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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think people from up north / Wales are much friendlier than southerners

147 replies

Snorkers · 03/04/2020 14:15

Was born in South Wales, currently live in southern England, husband from Manchester.
Whenever we go up north to visit his fam I'm always shocked by how much friendlier in general everyone is.
I haven't been back to Wales for 30 years but recall when i did everyone always looking out for each other and generally being genuinely friendly and interested in each others' wellbeing.
I like where I live now but I am considering a permanent relocation back to Wales in a few years as more people than not here in Southern England are either just unfriendly and a large minority are moody, aggressive and selfish.
AIBU?
What are your experiences?
Before anyone shoots me down for annoying folks I tend to keep myself to myself so am not getting up in people's shit, it's a genuine observation!

OP posts:

phoenixrosehere · 03/04/2020 17:24

Small town "friendly" often means "all up in your fucking business in the good times and distant judgments and cold shoulders in the bad". It's one of those languages you need to speak from birth to really understand.

Very true. My parents and in-laws grew up in those type of areas. Couldn’t pay me enough to live with that kind of gossip and ridiculousness.

IntermittentParps · 03/04/2020 17:28

Yawn. What a cliche.

I'm in London and have great relationships with people in my neighbourhood (neighbours, people who own/work in cafes, shops etc).
And more widely, although I grant you people sometimes aren't that forthcoming (I think Londoners often assume that people want their privacy), generally if I approach someone for help or just a chat or passing comment or joke they are very receptive and helpful.

VideographybyLouBloom · 03/04/2020 17:31

Not in my experience. One of the nastiest women I ever met was from Liverpool and another from Cumbria. Fact is people can be arseholes wherever geographically they are from.

leghairdontcare · 03/04/2020 17:51

I went to Wales once and someone was racist. Therefore everyone is Wales is racist. There is no cognitive dissonance in those two sentences at all.

longcoffee · 03/04/2020 17:52

@Haffdonga you are bang on.

DH is from a small town Yorkshire and all I hear from his family is how 'it's much friendlier up here.'

I'm sure it is, for them. For me, a south-Londoner, it's really not.

I ordered a cup of tea in the local cafe in their town while he was off having a haircut, I was met with sneers and 'oooh, we've got a bloody southerner in', 'we've only got yorkshire tea, that good enough for you?' Bloody rude and entirely unnecessary. Ended up with the entire (admittedly small) cafe rustling their papers at me and glaring, as if I was committing some hideous crime by daring to set foot outside of the M25.

When he orders a coffee in the cafe here, he gets a coffee. Might not get any small talk, but doesn't get any shit either.

Darbs76 · 03/04/2020 17:52

Northerner living down south for 20yrs. Very much true. But also more nosey up north!

user1463178569 · 03/04/2020 17:54

Live in the same town as Peter Kay, Paddy McGuinness etc, originally from another town in Manc so I am completely bias! However when visited down south,people have been always been very friendly but that's coz I smile at everyone so maybe I inadvertently force them to smile back hehe

NataliaOsipova · 03/04/2020 17:55

I disagree. A foreign friend hit the nail on the head for me with this observation- up North, people tend to have been born and bred where they live...so they all know each other. It feels friendly to them. But as an outsider? Not friendly at all. In London/South East, there’s much more movement of people and people are far more accepting of newcomers.

glassseagulls · 03/04/2020 18:01

I grew up in the north, moved away and then came back but regret it because the village has people who don't accept newcomers and complain about them pushing up house prices and that you don't belong. Never mind that I had family here for 200 years before we moved away (for Dad's job) and then I came back here as an adult - I don't belong. We're due to move away again this summer, I can't wait for it happen - whenever that is - and go back to where we came from.

Sherlockia · 03/04/2020 18:05

I have lived in both south and north and didn't really find it that way. Maybe because I was born in the south but I found some northerners (not all for sure) were off with me because of my southern accent and made assumptions like I was well off or a snob which are not true. I think it might be friendlier if you are a local, but not always for outsiders. Also I love in London people are friendly in a different way, so you might not necessarily get a conversation with strangers on public transport but when I fell unwell on the underground people were falling over themselves to help me, give me water etc. In south I get on well with neighbours but we are not in and out of each others lives. Overall there is good and bad on all sides, there just might be a different way of seeing friendliness.

nestisflown · 03/04/2020 18:06

I went to Wales once and someone was racist. Therefore everyone is Wales is racist. There is no cognitive dissonance in those two sentences at all.

