To ask if you think this very ‘unmumsnetty?’

[BologneseGurl]

If someone were looking for a place to live and there criteria were -

”I’m looking for somewhere run down with a few ropey pubs”

LIGHTHEARTED

DH and I often talk about this stuff. We still love what we call a drinkers pub. I was a drama student in London in the 80’s, when you could still be poor and live there. Had a dank and dark basement flat right next to Hammersmith Bridge, dressed in black and wore espradrilles all year round. Camden was fantastic then!

Then hanging out in Brighton in the 80’s and 90’s when my sister lived there in a series of squats and cheap rents. Rough, vibrant, real. Brighton now manages to be both gentrified and full of real poverty.

I am very glad to live in the West Country now with a glam upmarket pub with fab food, but I do miss the past. We had a lot of fun..

I love a random raffle. Would you like to win more bacon than you can carry or a carpet?

lol funnily enough I’ve never been to a pub when there’s a meat raffle

Lovely atmospheric post. I wasn't alive then, and never lived anywhere like this, but I felt the optimism and joy in being young, with exciting and limitless possibilities.
You write very well.

Knew a lovely chap from Arksey ❤️

Feeling a bit Sunday-philosophical now. I’m thinking that this sort of thing being the first response after the OP’s question is precisely why I don’t feel like I fit in anymore/here. I miss the freedom of the times and places where things where less rigid and curtain-twitchy.

Edit. Not you @BunnyLake, the post you were responding to

This 100%. It wouldn't live up to your nostalgic dreams - places may look the same but the communities, living there, and their values and lifestyles have almost certainly changed.
Keep your fond memories.

Just thought, we grew up in a poor Welsh valleys town before moving to a much more wealthy area in England.

My mum misses the Welsh town and talks about how people used to say hi, bring your washing in if it rained, the community, everyone in it together, big street parties etc.

She forgets that everyone gossiped about you, you could only put your best items on the line or the neighbours would judge, everyone in it together until you were excluded, the rampant racism (she still has to stop herself calling blood blisters "a black man's pinch" (that is the polite version) and we were told growing up to behave or the "local black man" (again, polite version) would steal us away).

She is nostalgic for an imagined past.

You find Swanage “gritty” 😳

Ah I know the main area of Croydon like Whitgift shopping centre

Of course @Daboomboom. Isn’t it a shame that to get better things we have to lose so much though. It’s the imaginary sweet spot that we crave I suppose, but maybe imagining is the first step towards finding it or making in happen. You know, be the change you want to make etc?

I kind of get this sentiment because when I’ve been looking forward to moving to new areas - and lived the ‘settling in’ period - going to the local cafes etc .. especially in summer time etc

but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of day to day living sometimes it’s not as ‘fun’ - even once areas !

Hamilton, Cumbernauld, Falkirk… our first flat was in Hamilton and I loved it because it felt like home, DH hated it with a passion.

Yes you’ve nailed it !!

if I moved back there I’d want to be exactly the same age as I was in the mid 2009s as well

Maybe a new film is in production-

STRAIGHT OUTTA

Swanage.

Anywhere Gentrification is a million miles from. Jaywick comes to mind. But that's probably not what you're thinking either. Somewhere that hasn't had much investment, the street lights are out, cats rummaging in the bins, litter, broken down cars, a grotty pub or two, a corner shop. But nice people who stick together. Nostalgia much?

Me too. But "run down" nowadays means something very different, places have changed a lot. And a "ropey pub" was much more fun back in the days when you rolled up there with your mates.

Yes very much nostalgia

I know what you mean. I live in leafy suburbia and long for somewhere more urban.

A town that relied heavily on one industry where the industry collapsed two or three decades ago with nothing to replace it. So some of the ex-mining places around South Yorkshire like Wath-Upon-Dearne or anywhere that used to have a thriving fishing or dock economy.

There are literally loads and loads of areas like that in London - Stockwell, Bow, Peckham, parts of Walthamstow - all still have massive price tags though.

Holiday in Grimsby for you. Ignore the arsey replies.

Kidderminster or stourport maybe bewdley if your budget is high enough

Its all changed since then.

All the ropey pubs have shut down, high street is street drinkers and drug dealing, violence and theft on every corner, ASB, neglected housing and infrastructure and fearful disenfranchised and unhealthy communities due to years of austerity and political neglect. Nothing nostalgic to see - no rubbing shoulders with a 'working' class. The nostagia criteria you describe now would be in parts of Leytonstone, Kensal Rise, Kentish Town where a terraced house would set you back between £850k and £2m.

I dont know areas outside of London.

Hard agree! Some of the responses just proving her point - that her question is unmumsnetty.

I was imagining some of them writing their question with their head tilted and tinkly laughs - “Gosh Bolognese what ever do you mean by ropey” - add in a little disgusted shudder for good measure 😂