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

[edam]

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!

i live in manchester and certainly don't agree that the north is friendlier than the south. i love where i live but greater manchester (oldham, rochdale trafford etc.) is tretty grim tbh.

worked in preston for a bit and burnley/blackburn, rude,insular, odd people imo.

dhs family from west yorks, all very rude, and halifax awful. northern towns aren't great.

this whole "northern charm" thing just a myth, unless you go to stoke or liverpool where people are genuinely v friendly.

Funnily enough I feel like I have affinity with local stones. The local stone of my bit of Devon is a slatey rock - loads of the houses are built of it. Also streets of Victorian houses are built in a blonde brick which is rarely seen anywhere else.

DP feels the same about Cotswold stone, if we ever go anywhere, as soon as we get back he sees a house built in Cotswold stone and always comments on how much more beautiful Cotswold stone is than any other material.

Perhaps we are just odd

I have very seldom been north of the midlands, fwiw, but I used to spend some time in Derbyshire and I have never met friendlier people anywhere. Even drunken people on a Saturday night out in Chesterfield where charm itself. I loved being called duck by all and sundry.

part of the reason that the landscape itself is an intrinsic part of my experience of moving back north is that where I live is not populated solely by northerners. The village is actually quite mixed - off the top of my head I can think of people from Wales, Surrey, Hertfordshire, the Wirral, and Portsmouth. all of whom have lived here between 1 and 4 or 5 years, rather than a lifetime. There just seems to be something about the place that rubs off on people and gives them that lightness of being I mentioned. My experience is obviously very different from Notalone's - moving into a tight-knit and static community is really tough. moving into a tight-knit static community that's also a mining community that had most likely been torn apart and virtually destroyed by the strikes of the early 80s would not be something I'd like to try. even with my short As.

i love the north - origionally from east lancs and have settled in south cheshire- i lived in berkshire for a while and have never experienced such poor service in the gym and other establishments. Also people were really agressive drivers, the ammount of road rage i witnessed- i could go on

Oh go on Edam, come back Will even send you housing and job supplements from t'Examiner

oh yes- i remember going to visit my aunt in london as a child and getting really upset that noone was talking to each other- i couldn't understand it

i meant talking to each other on the tube - pressed post too soon - the tube was silent- freaky

I'm not being funny but Manchester and Yorkshire are not North.

Where I live is North - you Mancs and Yorkies are Southerners with funny accents!

I live in the wilds of Northumberland, where Men are Men and sheep are worried.

are those two things connected? the men and the worried sheep, I mean

Edam - do it! We're doing it... I moved from north Cumbria / Lake District to Leeds 14 years ago for university. Since then I've also had a couple of years in Staines (struggled somewhat with my sarcasm not being understood but in general had a ball) and the last 5 in a lovely town just outside York.

But I've always wanted to go home... In summer 2007 we decided to go for it. DH is homebased but I needed to change jobs and was convinced it would take forever - in the end I was offered other jobs quickly but took a promotion in my existing company (meant 2 days a week in Manchester) within 2 months... Then we put the house on the market in October 2007 and the housing crash happened...

Fast forward 2 years, an encyclopedic knowledge of the commute from York to Manchester, and 1 small baby later and we are just about to sell our house, we've found an amazing house to rent for a while in a fab location 4 miles from where I grew up so we can take our time and find the right property to buy, and we're going to be 5 mins away from my lovely mum and dad and will at last have some family support. Imagine, being able to pop in and not have to drive for 3 hours!

Don't worry about your MIL. My MIL is a widow of 14 years standing, she lives in Huddersfield and doesn't drive. My DH is an only child. We agonised about this when deciding to move. However, she is ecstatic about our move, cannot wait to come up for holidays and see the Lakes more and couldn't have been more supportive. Although sometimes we think maybe we need to buy a house with a granny annexe, just in case!

