To hate being from Essex sometimes?!

[PixiNanny]

I move around a lot and meet a hell of a lot of people. Therefore it undoubtably comes to the "So, where are you from?" bit. I'm honest about being from Essex and will admit it happily. However on occasion (a quite regular occasion...) I will get the "Ooh... Essex then? You're an Essex Bird?" I grudgingly repeat myself only to get "Well, you don't speak like one. Do you act like one? winkwink" No, I don't. "Oh. ... Is that because you're a Mum already?" Do you see a child with me? No.

I hate it. Yes I know that Essex has a stereotype and that in quite a few cases that it is true, however I am not included in those cases! Wherever I go I have to put up with it, why should I lie about where I'm from to avoid the stereotypes?!

Maybe it's just stereotypes in general. I'm a bisexual, Middle Eastern, Essex girl. Therefore I must be a nymphomaniac, indecisive terrorist who sleeps around and has two kids at the age of twenty

Yep Florence, Willie G's is definitely still there. Which Village did you grow up in?

MillyR: Positive upbeat people? I need to go to the parts of Essex you've been too obviously Everyone is such a grump in Clacton I swear, they amount of times I've had shop assistants completely ignore me as I've tried to be polite and strike up a small convo is unbeleivable. But then at the same time I get that from really prissy old women here in the Cotswolds when I wear my jeans and baggy jumpers! lol

I disagree on the countryside though, that's the best bit about Essex, it's beautiful countryside. I never discovered it until I was 11 and moved to the Brightlingsea school!

Hatesponge: DO it! People from here have the same opinion (so do I, but that's beside the point haha).

I don't find Chelmsford very posh at all, my sister lives there and certainly doesn't seem posh Better than Colchester though for a night out. I only ever go out in Colchester but the fact it's a military town screws it over

And Colchester posh? You must be joking Brightlingsea is somewhat posh (but full of inbreds :P) and I think Wivenhoe is a bit posh too actually, poshest area around Clacton/Colchester anyways! Hasn't Colchester got a John Lewis in the Debenhams?

notguilty:

does anyone remember Magic City in Claccer's? Oh I miss that place They still have the rope chair things and you can hear the staff playing on them sometimes

Florence: W&G is still in Colchester I think, I've never gone in there.

Oh! Does anybody else find that you mention Essex and they go "OMG! Have you been to the Uni's really strange/dangerous/cool/insert-descriptives-here lift in the library?! Whats it like?"

I was not expecting this response from my thread, was definately expecting a lot of Essex-girl insults actually

Willy G's is a great store

Oh and although the new Waitrose has just opened in Colchester it happens to be in what is known as the roughest area of Colchester...don't think they did their research!

Anyone remember North Weald market, pitsea market and i used to love Canvey market still go to North Weald every now and then.

Circus Tavern is hilarious i have never seen so many women (of any age!) in leopard print mini dresses before I still go there every now and again too!

Chelmsford doesn't have HoF or JL but it does have some lovely independant shops if you know where to look.

Ruthie Henshall has just opened a drama school in the Colchester area.....so we might have a few stars of the future around soon!

Oooh! What about Jaywick....anyone experienced that place?

I went to Essex University so have spent a lot of time on the paternoster lifts in the library PixiNanny. V cool I thought at the time as I remember!

Oh yes and Colchester Sixth Form still rocks

Lifts

I've never been in the uni

The area waitrose is in is the not so nice area I mentioned knowing very well earlier. It really did make me laugh when they put it there, it's in the middle of 2 rough not very posh estates lol. If they put it the otherside if town they would've done much better

I've been out in Chelmsford before, seemed ok. I'm used to the hippodrome though, alot of girls in there do seem to live up to the stereotype

Just looked at the lift video, that looks great fun

Excellent fun yes. And you can imagine how the combination of late library opening hours and it being staggering distance from the bar led to much hilarity...

Essex born and bred me and still reside in a commuterville town in Essex.

Essex to my mind the UK equivalent of New Jersey; people in NJ get looked down on as well in not too dissimilar ways. Its a lazy and inaccurate stereotype.

BTW Chelmsford used to have a Waitrose (on the site where the Wilkinsons store is now located). They moved it southwards to Billericay several years back.

