Why is The North seen as backward and undesirable?

[Sibsmum]

Can't understand why The North, seems to get looked down on , except when someone wants a holiday home somewhere pretty, or a big house for cheaper prices.
There are Universities, theatres, good schools, roads that aren't clogged all the time( and some that are...)spectacular scenery... So why is there still a perception that somehow The North is 'less' everything than the South?

@BankofNook

Do chippies elsewhere do parmos? Or chips, garlic sauce, and cheese all mixed together?

Parmos a Teesside thing. DH moved to Leeds for a while and was shocked and confused as to why takeaways didn't sell parmos there!

Well I have never visited Teesside but now that I know about these 'parmo's' I am seriously tempted. ...

The Stark family liked the North. Rob was even king of it until his grisly death. Must have something going for it.

It’s because we still have dragons and those soft southerners are frightened of them. I went for a walk yesterday and had to fight one off.

I think it stems from the 80s when we moved from a manufacturing based economy to a financial services based economy. This created a lot of unemployment in the north and a lot of employment in the south east. There is still that stigma.

I think it goes back way back to 'the harrying of the north'.

Let's be honest it's like a different country. When I was a teen I had this friend from Yorkshire and she came down to stay. She asked my brother if he and his gf 'were courting'....
We fell about laughing sorry. ...

Apologies @TheSandman. I should have added some Scottish university towns. I believe Glasgow has the biggest student population outside of London. DD used to visit Glasgow a lot and loved it.

@Destroyedpeople

I think it goes back way back to 'the harrying of the north'.

Let's be honest it's like a different country. When I was a teen I had this friend from Yorkshire and she came down to stay. She asked my brother if he and his gf 'were courting'....
We fell about laughing sorry. ...

That probably says more about you and your brothers than anything else

There's no need to be nasty because we weren't. We were teens.
We had literally never heard anyone use the term 'courting'. It was so old fashioned.

Yeah I don’t get this, I live in the south and it’s ridiculous! The north is amazing and I’d happily live there if all my family weren’t so far south ( I can literally see the sea from my bed!) the price difference is ridiculous!

Because if people who lived in London admitted how nice it was up here they'd have to accept what fools they are staying in their £1M 1 bed flats in an area with bad knife crime.

I prefer to smile benevolently when family members realise my kitchen is bigger than their entire flat and that yes, we can get parmesan/quinoa/spelt in the shops. Oh, and yes we do get local organic milk delivered and nobody steals it and have a French patisserie in walking distance from the house. And it cost us less to see theatre productions and we see them before they go to London.

Or maybe they aren’t “fools for staying” but London is their home? (But thanks for smiling benevolently.)

I know there are beautiful places all over the country, doesn’t meant I want to move there though.

And the availability of quinoa and spelt is hardly a selling point for an area unless you are some shallow hippy.

The perception of house prices being cheaper up north might be true when comparing specifically to London but where I live, in relation to wages, property prices are phenomenal. Comes with living in a northern beauty spot.

We had literally never heard anyone use the term 'courting'. It was so old fashioned

I live in Yorkshire and am quite old and I haven't heard anyone ask that question in at least 30 years and that was when an elderly relative asked the question of a younger cousin.

One example of someone using old fashioned terminology does not prove that millions of people are living in the dark ages.

There are some interesting cities in the North, but nowhere in the world will ever come close to London.

@Destroyedpeople

There's no need to be nasty because we weren't. We were teens. We had literally never heard anyone use the term 'courting'. It was so old fashioned.

The point being, why fall about laughing just because you'd never heard it before? Different regions have different accents and colloquialisms, laughing implies mockery.

I'm a southerner living in Yorkshire and that sort of mockery is really common, it totally reinforces the perception of the north being backwards and the south being superior. When I moved up I thought Northerners were chippy and then having listened for years to people taking the piss out of husband and kid's accents whenever we go out with family down south (South East) I realise where that comes from.

Doesn't happen when we go to the South West though.

We were teens...it was a long time ago...I wouldn't do that now ffs.
I was just using it as an example of how different north and south were/are.
I suppose all you lot behaved perfectly at all times as teens.....
Course ya did....

But you're still saying the same thing...'it's so old fashioned'. Presumably you're not a teen now?

If you want to talk about differences, talk about the sense of humour, music, carry on talking about the food, the style of communication, the culture, art, landscape etc and talk about it in terms of difference as opposed to judging and labelling.

I lived in 'the north' for seven years. Lovely people, interesting culture, but I would not go back there for the earlier darkness in winter. You'd barely finish Sunday lunch before you'd need lights on as darkness was approaching.

Well it WAS old fashioned then fgs.
Stop being so sensitive. We had a perfectly friendly chat about parmo's in teesside et c. I just used ONE anecdote that showed difference in culture. Not 'labelling' and 'judging'. Get a grip honestly.

I think the only thing that bothers me is when the north is mentioned its often Manchester, Yorkshire. I'm from the north, in fact a good 2 hours further north in fact and still in England, I know people further North again and yes still in England.
By some peoples description of north being in Newcastle or Morpeth or Berwick we must be actually Scottish!!!!

But that anecdote is not typical of almost any northern people within recent living memory so irrelevant as an illustration of our culture or mindset.

@Destroyedpeople

Well it WAS old fashioned then fgs. Stop being so sensitive. We had a perfectly friendly chat about parmo's in teesside et c. I just used ONE anecdote that showed difference in culture. Not 'labelling' and 'judging'. Get a grip honestly.

On a thread about why the north is seen as backward, you can't see how this contributes to that. Really?

And rather than listen to someone who points out something that's clearly never crossed your mind (fair enough), you are labelling them as sensitive and telling them to get a grip.

And they're all in the South. From where I'm sitting - and I am no where near the 'top' of the mainland, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool are all nearer London than they are to my house.

You're all southerners.

This, I travel south to these places and yet apparently they are the North!!!!!!

That term is still used by some very small communities round here and this is an example of what I think is brilliant about 'the north'. You can go 6/7 miles down the road and the accent, language, identity, culture is totally different - not wrong, old fashioned, backwards or anything like that. Just brilliantly diverse.

As evidenced by the number of people saying that Yorkshire and Manchester aren't north!

Well my friend from Dewsbury DID used to say it...and we are not that old....
Also I have raised about the only actual historical reason fir north / south enmity and everyone seems to prefer to carry on with personal attacks rather than address it
Ho hum.