To want to knock sense into family over local area....

[woolythoughts]

I grew up in a city well known for jokes about stealing car wheels etc. I always felt as though I didn’t fit in and left as soon as I could. I couldn’t deal with the chip on shoulder attitude of a lot of residents - we’d be such a great city again if it wasn’t for or near neighbour city sucking everything up.

My family still live there so I come back and visit regularly. When I point out that:

1. Every supermarket I’ve been in won’t take the security tag off at the self service until you’ve actually paid is something I’ve only see here - most other places will do it after they’ve approved it or as you are scanning

1. A lot of the local petroleum stations and convenience stores won’t take contactless due to fraud

1. Virtually every petrol station limits fuelling to 50 litres - you have to pay then go back and filll the rest of the tank!

There are many other small things which when added together don’t make for a good environment.

I point this out and I get told everywhere is like this these days.

No it isn’t !

It’s only to be expected a

No it isn’t!

But god forbid I suggest there is actually a problem and I get told not to slag off my home town.

I guess the reason I’m angry is we came up in a new car this weekend which promptly got keyed when parked up.

Family are obviously sympathetic but in general there is a view that what do you expect driving a car like that here and if you can afford said car you can afford to fix it.

Hat sort of attitude is prevalent and I’ve hated it since I was old enough to realise it existed!

I just want to shake the family and make them realise it’s not like that everywhere!

Oh and I've never known, after living close by for a long time, anyone have a chip on their shoulder about a 'neighbouring city sucking everything up'. I assume you mean Manchester?
Bootle has had lots of investment - both capital and into services/incentices/projects etc and had you already left when Liverpool was capital of culture?
Lots going on that doesn't happen in Manchester.
I've heard being being upset when they get tarred with the 'scouser =theif' or 'hilarious' jokes about that but not anything else

Could be worse. Could be from somewhere where the stereotype is interbreeding and webbed feet.

I left not long after the Liverpool post wrote an article which said st the end the problem with Liverpool is the people with the get up and go have got up and gone.

Really? You’ve never come across anyone with a Manchester sized chip on their shoulder?

I admit the city has improved massively in the last 20 years 8 just can’t understand the defending of stuff that shouldn’t need to be defended!

Every supermarket I’ve been in won’t take the security tag off at the self service until you’ve actually paid is something I’ve only see here

normal in London!

A lot of the local petroleum stations and convenience stores won’t take contactless due to fraud

and we refuse to own contactless, due to fraud....

I'm sorry your car was keyed, but that happens everywhere.

All the things you mention happen in my home city, London, but I still love it, and wouldn't bad mouth it, nor want to hear anyone else bad mouthing it.

I expect they're a bit tired of you running it down. Why would you do that?

My df has a thing that we must be living in a den of iniquity. Probably surrounded by rabid terrorists. London, you see is nearly entirely populated with them and we're living down south.

I get very tired of all the barbed comments about how expensive/crime ridden/ everything else is wrong the area is.

Yes, housing is expensive, as btw is petrol. But actually when he compares other costs we're often comparable-things like he was saying our roofing bill was double what he'd paid, but then it turned out he had not had half what we'd done.
But we live in one of the areas with least crime in the country, their village is a bit of a hot spot in a not brilliant area so even the things which you can compare factually are wrong, let alone some of his strange ideas.

Yes, I can except he doesn't want to live here-I wouldn't want to move back up north in most ways even before we get into practical reasons like jobs. But I do find the sniping about the area unpleasant.

I knew you meant Bootle when you posted. It's a really poor and deprived area with a lot of problems with drugs and gang activity. There have been several shootings over the summer. I work with offenders and often see the same people year after year. It's been neglected a lot by the council, but there are changes coming along slowly. There are a few longstanding street communities in the area fighting for change.

Maybe they are just fucked off with your continual 'holier than thou,' ""you live in a shit hole and are too stupid to leave why cant you be as clever as me?" monologuing?

