know people that say 'scon' and others that say 'scoan', some say 'Santa' some say 'Father Christmas'. I also couldn't tell you if someone was from Sussex, Hampshire, Kent, Essex or London (unless they're on Towie or Eastenders!!!). However, there seems to be real identity 'up north' and distinction with accents e.g. specific towns/cities within a county such as Sheffield and Leeds. Is this because people move around more down here? Don't even call our bread rolls the same thing as each other around here!!! So AIBU to think this is correct?

Think I may have cracked your secret identity now Mrs S or should I say Elizabeth

Really @FenceSitter01 that's quite impressive! DF was from Maidstone and people always thought he from London - even Londoners!!!

So sorry @Dawnedlightly - I had completely forgotten my fondest childhood memories of playing stoolball.

I do think that a lot of the SE around London has got like this - certainly I feel little loyalty to the home county I live in, and we don't know anyone close round here, our whole lives are in London really, it's just cheaper and nicer to come home here.

I think the accent thing is a shame, I grew up in a bit of the north where the accent was different in towns five miles apart, but then mine is watered down and almost gone now too, I just sound generically middle class London.

But I do know people who grew up in eg Sussex and feel very strongly about that being part of their identity and that they're a "real" Eastbourne girl, etc, so I think there's still some there.

The melting pot nature of the South East post-WWII has erased a lot of local identities.

My MIL comes from a tiny village in Oxfordshire. Through her father's side, her family have lived in the village for generations working as farm labourers and the like. None of the family live there now and the average rural workers were priced out long ago. I suspect MIL will be one of the last people from the village to speak with a local accent as most people there now are incomers from somewhere else.

The nearest big town has grown in population nearly eightfold since the war. It's impossible to sustain any kind of traditional local identity when most people have come from outside the town within the last couple of generations.

Yes I agree op. DH and I are both from different parts of the SE but both feel very samey - I do like where we live having said that.

I never understand the 'pride' people seem to have when they say they come from Newcastle, or Manchester, etc. I choose those two examples as I have friends from both places and they do get excited about any reference to where they come from - there is also a definite sense of comradary when they see other people from 'home', which I just don't have

I also couldn't tell you if someone was from Sussex, Hampshire, Kent, Essex

I grew up in south west Hampshire and the local accent is kind of like a soft West Country accent. I also have relatives in Essex and can tell you that a proper Essex accent is distinct from a London accent. In fact I would also suggest that the London-Essex (eg Romford) accent that most people assume is an Essex accent is probably becoming the remains of the old London accent as the modern London accent is now being influenced by migrant populations.

Perhaps the south east has lost some of it's identity because of migration to the area both from within the UK and from overseas?

Having said that I really don't think that people who live in Southampton or Chichester identify themselves with people who live in Colchester or Hertford any more than people who live in Carlisle identify themselves with people who live in Newcastle.

I've lived in the South East for 49 years. DH's family are all from Northern counties. The oddest thing I've found is my utter indifference to the notion of regional identity compared to them.

I really like where I live, but it simply wouldn't occur to me to refer to myself in a proud, almost reverential tone that I'm a Kentishwoman, as DH's uncles do about being Yorkshiremen. I've heard Northern friends refer to their counties as God's country without a hint of irony. They seem to almost itch whilst in London.

I wonder it the South East's geographical proximity to other countries, the ease with which we could go to those countries (before more regional airports got more extensive routes) and the mix of nationalities make us more likely to look outward rather than inward?

catsarenice it's all in the speech inflection - eg My Fair Lady / Peer Gynt. There will be odd emphasis on vowels etc that are barely audible.

When I was at school in S England I had a different accent/vocabulary to people living half a mile away.

I can't pick up the differing accents at all - I tend to split it into posh and not posh!!!

I was born and raised all over Surrey. I went to school in Woking. When I left all of my friends from the posh villages the other side of Guildford claimed I have a distinctive Woking accent. I find that hard to believe because there are a lot of famous people from Woking and they sound different from each other!

