AIBU to loathe the people here?

[OnenessWithAllStrife]

Some people say that feeling a negative emotion or having unpleasant feelings about something shouldn't define you, that you should let the thoughts flow and then let them go. OK. I hope this to be true :(

But i have lived somewhere for the past 6 years that has brought me to conclusions and created feelings in me that I am not proud of. For the first time in my life I have actually come to loathe people and feel a sense of terror about being stuck with them. This is not particularly politically 'correct' when put into words, unfortunately, but I can't think of any other way to express it.

I moved to a town6 yrs ago in which I don't have much in common with the residents. It isn't unusual, just an ordinary large town which at one time contained more diversity, but in recent years has become very insular and homogenous. Everyone is angry, anti social, or depressed. If you don't openly discuss some sort of prejudice (racism, sexism, anti-intellectualism) you're 'soft in the head' or a 'bloody weirdo'.
Wherever I go here, in any direction, you will either see kids or drunk adults destroying property, or else screaming at each other in the street. There are a few select areas that are less challenging and rough, but the vibe is somehow the same.

Education or reading is a mugs game, football is the only passion, kids are yelled at for merely existing. Any conversation with a seemingly friendly stranger results in them wishing all the foreigners to go home. There is a general air of brutality to everything, a leathery, hard resistance to any kind of sensitivity whatsoever. Art, creativity and self reflection are suspicious, and the only permissible clothing is black or sport branded. Every damned street is choked with the fumes of endlessly revved up vehicles with ear splitting exhaust modifications. The environment is filthy, full of dog shit and bordering on dereliction.

I would once have considered all of this a problem of poverty, but it isn't quite that easy to determine, having witnessed it. There is no seeming variation in behaviour across income brackets here, it looks to be more cultural than income related, although the attitude towards learning, etc will obviously have the effect of creating more poverty regardless. It is like a self perpetuating cesspit of no hope and hard hearts. I thought i was a leftie, a socialist, but when I leave here I will be fucking marked by this and hope to never exist within it ever again.

We moved here for DP's work and are set to leave this coming year. I also appreciate that the residents and I have experienced very different upbringings and we do not share much in common, but even so, I think that you have to endure this to really, really see it, to come to fear it. It is easy to sit in a comfy armchair miles from it and 'defend' this stuff because you haven't truly sampled the existential sickness of it on your own doorstep.
I wish i didn't feel it, but it is difficult to lie to oneself, and the fear has probably evolved from having felt 'stuck' in it for so long. I wfh and DP does part time (some here regard us as 'pretentious' for this and have suggested we ought to do some 'real' work). It all feels very dated and odd, to be surrounded by values that repulse me and contain so little diversity. I mean, this is the type of place where you'll get side-eyed for cooking from scratch or having the audacity to flavour a dish with pesto.

Does this mean I loathe them? I don't know. I imagine I will chill with it when we have moved, as it all becomes a distant memory, but it has certainly left a mark. It feels wrong to state these feelings and observations, but I bet I am not the only one who has thought them....

@JohnDee007

Tbh it’s the result of the increasing division within society. If You’re a young white working class boy, statistically you’re likely to fair the worst in education yet you’re constantly told you are “privileged” and no, you haven’t got the education to pick up on “what this actually means” you have no means (except crime) to get all these things you are constantly told you need. Ostracised by society you group together with similar people. All the things you can’t have, decent education, foreign travel, culture, arts etc are derided “ well I didn’t want that anyway, all the people who value that are twats” this is my tribe, the ones who do things I can, sport, reality tv etc” it creates an US to defend against the THEM. Anyone who isn’t US is a threat, educated, different ethnicity etc etc. Even if you have the ability to do the things that are seen as a THEM activity would you want to leave the safety of the tribe?

This is the result of all this diversity shit, put people in boxes, you create victimhood which makes people angry against everyone else. People start fighting over crap like who can wear their hair in braids or wear certain clothes etc, when you’re threatened you need to create tribe identifiers, to distinguish the US from THEM.

We need to step back from all this diversity stuff, it’s doing nothing but create diivision. We need integration. We used to have more of this with shared values (often under a religious framework which creates its own problems) people would know the same stories, myths, values, hymns, prayers. They would be working with the same symbolism. Now we have many people who do not speak the same language either literally or metaphorically.

