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

Ilford Palais?

As everyone else is waving to people "near Romford" to South Wales, just like me!!

Sorry can't help with the name of the place in Ilford at the mo though!!

Thanks thesun but not Ilford Palais .... arrgh it's driving me nuts! Hang on a mo, Seven Kings is coming to mind now, maybe it was there & not Ilford? My memory's not what it used to be! I remember there was a burger place just up the road that we all used to pile into after the club shut, really classy!!

Used to love Romford market for a new top/shoes/whatever ready to go out on a Saturday. Was very disappointed in the market when I moved here (South Wales) 20+ years ago - no comparison!

Haha Is South Woodford Essex??

Because I just moved here from NZ, 22 and preggers ;)

Sorry to state the obvious nifty but was it Kings?? That may have been a pub though not a nightclub...... or I may be making it all up!!

lolaann: apparently up until 1965 South Woodford was a part of Essex

Who, on a (fairly recent as in past few years) night out in Colchester, finished the night with a load of cheesey chips from Crystals? Tis brilliant haha

Pixi- No, not Clacton! I've got family there and I've spent enough time visiting to know I wouldn't live there. Especially as Magic City is no more...

Briglingsea your not classed as local less your on about 5th genration or roundabouts.but on flip sidjust incase any local mn on here #i do like the town but 12 years ot mae me local yet

Im from kent but ended up in Essex via Malta,Germany,Birmingham way ,Altrincham , up near Preston now Essex with 3dc born and bred essex and one thats grown up here .Though did have moemnt when realied my DD going to be butt of thoseESsx girls joke

Oh, woe the disapearance of Magic City

startingagain - I love North Weald market. I might go tomorrow actually if I can get up early enough (have a few things to be done in the morning).

So has anyone checked out the "Welcome to Harlow" sign yet - it has been bugging me since I brought it up.

I only went to TOTS once when i was 16 a boy did i love it, i couldnt believe they let me in.lol.
AnathemaDevice come and live in shoebury! are you just coming for the day tomorrow?

I used to be a tots girl too....!!

Kings was originally The Windmill, then Kings and now Escape

I'm pretty sure it was the Ilford palais they wouldn't let me into....i'd been to a family party and was abit worse for wear!

Used to do all my Christmas shopping on Romford market when i was a teenager lol!

Oh and the pie and mash shop in Witham was brilliant but they closed it down and opened a Costa....

sb66...now you've got me wanting to go to North Weald tomorrow!! I can't got other places i've got to be

My kids used to love magic city

I just love it when i am travelling back from somewhere and see the 'ESSEX' signs....home

YABU - I'm from Essex and proud! The archetypal Essex girl that the jokes in the 90s were about have always existed everywhere. Actually since moving to Bristol I've met more "Essex girls" than I did in Essex!

My parents are from Newcastle and when the Essex girl jokes hit the media etc. they told me that the same jokes were being said about Geordie lasses 20 years before! They're just offensive, sexist jokes but there's nothing more fun than proving the stereotype wrong (in your case in almost every single way you can!)

Phoenix: So true haha. Brightlingsea is just one of those places where everyone knows everyone else isn't it? And you're considered a newcomer if you weren't born there I barely knew that it existed until I moved to the Colne School 7 years ago; same could be said for Alresford/Wivenhoe/etc too though lol

Well I am totally Essex and proud. I have never lived anywhere else, and I would never move out of choice.
Anathema - I am in Westcliff, Dependent on your budget if you want to be in the southend area, I would say as long as you aim for 2+ mils from the town centre its all lovely

Purpleflower - I grew up in Stratford St Mary near Dedham and went to East Bergholt High School.

I hated living there at the time as it seemed so remote, but thinking back it was a lovely area to live in and right in the country.

Just because a town has a John Lewis and House of Fraser doesn't make it posh!!! Reading has both and is far from being posh. Yes, the countryside and towns around Reading are lovely, but Reading itself - it's the pits.

I would consider some areas of Colchester to be very posh i.e Lexden, and others are terrible. But isn't that the cas eof most large towns.

I'm glad someone else thinks that Colchester Sixth Form College rocks. Everyone I know who went there had a great time and loved it. It was the beginning of the making of me I think

Well to the OP all I can say is "you think you have it bad"?

Well I am from Essex too and even worse I am from Basildon. I know I know - why am I grinning when I should be

jolly is basildon really that bad? A few people i went to school with lived there but ive only ever been shopping there.

Jolly - Basildon's not that bad really! I remember the days when it had a Laura Ashley...bought my Sith Form ball dress there in 1989

Sixth Form

Another former Essex girl here. I grew up in Coggeshall and went to Colchester Sixth Form too!

I'm in Bristol now and would love to move back to Colchester again. I keep looking up houses in Coggeshall on Rightmove and showing them to my husband but he won't consider moving there.

Hello erzibetta. When were you at the Sixth Form??

I left in 94 and then went to Bristol Uni. I must amid that if there was a toss up between living in Colchester and living in Bristol then it would have to be Bristol everytime, but then again Colchester does have better schools.

Basildon is actually fine but try telling anyone that who's never lived here - we are the epitome of Essex girls in all the generalisations. I always get "Essex" with a giggle and "Basildon" with a huge belly laugh often followed by "where's yer stilettos then" (oh they are such wits). Personally I like Basildon. I grew up here AND on a sink estate as well which does not deserve the pasting it gets in the local press.