I hate Surrey

[BettyBeer]

Is that unreasonable? I properly hate it.
I don't live there but most of my family do. Everyone seems to be obsessed with property prices, extensions and who's in the best bloody school! I even went to a cafe away from my family and the two tables close to us were discussing house prices and where the best catholic schools were.

Sorry if you live there but it just all seems to be greedy, self important twats. Am I wrong to make a sweeping statement about so many people? probably

It’s a big county and very varied - I think the OP must be talking about particular pockets. I lived in Surrey for part of my childhood - my mother was very unhappy there, loathed what she called the ‘Surreyites’ , of what used to be the ‘gin and jag’ set, all surface show and shallow values. But that was her snobbery in action - she was happier when we moved to the sort of mileiu she had been brought up in, deeper country, old landed county families.

I live in London but Surrey still feels like home when I visit my sister in one of those expensive commuter villages - the woodlands, the tall red chimney stacks. There are so many beautiful areas and publicly accessible walks. A of the towns are more congested now and lots of identikit new build developments and infill but that can be said about many places.

I now live in Brighton so feel free to make generalisations about it

Nah, making generalisations about millions of people based on your own personal prejudice is naff, so I won’t bother, thanks.

I cannot believe you are condemning the whole population of one County on the basis of how your family behaves!

I have lived there. It's not just my family

I’m in Sussex and it can be very similar here. Many people have stayed here their whole lives which can increase the sense of an inward-looking place (I grew up in a city). Certainly Guildford and places like it have very visible privilege and I don’t much enjoy spending time there.

I believe there are those sort of communities everywhere - my husband and I call it the patio and car discussion groups - but they are more obvious where there is proportionally more wealth so you notice it more in areas in the SE where more money is concentrated.

Betty - have you lived in every part of Surrey - or even visited every part of Surrey? Living in one town is not representative of the whole area.

Seeline - I lived there for 18 years and managed to get about a bit, I actually think it is much worse now than when I lived there.

My DSister lives in a perfectly lovely house in an expensive village in Surrey, one of the richest counties in one of the richest countries in the world, yet she is constantly comparing herself to her friends who have more and is unhappy. She can't afford to get an extension and her BMW is 7 years old . This is actually what she talks moans about.

From the outside looking in it is just ridiculous, she has never lived anywhere except there and so I just think she is stuck in this bubble of wanting to keep up with the Jones'

I grew up in Surrey. I really really don’t like it.

I’m in sunny Sussex now and have been for about 17 years. I have no intention of leaving.

Brighton...Pah...
Can't stand Brighton, full of wannabe hippies, trying too hard to be trendy and cool. Whilst secretly trying to move up the housing ladder & send their kids to a better school.
Don't get me started on the filthy beach & overt drug & alcohol use.

It has a spectacularly incompetent council, particularly in relation to its provision for vulnerable children and families. Three, or is four, failed Ofsteds is nothing to be proud of.

I live in Surrey, and I love it! Good transport links into London, good jobs, nice little villages to go to. I do think there are some people you could be right about, but that's the same everywhere and making a sweeping statement based on your sister is a bit unfair!
I also think one of the main reasons people discuss housing prices is because they are so high. I know that DH and I discuss it quite a lot as I would like to move but no chance of that with the way prices have gone up!
Also, I was another Reigate park drinking teenager!

It's a fairly sweeping, generalistic statement because Surrey is a big place. I quite like the place my Aunt and Uncle live (Camberley) but I loathe Croydon. Another aunt moved away from there fairly recently and I was glad not to have to go there again!

My MIL lives in Weybridge: I recognise the type of people you describe certainly, used to encounter them in North London when I lived there and I know a fair few people in St Albans who seem to solely discuss house prices, school places and the like. Think it’s a wealthy middle class thing, rather than an area thing. Where I am in East London people can happily move onto those subjects if they feel they’re in the right company. People discuss what’s relevant to them.