That’s probably why you hate the place so much. You either need to search out your own mini tribe as safe harbour there, or move to an area which has a tribe you fit into. Without a tribe very few people feel safe.

A lot of what you say I don’t agree with, but do agree the OP needs a -tribe- and is lacking this where she is.

sudoku thanks for those links.
My friend’s child went to a secondary school on that list in former mill town I mentioned. It was absolutely dire - it has now closed. 6 children in his year made it out with grades to go to college to do A levels and that was with college accepting lower grades as they were from x school. Friend’s son was only child in yr predicted an A in English at gcse. I’ve said this before on mumsnet and been accused of making it up. For Wigan to have 7 schools like that is horrific.

You are right op, it is entirely different living in an area of social deprivation, than reading about it. Some of the problems are absolutely awful.

The people who live there might be angry and depressed because they find it awful too.

There is lots of research which shows that people are deeply affected by poverty and their environment.

I live in a town which is considered 'bleak' and saw shocking deprivation among the children who went to the secondary school I worked at. These kids wore shoes that didn't fit and uniform hand me downs which hung off them. Their behaviour was appalling and some of them still couldn't read or write beyond the level of a seven year old child.

Round the corner from my house is a pub which runs a good back every Saturday. They lay the food out on the tables at the front of the pub and people queue in the cold, visible for all to see, to get food to eat.

I am not disgusted with these people. I am disgusted with a government who allow this sort of deprivation exist while lauding millionaires and taking lucrative second jobs.

Don't get angry at these people, get angry at the system which keep ms them stuck in a place which, as you have observed, is a fertility hellhole.

Gah, derelict not fertility!

Lol to Farnham having a 'rough' bit. Where I come from in the Midlands / NW the 'rough' bit means having bars on your windows and police patrolling with huge guns. I live near Farnham. The 'rough' bit of Farnham, by which I presume you mean the bit edging towards Aldershot, isn't even in the remote ballpark of what 'rough' means when you're from somewhere like Stoke or Manchester. I'm yet to consider huge brawls as such a regular nightly occurrence in Farnham that I wouldn't bat an eyelid like a night out in Stoke. I've never even seen one single fight in 20 years in the Guildford / Farnham area. In Stoke I'd see several every Sat night

Fair enough I've never been to Stoke and it's about 30 years since I stayed in Manchester.

However, I have spent a lot of time in the part of Liverpool that Bill Bryson thought was the roughest place he'd ever been to (and didn't think it was that rough at all). The places that do make me feel quite uneasy are in the south - around Wembley and where MIL lives on the Lewisham/Bromley borders.

I'm still killing myself laughing at the poster who said Guildford and Farnham had rough areas there were riots in Park Barn some years ago.

I am not disgusted with these people. I am disgusted with a government who allow this sort of deprivation exist while lauding millionaires and taking lucrative second jobs.

Don't get angry at these people, get angry at the system which keep ms them stuck in a place which, as you have observed, is a derelict hellhole.

100% agree with this, well said.

Violence breeds violence, fear breeds fear. I used to know people who were born and raised right in the middle of this type of place; they behaved in all kinds of ways that were really hard for me to fathom, but they did them to survive in that environment. One girl I knew was the victim of a very brutal house invasion. She felt like she had to permanently justify her existence and kept telling me she was a good person.

I have no idea what it feels like to live under permanent threat of house invasions next to violent drug dealers but it can't do anything good to your head. And no they can't just move.

I agree with the OPs general thing that it is horrible living somewhere where you find you just don’t ‘fit in’ — it’s hard enough anywhere as anew comer- and yep I find plenty of mid sized British towns a bit of a dump if I’m honest— made worse by lack of access to local funds by this government— however at the end of the day it comes down to people too and there are plenty of people you could stick in the most upmarket area who would turn it to shit within months — whereas you could plant some people in places like Wigan who would vastly improve the surroundings at least within a few years. My son still lives in his home town in the Midlands , town is full of the kind of people OP mentions , yet my son is hard working, polite, kind , well dressed and reasonably intelligent , as is his partner— they keep a nice home and basically he just found his tribe who are like him. He still thinks the town Is a dump though but likes his job (which is an interesting one) and likes other family being close . One of the big problems is attracting people to these areas who could make a difference. My father in law and myself were discussing the difficulty he had in getting what he felt was a good GP in Medway, whereas when we lived in Bath- every doctor at my practice felt top tier— probably because a lot of doctors would be attracted to vacancies in Bath and not Medway- same goes for teachers etc!! I’m not being snobby about this- just factual and I’m not sure what you do about it apart from maybe offer large bonuses to those going to what are perceived as less desirable areas.

