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!

That doesn't even happen where I am in inner city S London....

l too knew you were talking about Liverpool. I had a lovely friend who married a Liverpudlian Soldier and they moved to the Cantril farm estate. When we went to visit , it was usual practice to pay the kids of the neighbourhood to watch the car for us . I kid you not. This was in the early 80's. It's reputation was terrible even then.

YAB massively U to class Bootle as Liverpool which is what you're doing. As PP said, it's not even Liverpool council but Sefton.

Obviously I know Bootle is part of Liverpool but you are taking about it as if Bootle is representative of all Liverpool when it's quite clearly not.

It's reputation was terrible even then.

Times change you know. That was over 40 bloody years ago! Liverpool is one of the safest cities statistically for crime rates.

Much of what's been said on here is exactly my experience of my home town Bootle/Liverpool. I now live in a leafy London commuter town. I can't believe what my family consider normal and usual with regards to theft and petty crime in shops and other retail outlets.

Armoured glass in the off-licence is not normal outside of Liverpool.

Shutters on every closed shop is not normal outside of Liverpool.

More trivially, shell suits with white socks in not normal outside of Liverpool.

Having said that, the city is way, way better than it was in the late 1970s and through Thatcher's "managed decline" era on the 1980s. I've take several of my neighbours back home for weekends and they've loved the place and been amazed and how much better it is than its reputation.

N.B. Offies in some parts of Glasgow and Manchester have bullet proof glass.

I agree that the things you describe indicate that it’s not a ‘naice’ area. But it’s not exclusive to Bootle, I’ve seen similar in the Gorbals (one offie I went to when visiting family had bars across the counter with all the stock behind the bars and the owner serves you through a tiny hatch). We also had to pay cash up front for mini-cabs.

What I don’t get is why you are expecting your family to admit they live in an unpleasant place, what is it to you if they are in denial or defensive about it? You are the lucky one here, you have moved somewhere nicer, it seems snobby and inconsiderate to go on about it to them.

Full disclosure here - I grew up in one of the roughest parts of Croydon. I wouldn’t live there again ever, it was and is awful. But when family who still live there are burgled or mugged I don’t tell them ‘well, what do you expect living round here’, I commiserate, support them and privately thank god I had the opportunities and money to get out of there.

YABU and completely full of shit. Whilst it's not the best area your post is completely untrue and I can see why your family are sick of your attitude! I grew up in Tuebrook which is on a par with Bootle. I have yet to come across all these reinforcements shops on every street corner and security guards on every shop.

It's an inner city suburb it's got its problems. Just like every other inner city suburb. I felt more unsafe living in London then I ever did in Liverpool. Went to the strand at the weekend there's no reinforced glass shops in there with shops refusing to take security tags off.

I don't live there anymore I actually have a good job in a "Naice" area far away from the city. I agree I didn't want my kids growing upthere. But Jesus wept I don't go back preening it above my family / friends about how much better I am and how thick they are for not wanting to make a lot of money and move away.

Tuebrook is posher than Bootle.

You do see the ironic contrast of these two sentences don't you?

I " left as soon as I could. I couldn’t deal with the chip on shoulder attitude of a lot of residents

and

"we’d be such a great city again if it wasn’t for or near neighbour city sucking everything up"

Breck roads not

I knew exactly what you mean op. I have lived in a few places. I now live part time in bootle and part time in Kensington and its appauling. Utterly awful. And yes to the shutters on every shop. Thats not the same in london. Theres actually a poloce website where you can check all crimes reported in one area in a time frame and bootles is shocking. Shootings and stabbings are rife and i live with a teenager exposed to this. Drugs are openly smoked on all the streets and theres a growing epidemic of addiction in the city center. At work we have loads of homeless junkies coming in starting fights and robbing us. The homeless problem is growing rapidly and nothing is being done. Apart from Joe Anderson using the money to build a new football stadium instead. But you will find the people here will defend it to the very end and not accept the problems. According to their own museum liverpool is one of the poorest cities in europe.

I reckon you come across as a teeny bit smug with your "ooh, how shit is that? Doesn't happen where I live..." type comments.

You probably think you're better than them because you "made the break".....

When my dear late husband was a lorry driver Liverpool was the only place where they had to work in pairs - one person to stay in the cab while the other unloaded because of the problem of theft, especially in the dock area. What a shame - Liverpool gave us the Beatles, after all but it has a reputation.

To follow on..

When members of my family come to visit they comment on how nice it is not to have to shout through glass to buy a couple of bottles of wine.

I was born in Bootle, love the place but think it's been badly served by generations of local and national politicians (for example, the nonsense link with Crosby, Formby and Southport to make Sefton). And part of that has been to enforce a new normality such as the armoured off-licence.

@MarthaArthur. Don't choose to move to one of the pockets of widely known roughness in the city and you won't be exposed to it.
You've seen me defending the city - which I will continue to do, but I wouldn't live in either of those places.

But. They. Are. The. Exception. Not. The. Rule.

That's the only point some of are trying to make, yes there are bad areas, yes some shops have plexiglass over their stock, but the majority don't.
The majority of the city have collectively worked hard to shed the awful reputation we had in the 80's which is why we feel personally attacked when people clutch their handbags and sound terrified at the prospect of visiting.

If I believed all I read about London, I'd never go, I'd be convinced I'd get acid thrown on my face by a hoodie on a moped then stabbed on my way back from the shops.
But of course I wouldn't. Because that only happens in small pockets. London is ace, like Liverpool

I live in a city. There are good parts and rough parts. I have a choice of three different supermarkets to buy my fags from. The one near to an estate with a massive spice/drug problem won't hand the cigs over until payment is made and I can completely understand why.

Do you think your car got keyed because people in your hometown think you’re a snob and dislike you? Not saying they’re right but it seems very targeted.

I’m in Liverpool not a particularly nice bit and I don’t experience this

I've never had the problem with the security tags at self-service, maybe you just look suspicious ......

Also never had to deal with chip on the shoulder attitudes of locals.

When did you move away - nobody in Bootle says petroleum stations

I also moved to Liverpool from a quiet low crime area and I adore it here. The people, the things to do I really do love it.

nobody in Bootle says petroleum stations

Nobody in the UK says petroleum station!

I've just moved back to Liverpool after 20years in London.
I actually compared crime rates beforehand and was shocked to find that they were worse in my middle class part of London.
Admittedly, I'm in a nicer part of Liverpool.
Bootle is a very deprived area, but it's definitely not typical of all the suburbs and not typical of the City centre. Liverpool and it's people do not deserve the bad name that the city has, it's caused by a small minority. The vast majority are good law abiding people. That's who your family is defending.

Moved out of a rough bit of SE London 15 years ago - the local offie there was an everything behind protective screens, shout through the hatch to buy a bottle job. No idea if it still is - I've never been back. 5 miles away where the in-laws live the wine is on open shelves and the neighbourhood is verr naice. There are patches of most cities where that sort of thing is the way of life but they tend to be very localised areas and it is not "normal" for most of the country.

The petroleum stations was an auto correct when typing on my phone!