I am sure they dread look forward to your visits

I know the area - there was a shooting in Bootle just tonight actually. :( Don't all cities have their rough bits, though? You take the good with the bad. Liverpool itself is nice overall, imo.

So just don't go there if you don't like it.

What on earth are you hoping to achieve by 'knocking some sense into them'? Do you want them to see their area the same way you do? To what end? What will that achieve, apart from validating your decision to move away?

If someone spoke to me about my area the way it sounds like you speak to your family, I'd be defensive too. I'm not surprised they're denying it, you must see that that's the result of your attitude - regardless say is true or not.

This post has put the shits up me!! Left Liverpool ( Walton) 25 years ago and have only been back once, we're driving up this Friday for 4 days in our lovely car that is my husband's pride and joy! We are taking our 4dc, but in all honesty I think they'd collapse if they were faced with any of these things!!

@sarahjaneg don't be worried - I live not far from Walton & haven't experienced any of this :-)

Everywhere has bad and everywhere has good.

I love living here and am proud of my city x

What are you doing swanning back home and knocking it like that??

I come from similar...and left. I would NEVER go back and say things like you've been doing.

It's utterly classless and rude.

The problem is, if they admitted that you were right, that would just leave them having to live in a place which they now realised was terrifying! If it allows them to sleep at night, I'd leave them to their delusions.

I live in a place where locking your car is considered slightly paranoid behaviour, so most towns are frightening to me, but I wouldn't try to convince my town-dwelling relatives that they live in a warzone, even if it feels that way to me.

And it's not your "home town" any more. You left. That means you lose the right to take the piss out of it.

I guessed bootle from the OP and I have no idea why. I don’t even live in England.

Anyway OP, why do you keep mentioning these things to your family? They can’t Change those things! You’re just pointless whining. That must piss them right off.

I guessed Liverpool straight away, I'm over the water - Wirral.

You sound like you think you're better than everyone else @woolythoughts

It's a really shitty thing to do, my brother and his wife do it, they only moved 4 miles out of our hometown and constantly make digs about where we live. Everywhere has its problems.
It's just shitty and unnecessary to continually go on about them especially if you don't have to live there.

That's good to hear, I grew up in Liverpool
and was always proud of my roots, it's just that where we live now is so so different, my kids just aren't streetwise because they don't need to be, and I worry I've lost that too!

Never been there. Maybe it is shit. Maybe it is your home town.

But you got out and don't have to put up with it on a daily basis. You visit for, what, a few days? Then you 'swan off' to somewhere much nicer.

What are you trying to achieve by getting them to admit they live somewhere dreadful? Do you want them to feel bad about their life choices?

In your family’s shoes, I’d be pretty irritated to have someone who left attempting to make family members who stayed ‘admit’ they are living in a crime-ridden dump, and that you were therefore right to get up and go, and they are sluggish losers for staying put.

Are you insecure about something that you are harping on this?

From Liverpool too....moved 16 years ago!!!
Where I live you can actually touch the wine in an off licence it's not barracaded by plastic!
You don't need to put a £1 in your trolley...
Liverpool is a wonderful place but I just didn't want to bring up my children there. They grow up too quickly.
I love to visit but it's just not the place for me.....
I lost any passion for the place when Anthony Walker was killed!

I have lived in places that are crime ridden where people say...but that happens everywhere. No it doesn't. But it is a defence mechanism. Few people can be happy living somewhere they know is not that great when they have no choice.

""I lost any passion for the place when Anthony Walker was killed!""

Anthony Walker was killed in Knowsley. It's not Liverpool.

I hate what Ian Brady and Myra Hindley did, but it doesn't put me off Yorkshire.

OP, do you mean that you didn't fit in with the part of Bootle that your Family came from, or Liverpool? Bootle is in Sefton, again that's not Liverpool.

Liverpool has been hardest hit by the Cuts and has a large influx of refugees/asylum seekers. That coupled with a lack of investment in employment, means that there is going to be social issues in some areas.

But Liverpool is so diverse, there is no way that anyone could make the statement that they left because they didn't fit in.