I think there is huge social and cultural poverty in the UK. I am half English and half another Western European nationality and definitely the deprivation in England is very clearly translated in peoples attitudes. In my other country it seems less harsh, less violent. I dont know why this is. There is an aggressiveness to life, across social classes, manifested and passive, that is very apparent to me in England.

@FriendWoes111, I agree with your last sentence in particular, and this is coming from someone who lived through the worst of times in Northern Ireland. Yes, there may be angry idiots everywhere but there seems to be a prevalence of them now. You know, the sort of people who are on a knife edge - laughs and "banter" (hate that word but appropriate in this case, usually overfamiliar joking) that could easily turn sour and even violent in a millisecond.

FriendWoes11 Also living in another European country, I have the same perception. I see it as England having deep-rooted class-based resentment still being fuelled by the bloated monarchy which is way more prominent than in e.g. the Netherlands or Spain - and rampant elitism, private school bollocks. People still believe that Eton etc. is a good thing, and they have chosen to be governed by one of its finest.

Also, historically other European countries have vented their fury at the thieving elites, and have achieved some degree of change. In England all that post-industrial revolution rage is still festering away under the surface, because apparently revolution is not the done thing, in this realm! One must know one's place, one really must.

I am not disgusted with these people. I am disgusted with a government who allow this sort of deprivation exist while lauding millionaires and taking lucrative second jobs.

Don't get angry at these people, get angry at the system which keep ms them stuck in a place which, as you have observed, is a derelict hellhole.

Agree with this, nasty people at all levels of society. These are not called the "left behind" areas for nothing.
And an earlier poster mentioned buy to letters who purchase a whole street and then collect the rents and leave it to decay. A load of unconscionable bastards in my opinion.
Of course it could be depressing to live in the tattiest part of town but many are stuck in this mess and having to live with it.

@ChurchofLatterDayPaints
I see England as a country of extremes, the good is incredible, the bad is appalling. My other country is flatter and calmer.

I like your analysis but think there's also something to do with tribes in there. The UK is very clannish, you see it in school uniforms and school houses, the massive changes in accents across a very small surface area - my other country is much bigger than England but it must have ten times fewer accents. Football, with even small cities sometimes having two clubs. Maybe there is a ferocious kind of tribalism in people that can keep them trapped and accepting.

I think that is total crap, @ChurchofLatterDayPaints - I really, really don’t think that the UK is awash with an angry working class ready to rise up. What era do you think we are in?! No one cares about the monarchy, and in fact its most vocal detractors are left-wing “liberals”, not some bloke in Stoke.

Class is a huge factor, though. And it’s not a new problem, caused by “austerity”. Family breakdown is a huge issue. A man is not needed to support a family. Women are the “key holders” - this facilitates men being able to move from household to household, with in the worst cases children of different fathers being brought up with no stable role models and a revolving door of men. You will get MNetters roaring that they have dcs by different men. Well, jolly good,, but I bet they are middle class and can offer a middle-class home with a history of middle-class authority, work ethic and respect for various institutions. When you’re into multiple generations of people who have new traditions of never having worked, where having dc is the logical progression from school and where you are “owed” , a few more £££ a week is going to have little effect.

Back in the 90s I worked in a firm in central London which tried the initiative of hiring from the job centre to create some, I suppose, Eliza Doolittles. Every single one left because they were pregnant. Can’t say I blame them. This was the 90s, so a flat and a kid like your mates was preferable to flogging into a boring old office every day.

I know plenty of people in Stoke who can’t stand the Royal Family.

@FriendWoes111

I think there is huge social and cultural poverty in the UK. I am half English and half another Western European nationality and definitely the deprivation in England is very clearly translated in peoples attitudes. In my other country it seems less harsh, less violent. I dont know why this is. There is an aggressiveness to life, across social classes, manifested and passive, that is very apparent to me in England.

