to be freaking out about moving from London to Wales?

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Long story short: lived in London for twenty years, married a Londoner, have Londerner kids, love London, have great London friends. Now DH has been offered a job in Cardiff and its a great job. So we have to move. But Gosh I’m scared.

I know nothing of Wales. I went to Cardiff once with work and I didn’t love it. I’m thinking if we have to move maybe we should go the whole hog and live in the countryside but I can’t even work out what is commutable to Cardiff.

Are we going to hate it? Is it ever right to leave a place you love just for career reasons?

And if you are Welsh where would you live that is commutable to Cardiff and lovely and friendly and beautiful? We will also need good schools, maybe private but I’m open minded to state as well.

I'm sorry if I've upset people - I obviously haven't meant to. I'm just relating my experience.

My mum was from Torquay and moved to Wales after marrying my dad. What she encountered in his home village was awful. She wasn't accepted for not being Welsh, let alone not speaking it.

I was thrown together with a girl who became my best friend as she couldn't speak English and had to at some point, even though she went to a Welsh medium school. I picked a lot up from her, but we drifted apart at secondary school.

I carried on learning Welsh as I enjoyed it and had a wonderful teacher, so went as far as A level with it.

And yet, I still wasn't accepted in my own local community as despite trying endlessly, I was ridiculed for not being Welsh enough - I was even called "half-caste" by some (I'm white). People would pretend they couldn't understand me when I spoke Welsh to them.

It was very hurtful and now I'm flung back to those days whenever I walk into the pub and given the side-eye accompanied by an insult in Welsh. I find small communities like mine to be cliquey - something I've never come across in large towns where English is almost exclusively spoken.

Some of what I wrote about "Welsh Not" was printed as part of a piece about Welsh history in a local paper but the first thing a local farmer announced to his friends in the pub I waitressed at was that I was the girl who "tries too hard to be one of us, but she never will be, will she boys" (in Welsh).

I've never come across racism (that's what it feels like to me) in other places, and I've lived here on and off for years. I'm fluent in French and passable in Spanish, yet people I've mixed with in these countries haven't treated me like that. Most will switch to English, even if they're limited, in an effort to make strangers feel welcome.

Maybe if I was more brazen and thick-skinned I'd be able to shake it off, but it still upsets me. It upsets me even more when I get visitors who tell me they come across rudeness like this - though maybe the same people doing it to me just have an axe to grind with me and are rude to people they know I have staying with me.

As for the road markings, I drive abroad, but never see bilingual markings competing for limited space, crammed and abbreviated like I do over here.

Professormoody

Then I had the same experience, Wild

Has OP come back yet? Is the move on?

My dd who is 8 was told by her ‘friend’, also 8, at school today to ‘go back to England, we don’t want you here’. She’s a fluent welsh speaker, born in Wales - never lived anywhere else, welsh medium educated yet myself and dh are born in England (yet been here 50 years combined). Yes, there are racist people in every country, but it’s almost socially acceptable to be racist in Wales (againest english at least). There’s lots of positives about living here but you can’t ignore the negatives.

I live in Cardiff - I live in an area in North Cardiff called Whitchurch which is a really nice area with some large houses, its right by the Taf trail which is a walking / cycle path that runs around 6 miles directly along the river Taf into the city centre.

Private school options it's about 10 mins drive to Howell's school which is an all girls school (up until 6th form) and there is also the Cathedral school which is nursery age upwards same distance away.

There are also private schools and colleges very nearby which ave day and boarders many of whom come from all over including England.

Rent in a decent area of Cardiff privately for a 4 bedroom place is going to run around £1250 a month so much less than you plan on.

Areas to look at in Cardiff would be Whitchurch, Rhiwbina, Birchgrove, Llandaf City, Pontcanna, Canton and slightly outside of Cardiff within around 25-30 minute commute - Penarth, Cowbridge, St Fagans, Gwaelod Y Garth or even Pen Coed for a more 'rural' setting

I think years ago there may have been some dislike of English people here but right now no-one really cares where you are from - yes there will be racists but they are everywhere - we have a lot of people living in South East Wales from Bristol and the boarders as it is cheaper to buy in Wales than it is for Bristol. The only time you are likely to experience some good natured ribbing will be during the rugby!

I understand why Welsh people might be offended by comments here. But I think its fair to point out the big adjustment involved in moving to Wales from England and the biggest city in the UK at that. If people do speak another language then that is a factor to take into account - like moving to Spain. No offence but a real difference and adjustment. I have no way of knowing whether an anti English bias is real, or to English speakers, but presumably that's a relevant consideration to an english family moving there, particularly for kids entering education. We all know how excluded and bullied kids can feel in a school if they 'dont fit'. any caring parents going to worry about that.

Let's be balanced here and not take offence. Many good things have been mentioned about being anywhere other than London. Its a very diverse and metropolitan city but not easy or cheap to live in. No ones fooling about that.

@bouledeneige - I’m Welsh and don’t take offence, some of the comments are ridiculous generalisations though as you can’t characterise people like that but it’s water off a ducks back.

