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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to move back home? (Northerners, feel my pain!)

221 replies

edam · 12/10/2009 12:06

Went back up North for my Godmother's 90th birthday party at the weekend, to the village where we lived until I was 7 (moved away due to father's job but moved back to a neighbouring village a few years later).

It felt so nice. Comforting, cosy, full of nice and 'real' people. I don't know how to explain it, but people up North just are different. Friendlier, more straightforward, very dry sense of humour that is always just beneath the surface. Down South, you can have quite a long conversation before anyone cracks a joke...

I live in the Home Counties, very nice small town that is (relatively speaking) friendly with a sense of community. But it's not half as genuinely friendly and can be quite smug and pretentious. I dunno, I'm generally quite happy here, but going back 'home' made me long to return permanently. Oh, and the countryside around my Yorkshire village was just stunning, and feels 'right' to me. While Hertfordshire is just there. All very nice and all that but hardly compares!

I want to live in Denby Dale!

OP posts:
Original poster
edam · 12/10/2009 13:47

[green] of fatzak. My Godmother lives in Upper Denby - it was amazing seeing her house full of Denby people again (obv. she sees them all the time, but we don't).

Looked online and it appears we could have a much nicer house than we have in Herts. for less ££££. God, I really want to go!

OP posts:
lucykate · 12/10/2009 13:48

we live in the east midlands now but am from merseyside originally. i still call the north west home. my scouse accent is more or less gone

Original poster
edam · 12/10/2009 13:49

doh!

Rhubs, you are right, we should actually do it. Not right this second though, dh is being made redundant again so we have no money and don't think a mortgage company would be keen to take us on.

I keep thinking I need to be within reach of London for work, which is kind of true, but I'm sure we could sort something out.

OP posts:
Original poster
edam · 12/10/2009 13:50

Oh, and there's MIL who is increasingly frail, would be very hard for her if we upped sticks. Although she does have SIL not too far away...

OP posts:
kickassangel · 12/10/2009 13:50

grew up in the south & lived in the north for about 12 years. when i moved north there wrere pubs it wasn't safe to go in, as northerners would follow us home & beat crap out of us - even as teenage girls we werre threatened. one bf's mum didn't want me going to her house cos she'd never had a southerner in it before & didn't know what i'd want to eat.
when i moved back south, was inundated with 'humorous' stories about how the south was full of snobs, cost too much to live there,the weather was really worse, but the weathermen just lied about it etc etc.

i loved where i used to live, and the majority of people were lovely, but i have never come across a southerner who had anything but praise for yorkshire, whereas in yorkshire, i HAD to lose my accent & pretend i was local, just to protect myself.

i know my own experiences aren't true of all the north, but the north/south divide seems to be perpetuated by the north.

i think that for the majority of people, you feel most at home where you grew up, tha's why it feels cosy, not cos there is something intrinsically better about a certain place.

where i live now (in the US) is by far the friendliest, most welcoming place i've ever been, but give me the smelly, overcrowded, overpriced SE of England, and I fit right in.

Rhubarb · 12/10/2009 13:51

Well, what does your dh do? If he's being made redundant, wouldn't now be the best time for him to look for a job close to Denby? You could rent for a while - house prices are predicted to come down again anyway. And could you work from home? I don't know what it is that you do, but could you perhaps cut back on visits to London? With such good technology now, there's no reason why you can't have your office at home.

Original poster
edam · 12/10/2009 13:53

yyy Rhubarb, I should seriously look into this.

OP posts:
Rhubarb · 12/10/2009 13:54

Don't live your life for other people. Your MIL will cope, you can still see her, but she might live for years yet and it would be a crying shame if that stopped you from doing what you really wanted to do.

You only have this life, you should pull out all the stops to make sure that it's the kind of life you want to lead.

CommonNortherner · 12/10/2009 13:54

I thought you specifically wanted northerners to share your pain, but if it's just about wanting to be home then I'm sure lots of people could identify and it has bugger all to do with the north specifically.

Rhubarb · 12/10/2009 13:55

Just make sure that you aren't over-romantising your home town, make sure you know all its bad sides too.

OrmIrian · 12/10/2009 13:55

Agree about technology - is yours a job you can do remotely?