Same @FriendWoes111!

I moved back to the UK a few years ago from somewhere else in Europe and it was striking to me how grim things felt here. People really seem brutalised by comparison.

I do understand to a certain extent. We moved away from a northern city nearly 30 years ago as we had seen a huge decline in where we lived in just five years, and it was not a place I wanted to bring up children (especially daughters, because of the attitude of many to women).
When we moved, a lot of friends who were still living there were surprised and a bit put out. But within another five years all but one had moved for similar reasons.
I'll never forget a conversation with our milkman, who had always delivered the milk at about 6am, but started delivering later and later, which was a problem for us as it was either nicked, or went sour in the summer. He replied that we were the only household he delivered to who worked and was up early to go to work. It was a strange, stark reminder that we were living amongst people whose values and lifestyles were completely alien to us, and that small thing was ultimately what prompted us to move away not long after.

[quote MiddayMass]@ThousandsOfTulips

I really could go on forever, tbh. The ‘best’ ones are definitely geography related though.

Have had to explain more than once that Canada isn’t a region of the USA.

Have had somebody assume that the NHS is a universal healthcare system, during a discussion about a mutual friend getting injured on holiday and ending up in an insurance mess. “Why didn’t they go through the NHS?”

Somebody droning on about how antibiotic (yes, really) resistant was why Covid was a thing. Explaining that Covid was a virus was futile.

And a bloke saying he didn’t like his girlfriend breastfeeding their baby because he thought it was unhygienic to feed a baby bodily fluids. I was speechless[/quote]
🤣🤣🤣 You really couldn't make it up. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I've been to Wigan once. Train had to return to the station after someone jumped in front of it. 20 minutes into a 3 hour visit and I realised why the person jumped! You have my full sympathy OP!

therigatonini It’s mentality not money

Couldn’t agree more, and it’s a point that so many on this thread are missing. I lived in Hackney in the 90s, with its mugging and shootings and stolen cars being torched on the estate, and found it friendly and culturally vibrant, with a strong sense of community. Unlike the Home Counties where I grew up, with its obscene levels of consumption, bigotry and close to zero culture.

This thread reminds me of 'An inspector Calls'.

When you are scared you might loose your home or can't feed your family, art and culture becomes something of a luxury. Sometimes morals and a liberal opinion is also a 'nice to have' in order to survive.

Many Northern towns became rich off the back of the exploitative mill industry. The rich got richer, but the poor stayed poor. Once the mills shut down and the mining went, the rich moved out.

I live in a place where our local secondary is always underperforming, there are drug deals at the back of our house and many of the houses nearby are bedsits let to alcoholics and drug users.

My son is one of the very lucky ones, with a stable family, a parent in secure employment and he is clever. But I worry about County lines and some of the people in the bedsits. My son joined the local boxing club, I think mainly to protect himself. A boy at his school had his nose broken a few weeks ago in the school corridors.

Money = social mobility. In the UK, those who can afford houses near outstanding state schools, do, and those who can't, end up at schools like my son's.

There is research to suggest that attending an underperforming school lowers a child's IQ.

Another awful statistic is that, kids born to deprived parents who are in the top 10% intellectually at 2 years old, will drop to the bottom 10% by the age of 7.

@MrsBobDylan
Interesting post.

Many posh lefties are very proud of themselves for sending their kids to good old state school and lambasting the private school system. But if you've bought a house for £1m because the local school is excellent you've just drawn on the same privilege via a different route

@ChurchofLatterDayPaints

FriendWoes11 Also living in another European country, I have the same perception. I see it as England having deep-rooted class-based resentment still being fuelled by the bloated monarchy which is way more prominent than in e.g. the Netherlands or Spain - and rampant elitism, private school bollocks. People still believe that Eton etc. is a good thing, and they have chosen to be governed by one of its finest.

Also, historically other European countries have vented their fury at the thieving elites, and have achieved some degree of change. In England all that post-industrial revolution rage is still festering away under the surface, because apparently revolution is not the done thing, in this realm! One must know one's place, one really must.

Hi both Church and FriendWoes

You've both provided interesting insight into UK 'society'. As another one with one foot in another Western European country I can see exactly how you've arrived at your conclusions.