Talking of Billericay's Waitrose that car park is also the only one where I have heard the F word uttered loudly on more than one occasion!.

Thorpe Bay and Emerson Park are posh Essex to my way of thinking.

waves at Brigit>>

Born and raised in Basildon here - - must admit I'm glad I don't live there anymore!!

YANBU by the way, it drives me mad too.

Emerson Park, Dagenham and Romford aren't in Essex, they're all in London.

They pay Council tax to a London Borough, go to a London Borough's school's and hospital's and vote for the Mayor of London.

They used to be in Essex but the borders changed back in the 60's.

I do love both London and Essex though and have lived in both.

Haha, I didn't know about the Waitrose until you guys told me! I'll have to check out where it is once I get back lol I've not heard of Circus Tavern? Where is it?

I used to go to Jaywick a lot as a kid, especially for bike rides (along the sea fron, down to the main road then down the air field), it's getting worse and worse isn't it? They should never have opened that blooming school there either, it's one of the worst for GCSE results in the area I think?

I want to go on the Pastnoster lifts over the top, I never had a chance to do that so I'd like to go back there for a go

Oh oh oh! And I just discovered that Clacton's biggest dickhead has a website! stephenmayzes.com/stephenmayzes.com/Home.html

He's a local councillor there, ran the youth council in order to get into thelocal politics. I was on that youth council. I left when I realised the truth and ended up (acidentally) supplying another local councillor with quite a bit of info on the muppet which ended up in the paper Best accident of my life lol

Circus tavern ia in Purfleet!
I know that Havering is a London borough, but I don't think you do get much more Essex than Romford! You do call it Essex in the address and it has an 01708 non-london area code, so maybe it can be both

Oh yeah, and I had a posh aquaintance who lived in Billericay - he called it 'Bilbo'...

I've never quite forgiven my northern parents for moving to the Essex coast when I was a baby. So, having returned north I'm stuck with a crap accent (though I do understand words like 'ginnel' ) and worse yet, my Lancashire born and bred DD has picked it up. So she gets a bit of teasing for long vowels ... ironically that automatically makes you 'posh'

Most of my family live in Essex, having moved out of London years ago.
Have some in Clacton, Brentwood, Romford ect, We were looking at moving to Colchester ,have heard mixed reviews on it though, although it can't be any worse than where we live now!

I think the address thing is just a historical hang on and you don't need to use it any more, I think the official Postal Addresses don't have Essex on them.

Romford is definitely totally London.

It's not big deal but it does show how much people that knock Essex using Romford as an example really know about the County.

Personally I like Romford btw!

• you from Bilbo too then?

I used to live in Essex (in Leigh, which also now has a Waitrose!)

I have now moved to a place perceived (rightly IMO) as equally dismal but still get far to many comments about being an Essex girl, not sounding like an Essex girl, not dressing like one etc. etc.

I often wimp out and say 'near London'.

TOTs used to be a great night out - I remember being able to get in, get drunk, have a burger from the hole in the wall next door and share a taxi home for a tenner. Good times!

This thread has cheered me up no end- We're off to look at flats to rent in Southend tomorrow.
I'm an Essex Girl (from Stanford-le-Hope originally) but lived in Surrey for the past 7 years. I've had enough of being miles away from my parents and DH's friends, so we're taking the plunge and heading back to the motherland. I was beginning to wonder if we were doing the right thing, but, reading this, I've realised that Essex isn't such a bad place after all.
We're going to stay in Southend for 6 months to a year until we decide where we want to settle permanently- any suggestions?

Anathema: not Clacton.

OMG this has brought back so many memories! I'm also an Essex girl, now living in South Wales. I usually say I'm from "near Romford" cos no-one has ever heard of ....Elm Park!!!! I used to hang around in Rainham during my teens and remember some pretty big houses there. Remember the Circus Tavern well - chicken in a basket etc - but we moved on to a club in Ilford when we got older and I can't remember its name! It's driving me mad. Hope someone can recall it, it was really well known at the time, EVERYBODY used to go there. I'm used to the stereotypical thing and it doesn't bother me but as an Essex girl myself, I have to say that when I used to be on the tube coming home from work I could always spot the women who would get off at Dagenham cos they always seemed to be wearing loads of earrings and rings ......