I’d still vote for Bristol as it’s the nicer of the two Cities

Someone being bitchy and talking bad about you in Welsh has nothing to do with Welsh. English people can be bitchy too

I have never ever been in a shop and heard an English person talking badly about someone they thought wasnt an English speaker.
They wouldn't because who knows if that person actually speaks English.
The Welsh speakers seem very short sighted. If they want Welsh to be come a growing language then why abuse those that have made an effort to learn it.

It comes across as very insular

If someone can't read road signs which are bilingual then they shouldn't be driving! What would they do driving in France

France doesn't have bilingual road signs.
Paris is Paris and Nice is Nice which ever language it is in.

I wonder how this thread would pan out if the title said "to be freaking out about moving from London to Scotland".

@lizzie1970a so sorry to hear you’ve had a bad experience. What part of Cardiff did you move to and which schools did you kids attend? We’ve been contemplating the move with our kids from London would be year 3 and reception but your post highlights everything I was worried about.

A sure fire way to kill the Welsh language is to make it unacceptable to speak it in public because it is seen as rude to those who don’t understand it.

I’m a first language Welsh speaker born and bred in Cardiff. I’m sorry if anyone has experienced racism here. But for a long time it was socially acceptable to be racist and offensive about the Welsh when it had become unacceptable to be so about any other people.

How many rooms do you need? If you put a max number of rooms in you will get less student accommodations.

Think how much more disposable income you could have moving away from London

Obviously I don't know your needs but this would suit us down to the ground 😍

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-77100416.html

Olivers
Okay so now the Welsh language should not translate their towns in to a Welsh name? Or maybe road signs should just be in Welsh then if people can't read underneath for the English. We are lucky that they are written in both Welsh and English. If we start changing the road signs to English then it is another example that the language is dying. And like I say, a lot of people are first language Welsh from my town.

Disappointed can I ask what area you are in then? It sounds like you've had an unlucky experience and I've never heard of anything like it. I have many English friends who live in Wales and they fit in really well. In fact, one of my closest friends in Wales is from up north England and has purposely sent her children to a Welsh class as she wants to embrace the language as much as possible. The only time I hear any anti English is when the rugby is on, but it isn't anti English, it's banter between both the English and the Welsh. How often have I heard that I'm a sheep sh*ger from English people? All the time. When I started uni I was targeted a lot with comments like this as 'banter' I guess I could have taken offence to it but I didn't because it was all done in fun!

Professormoody Another from my neck of the woods! I'll always remember those comments even all these years later.

It takes a special kind of individual to taunt a 12 year old child about where they live
And from a teacher!

Disappointed may I ask how long ago you had your experiences and where? About 30 years ago in North Wales I had someone pretend not to understand me speaking Welsh and as I said I am a south Walian first language speaker with a West Walian accent despite growing up in Cardiff. It’s not an anti English thing, it’s an anti outsider/incomes thing and you get that in rural communities everywhere. There are arseholes everywhere.

seren you just keep making fantastic points, thank you!
I think what's upsetting me the most is that one or two posters have had bad experiences of what I would call bullying, not getting along with people, and are now portraying the whole country as the same. The same poster could have moved to a small town up north or a village down south and experienced the same, you never know. I am from Bristol and an area called someone was looking for somewhere to rent in an area called bedminster. The locals call it Bemmie but some call it Bedmo. She asked on a local group and used the word Bedmo and she was attacked massively because 'we don't use Bemmie' and 'all these outsiders coming in and not even using the right lingo' it got quite nasty. How was she to know? Should we never integrate communities ? It happens EVERYWHERE.

What I don't like at all is the clear attitude that Welsh people shouldn't speak Welsh in their own country. What a sad attitude. And I know I've said it already, but you've really hurt me about that.

Sorry when I say I am from Bristol, I mean I live here now. I am originally from Wales.

Also I made a mistake in a sentence. It should say 'and someone was looking for somewhere to rent in an area called bedminster'

I lived in Cardiff for six months but was glad to get back to London area.

PS: Cowbridge and Whitchurch are quite nice areas if you are determined to live there.

@AutoFillUsername please come back and tell us how you got on in Cardiff

Interesting thread. My office moved from Holborn to Newport a few years ago. There were some staff who moved their families and settled well, some who left their families in London and went home at the weekend, and then some who lived in Bristol as they didn’t want to put their children through the abject horror of a Welsh GCSE. The attitudes of the Bristol dwellers was racist at times, in my opinion.

Not everybody will cope moving from a world city to a smaller one. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad place. I enjoy visiting London (which is only 2 hours from Cardiff, by the way, it’s not on a different planet) but I would be devastated if I had to live there. Good luck OP, hope you come to a decision that you’re happy with as a family.

How did it go OP?

@SerenDippitty I am almost certain that most non Welsh speaking people in Cardiff don't realise they are hearing Welsh all the time. I admit I didn't until I started learning. Now I hear it, because I can recognise it. I hear dozens of other languages also, but couldn't tell if there were polish or Bulgarian for example

I'm late in I know but @lizzie1970a I've lived in many parts of the UK and seen those attitudes. Just the same as I've not seen them. It's the people, not the area.