Is "having my tea" a northern thing?

[Queenoftheblitz]

I'm a working class southerner. The only tea I have is in a cup with milk and sugar.
On mn a lot of posts talk about their evening meal as"tea", "what shall i make for tea" etc.
Do any southeners call it tea?

Supper is cornflakes after your tea

I’m in Scotland. If the evening meal in question is to be eaten early/is very simple fare or eaten only by the children, I might call it ‘tea’ . If it’s later, a fancy meal, or accompanied by wine, it’s certainly dinner. In Scotland ‘supper’ is a light snack before bed. I thought only posh southerners call dinner ‘supper’. Maybe Edinburgh folk too?...lol

Breakfast, Dinner, tea and Supper (snack before you go to bed ) . Up here (Cumbria) always has been. But if you go out for dinner you will find it will be written as Lunch menu on the menus etc suppose it sounds posher than dinner menu.

We have breakfast, lunch then dinner. Sometimes supper late evening. Glasgow area.

Breakfast, dinner and tea for me (grew up in Warwickshire). I do try and call dinner lunch and tea dinner, but it feels a bit weird. Supper feels too posh for me to say.

Another one in south West Wales. It's dinner (lunch time) tea (evening meal). I feel like I'm trying to be posh calling tea 'dinner'.

I grew up in north east England, so I'm used to calling my midday meal dinner.

However I've spent the last 8 years in the south west, so what was tea has now become dinner.

Dinner and dinner my 4 year old gets very confused.

Grandparents were working class south coast and always called it breakfast dinner and tea. DH working class Black Country, always breakfast, dinner and tea when growing up, we tend to do the same now, but hear every variation used regularly. Never met anyone who didn’t understand the terms when said in context.

It's tea here as well in the West Country. Only ever heard Londoners and posh people call it dinner

Midlands and it's breakfast, dinner and tea here. (When people say 'northern' I suppose they mean Midlanders too.)

One of my neighbours talks about supper. She'd not from these parts and we have told her supper is the meal before bed - usually milk and a biscuit.

I'm essex and not rich 😊 we're lunch and dinner

Born in London, brought up in Kent. We were dinner and tea (even though dinner was packed lunch at school).

Now it's even more confusing as I've switched to lunch and dinner (because DC called it lunch when he started school) but sometimes I slip and say lunch and tea.

Never mind, as long as I do the right meals everyone is happy no matter what they're called.

Grew up in London, but have lived in S Wales, the NE and now Yorkshire for the last 20 years.

I grew up (London) having lunch and supper.
Now I have lunch and tea.

Dinner is something we go out for, whether at midday or 7 pm.

Tea here, southerner but with northern parents. But a lot of my friends also say tea especially when referring to their kids. Do people really ask their kids friends round for a play and dinner?

To my understanding,
Breakfast is soon after rising
Brunch is a social meal late morning
Lunch is what you eat around the middle of the day
Tea is a large snack served in the afternoon. Sandwiches, cakes etc.
Dinner is a substantial evening meal
Supper is a light snack close to bedtime.

Very rare to have all of these in one day, I should hope. Imagine the calories!!

Breakfast, dinner and tea here

It was tea when I was growing up (East Anglia). I briefly lived in a flatshare with some very posh types in Chelsea and they all called it supper.

Tea here, southerner but with northern parents. But a lot of my friends also say tea especially when referring to their kids. Do people really ask their kids friends round for a play and dinner?

Tea is an early evening meal for kids - if they're eating early before the adults, come round to play and stay for tea makes sense

If it's a later meal with the adults at dinner time, then it's a friend staying for dinner

Lots of Southern people say tea not dinner. I think it depends where your roots come from.

And not just in reference to the kids.

We are northern so evening meal is generally tea but on a Sunday we have dinner as our main meal which is sometimes lunchtime but more often evening. Dd2 at about 4 years old was very confused but eventually declared ‘this isn’t dinner, there’s nooo gravy’ so now that’s the benchmark- if there’s gravy, it’s dinner

I’m in Scotland and I say lunch and dinner. Tea is a drink not a meal.

South West here and I’ve always said tea. Used to say dinner for lunch when we were at school but now it’s just lunch.

I have "afters" instead of dessert or pudding (maybe it's a S. Wales thing?)

For me tea is the traditional low tea - i.

I've heard of a high tea. How do they differ?

The price.