But OP, if you've travelled as extensively as you say then it sounds like you've also had a very privileged life. Not that there's anything wrong with that - I have as well, in many ways - but in that case it seems a bit unjustified to effectively complain about how middle class other people are. Choosing to spend your money on travelling in Australia and Peru doesn't necessarily make you a better or more open-minded person than spending it on fancy cars and kitchen extensions.

I live in Surrey, was born here , went away for 10 years and came back. What’s not to like, green spaces, the river , good transport links, low crime, nice people. I love it.

I've lived in Surrey most of my life. I do recognise what you are saying and it's easy to become swept up in it. I can't park at my children's school for what of all the huge Range Rovers for mums with two kids and the obsession about schools is ridiculous, especially seeing as those around my area are all pretty much fantastic schools with so much privilege and hardly any behavioural and social problems, yet the minute little Hugo isn't reading as quickly as he should be in his first term in Year R, he's whipped out and put into private school like he's been mixing in the ghetto for a few weeks!

I agree with the poster who says much of the obsession comes from people who have moved down from London. There is definitely an 'ex-Wimbledon' crowd who sold their £1m Victorian terrace to buy a 'country pile' in Surrey when they had children and are fixated on schools and property.

It's a beautiful place though, and not all of us are Joules wearing, Range Rover driving, greedy twats!

So why blame an entire County for your sister's feelings?

I live in Surrey in a not posh part and this morning had to drop DC in a part of Surrey I consider to be v up its own arse and had already had to flip the bird at another driver by 8am. (I was in wrong as I nearly pulled out in front of him on dodgy blind corner, I apologised profusely but he kept on and on at me, so I flipped the bird in the end - classy I know ).

So, YANBU and YABU. DC most definitely not at private school, we don't have a holiday every year. My friends are lovely and normal and not at all stuck up. But I fully accept that there are snobby sorts, but surely they are everywhere?

Mothers whose lives are so outsourced that they’ve done themselves out of a role apart from being chauffeur to their DC, and who drive around in 4x4s that defeat their limited driving skills, are one of the banes of commuterland. Surrey is full of them.

FWIW, the man I had an altercation with was actually in a Range Rover!

Can you imagine if someone started a thread saying"I hate Yorkshire" or "Devon is horrible - it's all full of yokels"! But Surrey seems to be fair game and it does get a bit tedious after a while for those of us who are Surrey born and bred, went to state schools, don't live in a fifteen bed mansion (like everyone else in Surrey, apparently) and don't have a new car every six months. And funnily enough, there are plenty of us, just getting on with our lives.

Despite all your travel, OP, you need to get out more - and stop going to see your sister. You cannot make such generalisations, you really can't. But I think you know that and are just being goady.

But thanks for calling me a greedy, self important twat. I really needed that this morning.

I live in Surrey (and drive a jag and eat popcorn) I kind of get what you mean re property but doesn’t everyone worry and talk about schools? In Surrey schools are mostly full and they often separate infant from juniors school so School applications cause quite a lot of stress and discussion.

Our local park offers bandstand music every weekend that draws crowds, I find that very Surrey, people bring olives and champagne, I plan to out Surrey them by taking gigs and oysters next week.

I live in Surrey. I know some people guilty of the snobbery but there are a lot of places in Surrey very much the opposite.

As others have said there are places like this everywhere. Think of those reality tv shows "Real housewives of wherever" where it's all about materials and who has the biggest house / newest car.

I

Agree with PP about Brighton.

It's all just dog shit and shops selling skull rings.

Lots of people call it the gin and jag belt..

I grew up in a Berkshire village on the Thames. It was very much local then, with families who had lived there for generations and had a great community feel. But the people who grew up there can’t afford to live there now - the standard cottages now go for ££££, and George and Amal Clooney and Theresa May now live there. My mother sold up a few years ago - sold our house and land to a developer, who built nasty executive homes there, and the village is full of commuters. It’s quite different from the place I grew up. My mother moved out of the village, after my father died, as there was no-one there that she knew any more. I think that parts of Surrey have probably gone the same way.