Hat / Orm - I'm with you. Every time I cross the A66 I feel kind of uplifted. I need fells and big sky and space. I'm just thrilled that my 4mo baby will grow up where I did. (And DH is thrilled both by that and by the fact he was born a Yorkshireman )

And as for work - I'm on mat leave at the moment, spoke to my boss last week and she said I may as well be entirely homebased (with some travelling) when I return after Christmas - no evil Manchester commute. So it looks like eventually everything is working out. It's been a long hard slog but I am so excited, completely worth it.

Honestly Edam, do it!! You have nothing to lose.

Oh yes hatwoman.

A sheep tied to a lamp post is called a leisure centre round here.

(joke, obviously)

ruby you'll be giving people the wrong impression!

Go for it Edam. The quality of life you get from being comfortable in your skin is worth the compromise on wages et al.

HeebieJeebie we have a lot in common. Fab cottage in N. Cumbria just outside the Lakes - free entertainment all around! But I too have to work at home, and for less money than when I worked in an office in the south.

Having said that, I earned a pretty good wage in an office in Yorkshire - so maybe you can get the whole picture, Edam !

fatzak, I might take you up on that! My mother used to be a reporter on the Chronicle decades ago - is it still going?

hatwoman/getorf, I know exactly what you are saying - I have a little piece of millstone grit in my heart. Doesn't sound nice at all now I come to think about but it is! Even the villages in the White Peak of Derbyshire aren't quite right, I need to go further into the Dark Peak before I start to feel at home. And to be able to see Emley Moor Mast!

Mabh whereabouts? We'll be in Westward near Wigton.

Hi Heebie I'm near Melmerby, between Penrith and Alston - windy territory! But I can see as far as Blencathra from my front door!

I can assure you that Yorkies and Southerners are VERY different.

I moved up from Leicester when I was 10 and have lived in the North West for 20 years.

I love it up here.

My DH is funny hes a from Wigan and can't stand London he actually starts sweating if we ever visit

My Grandad was from Coalville and he used to love coming up to visit because we all new our neighbours etc but when he went to visit my Auntie down south he said he felt isolated.

My children are first generation northerners on my side and I love their accents they are very mixed

Notalone, my situation is the same as yours. I've made some lovely friends up here but I am fed up of being judged (that's probably too strong a word) by my accent.

Mabh How fab - you are a long way up - great road though... I'll be able to see Skiddaw!

(apols for slight hijack, edam)

You will, Heebie (again muchos apologies Edam) and shop at Booths (Waitrose with northern knobs on!) in Keswick, you lucky, lucky thing!

BTW edam I lived and worked in N. Yorks for years and it is very, very beautiful... although not as beautiful as the Lakes! BUT the people are fab. I love York, and still go there specially to do my 'serious' shopping.

The only serious issue I would consider with Northern rural is internet connections - don't believe what BT say about 90-whatever percent getting broadband. I still have dial up (gulp) as they wouldn't fix my line when my 500k (yes, rubbish) broadband went down. AND believe me, it's an absolute pain.

I love being in Sheffield. Moved here from the Midlands 18 years ago and can't imagine moving out. I certainly wouldn't go back to my roots, regardless of the fact that all my family are still within 10 miles of my birth place.

I found that people were less worried about what you'd got in Sheffield...it didn't matter if you didn't have your own house or a posh car. No-one was overly interested in that kind of thing. As a result I found people in the workplace more friendly and understanding and I settled in more quickly to the various jobs I undertook.

I also like the fact that you have quite affluent areas butted up against no so affluent areas, so you tend to get a decent mix in most of the schools of working/middle class, particularly the secondary schools.

I also love the fact that you have the city a mile in one direction, the countryside a mile in the other. I just love it.

I can relate totally to the OP and her yearning for the north..

sorry to hear that MMJ but not my experience at all. If you are talking about a few miles down the road into South Yorkshire though, we did get a lot of hostility when we moved 'back'. Wouldn't go near that neck of the woods again.