Of course that's a logical fallacy and I don't think anyone is saying that. What many posters are saying is that they have experienced much more racism, ignorance and insularity in Wales than in London. That's certainly true of my experience and the ethnic minorities I know who have lived in both places.

rosiethehen · 03/04/2020 18:07

We went for a holiday in north wales and the only friendly people we encountered were outsiders who had moved there. The locals were curt or didn't engage when they were serving us in the shops. We got very rude service in a cafe. We wouldn't go back. We laugh about it now, but we don't go on holiday very often and it's always in the UK and we were disappointed.

Scottish people, on the other hand, couldn't have been friendlier. Very welcoming and jolly.

LotKell · 03/04/2020 18:07

If you are going to believe stereotypes then all northerners are thick

Thurmanmurman · 03/04/2020 18:14

Northerner living down South here and it's a massive stereotype. There are nice people and dickheads everywhere.

cactus2020 · 03/04/2020 18:26

Have done both. Agree northerners are friendlier in terms of day-to-day chat, but when it comes to actually making friends, many colleagues have much closer family ties than southern communities. So they are absolutely friendlier, but family networks are tighter and people don't move away as much, so need to make those friendships less and certainly seem to be more connected to family. North is generally great, contrary to southern assumptions... I'm southern born and bred.

ILikeyourHairyHands · 03/04/2020 18:44

A foreign friend hit the nail on the head for me with this observation- up North, people tend to have been born and bred where they live...so they all know each other. It feels friendly to them.

Utter bollocks. You are aware that there's a much movement in the North as there is in the South aren't you? We not all small-minded simpletons who have never ventured five miles outside our place of birth.

FWIW, I was born in Sheffield, went to University in Manchester, then moved to London, followed by ROI, then briefly back to Sheffield where I met my (Welsh) DH and we then moved to Wales for ten years. Now live in the Peak District.

There are friendly and unfriendly people everywhere, and plenty of wankers and lovely people in all places. I'm a pretty chatty and friendly type so maybe you get what you give.

ILikeyourHairyHands · 03/04/2020 18:47

I do find more entrenched stereotypes about Northerners by Southerners than vice versa though.

Redherring2 · 03/04/2020 19:16

Lived up north and south.

Southerners think all northerners are less intelligent and pessimistic.
Northerners think all southerners are superficial and up themselves.

Outside of the large cities, Northerners have a chip on their shoulder about southerners in my experience.
Just ask a random northerner in a provincial town/village what they generally think of southerners ; they’ll meet your stereotype alright.

All Welsh are bloody brilliantly. Daft and/or sarcastic.

veryboredtoday · 03/04/2020 19:17

I've lived in the north and south and no real difference in friendliness except on public transport. I think in London it's just unlikely to see somebody you know so you just keep your head down.

I think most northerners have no concept of the sort of commute many southerners are doing each day.

Thymelord · 03/04/2020 19:19

Not in my experience no. I'm from Lancashire, I lived in the south west for over 15 years and then moved back oop north. I found most people to be as friendly in the south as they are up here.

Thymelord · 03/04/2020 19:21

Southerners think all northerners are less intelligent and pessimistic
Northerners think all southerners are superficial and up themselves

We are

MaidenMotherCrone · 03/04/2020 19:23

Flintshire/Denbighshire/Conwy are friendly enough ( lots from Manchester/Liverpool/Birmingham/Eastern Europe).

Gwynedd.... not friendly. I wouldn't live there and I'm Welsh!

Highonpotandused · 03/04/2020 19:23

I don't know many people from Wales in London but like any nationality, there's a mix of personalities. A couple of Welsh people have been quite aggressive and mouthy. There is no way I'd judge all Welsh people by them though. I've worked with many people from around the world and know that there's good and bad everywhere.

Pentium85 · 03/04/2020 19:30

As a southerner who moved up north I agree with you

MrsKoala · 03/04/2020 19:33

I've found the opposite Ilikeyourhairyhands. I've dated quite a few Northerners and married 2 of them. So ive spent a lot of time visiting various northern places and I don't think I've ever had a visit without at least one snipey remark about Londoners/southerners/being posh etc and on a lot of occasions some absolute downright rants and abuse. On the other hand when boyfriends visited and both husbands moved to London they never encountered anything other than 'oh where are you from? oh lovely there' comments.

No one Southern I know has made any comments regarding the north to my partners (in front of me or not that I know of) but many northerners have regarding the south to me. I understand their frustrations a lot of the time regarding investment and central government, but it's not my fault I was born there!

There is the female male thing to take into consideration tho. Would people have been ruder to my partners if they were female and would they have been less rude to me if I was male?

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