My mum is from Epsom and my dad is from Croydon and they're very different so I have always thought of my accent as being a mixture. I live abroad and people do ask me what part of the home counties I'm from.

I liked Surrey and I am proud to be from there I just wish we could afford to live there. I doubt anyone else who lives there feels like me though. Most people take it for granted.

barbarian & mrss am in Berkshire too, not far from Windsor.

Op agree re SE identity but think a lot of that is to do with moving around, I wasn't born here. Although the place I identify with the most I wasn't born in either, but it was where I grew up / formative years.

There used to be more distinct regional accents - certainly the original south-west Surrey accent was more what we would think of West Country now. The coming of the railways and the beginning of the commute/exodus to/from London started the change in character. Gertrude Jekyll wrote a book about old south west Surrey customs and expressions she felt were starting to be lost. My grandparents still had a distinct accent (not posh or generic estuary) but you don't hear people speak like that any more.

The mobility of the population is a big factor in creating a more generic accent.

I think there are parts of the South East outside London where there is a local identity- parts of Kent and Brighton come to mind.

I was brought up in Northants. I moved to London 20 years ago and married a Londoner. When I looked into his family history, both sides had been in Camberwell and surrounding areas for about 200 years. He takes the mick out of my accent and quite often I have to ask him to translate something he's said to me. He has a long sense of culture too. Cold roast taytas for tea on a Sunday, jam on leftovers Yorkshire puddings, bubble and squeak on Boxing Day, and you are still taken to be buried by horse and cart. No-One goes to church, absolutely nobody. At parties in the pub, most of the expense is on the whip behind the bar, and you NEVER let people get thirsty or hungry. My parents once kept to one plate of food and two drinks the whole evening and were seen as aliens! You never grass, even if you know something, and the black market is a way of topping up your main income. East Street for fruit and veg, Baldwins for your cure-all and Sarsparilla, 176 bus to West End. You've seen Danny Baker's Cradle to Grave? That. It's very different to where I come from.

Heathen - my Mum's family are from London and just like your DH's, particularly the boozing and no-one going hungry.

East Street (my Nan used to call it East Lane) has changed a lot in recent years. There used to be a lot of traders up from Kent with local produce, but they've all gone now. The shellfish man is still there though. And there is a lot less fruit and veg.

You can also get the 12 to the West End.

You've obviously never been to Brighton.

I identify with a lot of what you've said about people from Camberwell. We used to have Sarsaparilla (which I thought was an American thing as my grandad was American) but obviously it's a Camberwell thing. It was East Lane to us too. And we used to go to the pie and mash shop and have bright green liquor.

In Cookham we say scon, definitely not scone. Brought up in Maidenhead and lived here for a long time

For the avoidance of doubt, my family are generations of Windsorians and they are "scon" not scone

My partner's family are from Kent, and the more I spend time with them the more I can hear quite delicate,but never the less, quite distinct 'Kentish' sounds. It's fascinating to me.

In north Hertfordshire, there are definitely two Stevenage accents - one is the 'old' local accent and the other the new-town one heavily influenced by incomers from when the new town was built some decades ago and people moved in from north London and Essex. It is now very recognisable in its own right (I grew up there).
They are completely different and the old town accent is distinctly rural. You don't hear it much these days now most of the old folks have gone.

Football supporters of local teams from the SE are very proud of where they are from. And people from one town here are very defensive that they are from this town not the town 2 miles away. And very sure of what side of the county border they live on.

My mum comes from Essex, and my relatives on that side of the family have a definite Essex accent. It's nothing like the TOWIE Essex. The TOWIE accent comes from all the East Londoners who moved there.
My mum had to lose her accent when she moved to London and worked at a telephone exchange. She had to use RP, although she never sounded too "plummy". She did always tell me to speak properly when I dropped my Hs or Ts! But the Sarf London accent is still there when I talk.

I think with the SE being so close to mainland Europe, as well as the capital city being there, it is a melting pot that has diluted the county accents.