Original poster
edam · 12/10/2009 13:55

well yes it is about going back home specifically but home is up North and I am in the South and it is different.

OP posts:
Original poster
edam · 12/10/2009 13:57

yes, and I do, as it happens, but need to go into London regularly. I do shell out for membership of a professional organisation that actually has bloody hotel rooms, though, why have I not sorted this out before?!

OP posts:
Original poster
edam · 12/10/2009 13:58

Maybe I should get dh applying for jobs near Denby... he used not to want to drive for work but has been doing it for the past year so this could all work out!

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CommonNortherner · 12/10/2009 13:58

Buck up, love, it'll all turn out reet in the end!

FimboFortunaFeet · 12/10/2009 13:59

I would move back to Scotland in a flash if I could, but dh's job is not workable from home. He would never get the same type of job in his field back home either, so he would end up miserable. Ach!

GetOrfMoiLand · 12/10/2009 13:59

My home town is crappy, half the shops are shut during winter, there is bugger all for teenagers to do, the local school is awful (I went there and vowed no child of mine would).

But it is so pretty. And people know me. And it is a 10 minute drive from Woolacombe beach.

If I won the lottery I would run from Gloucestershire faster than you could say Devon cream tea

CommonNortherner · 12/10/2009 14:00

I tried to get dh to get a job back in/near my home town for years and it didn't happen. I still feel slightly sad when I hear ds's accent... but on the bright side, I'm not actually in the south

Rhubarb · 12/10/2009 14:01

Huddersfield direct train to either Kings Cross or Euston station, take around 3 hours.

hatwoman · 12/10/2009 14:04

oh edam edam edam. I understand so much. I did it. In January, after the best part of 20 years down south we moved back - not to "my" village - but the next one. And I felt this difference, with the people ? a lightness of being. Just a feeling that the people who live here get a lift, everyday, from their beautiful surroundings. And the lift balances out all the other stuff that generally drags people down.

And ever since doing it I have become quite fascinated with this connection we feel to "home". our sense of place. this is going to sound daft, really draft. but the little refrain that keeps coming into my head is that I have a little piece of gritstone lodged in my heart. told you it sounded stupid. The landscape where I live is dominated by gritstone and I feel such an intense connection with it that I find it hard to explain.

hatwoman · 12/10/2009 14:07

Edam - I resigned and went freelance. I get the train to London every 2-3 weeks. dh cut his hours to 2 days a week. he does 2 days (and a night) in London every fortnight. the other weeks he does a day in London and a day at home.

Rhubarb · 12/10/2009 14:11

Blimey - perhaps that's why I find it so easy to move around so much. I don't consider anywhere to be my 'home'. Maybe I'm still looking?

Lizzylou · 12/10/2009 14:14

Oh yes, fruit cake and wensleydale, an annual ritual of ours when we go to Hawes.

Yes, you have to find a way to get back

OrmIrian · 12/10/2009 14:17

hat - I know what you mean. There is a few square miles of Somerset that is part of me. The bit between the Quantocks and the coast. WHen I am there I feel happier. There are more beautiful places, more exciting places but this is the place that lifts my soul. I always feel amazed that some people seem to be able to move around the place so easily as it is no more than changing addresses,

Notalone · 12/10/2009 14:30

Hear Hear Kickassangel. You took the very words out of my mouth. I am a southerner living in Yorkshire and for years I HATED it. I lived in a small mining village where people judged me on my accent alone. I worked in a cliquey office for years where I made no friends because they didn't like southerners and made no secret of it. I look back now and shudder because I don't know how I coped and it took all my confidence away.

I am still in Yorkshire and in the next mining village along but now I have some lovely friends and am at uni where I also have some lovely friends. That is the reason why I feel more settled. I honestly believe the people where you live make a huge difference. Northerners can be more friendly but sadly some can also be donwright nasty and intolerant of people from other areas. Southerners on the whole are more accepting of people from other areas because down south people do tend to be more transient.

I am happy now and where I live is home. I have carved a niche where I am and my confidence is slowly coming back, I know I am a nice person but living up here in the first few years nearly destroyed me and all because of people in a mining village who didn't like change.

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