But there is another thing for me, which I have noted not just by comparison with poor (sometimes, objectively much poorer) communities in Europe but as having changed over time, and that is the issue of pride.

In Western Europe, pride is an externally-focused collective energy. It is why even people who have nothing or owe each other nothing are courteous to each other as a matter of course, why people clear up after themselves, or do what they can to make their surroundings pleasant for everyone. Sure, people are 'proud' of their own children's successes, but they are also proud that their town produced the first person to fly across X ocean or Y desert, or invented the widget, or whatever. And because this energy is positive and outwardly focused, people feel not only empowered to - for example - tell someone else's child off for dropping litter, but feel a duty to do so. And because most people feel the same, it is a community effort and no individual fears reprisals.

It used to be like that here. People used to mop the pavement outside their front doors, or call the parents if they saw someone they knew stealing apples from a tree or whatever.

Not now. Pride is a self-focused internalised malevolent energy in places like Wigan. That's why 'looking at someone's girlfriend' in the pub is akin to a declaration of hostility and results in a brawl. It's why people feel the need to modify their car exhausts and install massive sub-woofers: it's not because they are 'proud' in the traditional sense to own a rusting 25 year old BMW, but because drawing attention to it is validation of the 'achievement' of having acquired it.

mentality not money

I'd agree with that - I think maybe there a bit of a more stagnant population that usual - that would fit with the midland town we lived in that was like this.

Where we are now is socially economcially deprived and if anything slightly lower than that town yet it's nothing like it - it's welcoming to incomers.

I don't think it's just class either - DH and I are both working class born - our ancestors were agricututral laboures, miners, weavers, railwaymen, quarry men, domestic servants, builders, bakers, - but they moved even before railways made movement easier they moved for work and can be tracked through records. Even unmarried mothers and babies born out of wedlock and unoffical family adoptions are there in our family trees. Yet none of us have stayed in areas like this.

Another awful statistic is that, kids born to deprived parents who are in the top 10% intellectually at 2 years old, will drop to the bottom 10% by the age of 7.

Deosn't surpise me partly as I've encountered parents seemingly hostile to education which passes to the kids but we've also encountered a lack of ambition for children perceived as having less potentail from educational institutions and professionals.

Both DH and I enocuntered that in our education and have with our children. That's not to say we haven't ecountered some utterly brilliant hardworking inspring teachers - we all have and I'm bloody greatful to them. TBH in current secondary a lot of the problems are top down but it's rapidly turning into a school you do well despite not because of.

I think lack of good schools and lack of home support - well that a lot to work against - and very opposite of most MN posters children's experinces.

@DottyHarmer Sorry, but many posters on Mumsnet care very much about the monarchy and establishment traditions. Some of the responses that republicans get on here (for stating facts) are pure comedy. People get genuinely upset, they seem threatened?

It's the fact that people from all walks of life still tolerate/actively support this class-based royal circus, that's the problem. You can't move towards greater equality if you still think, deep down, for whatever reason, that bowing to muppets in palaces while you claim benefits and struggle to survive is fair and OK.

@crackofdoom

therigatonini It’s mentality not money

Couldn’t agree more, and it’s a point that so many on this thread are missing. I lived in Hackney in the 90s, with its mugging and shootings and stolen cars being torched on the estate, and found it friendly and culturally vibrant, with a strong sense of community. Unlike the Home Counties where I grew up, with its obscene levels of consumption, bigotry and close to zero culture.

Exactly @crackofdoom

The place I live now is historically one of the most deprived in the country, yet it feels friendly, warm, welcoming and thriving. It’s not affluent but there’s a strong sense of community and pride.

There is another area in the same city that is also socially/economically deprived but has a very different feeling – harsh and troubled. I lived there for a bit. People are leading very difficult lives.

My hometown by contrast, which I mentioned above, represents a fairly broad spectrum, with a lot of uninspiring council estates, a fair amount of deprivation, and a large number of perfectly normal, everyday lives, certainly plenty who are comfortable enough.

But there is just a lot of small/medium British town mentality, very insular, very dreary and not much of a sense of community or collective joy at anything. It’s not poorer necessarily, but it’s certainly grimmer, bleaker and with a more oppressive mentality than where I am now.