To belive that my children are having a great childhood in London?

[mrsruffallo]

Annoying woman at parent and toddler grouip today.
She was noisily proclaiming her intention to leave London before her child turned 5 as it's an awful place to grow up!
I said if not here, where?
There is so much to do, lovely green spaces, much better than being stuck in the middle of nowhere
Turned into quite a lively discussion

nomoresleep - Londoners living in 'villages' - you sound like an estate agent! The kind who refers to 'Brook Green' rather than Hammersmith. I presume you mean they live in ex-working class terraces in places like Fulham and Clapham - read John Osborne on the poverty in Fulham when he was growing up post-war - hardly a 'village'. Okay gentrification has given these places 'that charming little deli' as well as the ubiquitous Starbucks, but it has also removed the kind if people who used to be able to afford to live in those places - in that sense there has been, in fact, a real loss of social diversity. When I first moved into my SW London 'village' in the 1980s there was a far greater diversity of incomes and backgrounds on the street than in the average m class London 'village' now. The poor, of all ethnic backgrounds, now tend to be squashed into the kind of social housing that might be just behind the 'village' areas of Battersea and Clapham, but is where the 'village dwellers' never venture.

"All my friends who grew up in rural areas spent their teenage users drinking cider in a hedge. (and not saying this is causation, just pointing out tecorrelation) an awful lot of them started having sex at 15, 3 years earlier than me!"

So London teenagers don't get drunk or have sex? Man, Eastenders has a lot of explaining to do.

we have gay people in the shires too you know. and the inter web.

Is line dancing forced down your throat in Cornwall?

well, when I said 'village' I was actually thinking of places like Highgate & Hampstead - i.e. places that used to be separate towns/villages but which got swallowed up by London. You are right about what's happened to areas like battersea/bits of Fulham but not sure what that's got to do with a debate about the merits of London versus the countryside. The issue of relatively affluent families buying up pretty houses in hitherto relatively poor communities happens all over the country doesn't it? I mean look at the Cotswolds and St Ives in Cornwall for starters. I think that's for a different debate tbh

OOooh, line dancing. Now that's something we don't have in London. Well not in my part, anyway!

lol at gay couples only living in London.

And lolol at what do teenagers do. The countryside isn't all Dartmoor, you know. Mostly it is towns with gaps between them.

(Though actually cider and first love in a hedge sounds rather wonderful.)

Gays...what, outside of London? Never. [grin}

What teenegers do in Smashing London Town isn't all that disimilar to what they do anywhere else, you know !

You can so tell those who have lived in the London Bubble all their lives...

Should be a & teenagers in there somewhere....

Oh no you can't be gay in the cuntryside - it's all pitchforks and torches if you are a bit different

Oh, now, you know that all parents pack their gay teenagers off t'capital to experience proper gay culture that they'd nevre get in - erm, what's it called? Oh gosh - Manchester, that's it. Do people really think that Little Britain is a documentary?

I feel sorry for all you London dwellers..Isn't it all just like Crapston Villas anyway?

Yes, Bigtilly, Wilmslow is indeed up it's own bum. But believe me, nothing like living in Surrey. I hated the 'we are better than the rest of the country' bollox.
I think the two main differences are the closeness to Manchester and the fact that people in Wilmslow regularly visit Manchester. A huge proportion of Surrey never utilise London.
And also the fact that the majority of those living in Wilmslow have lived elsewhere. Too many people in Surrey who would never dream of living anywhere else and the mere suggestion is abhorent. Funny how many southern accents you here up here though!

Okay - I accept that Hampstead and Highgate have somewhat more claim to have been separate entities. They also still have rather nicer high streets than the hideous sprawl of most of London. Since I could never afford either the Ham or High I suppose I'm only jealous! And I accept that the poor are also squashed out of areas like Cornwall and the Cotswolds. But what the cheek by jowl juxtaposition of rich and poor does in London is add inevitably to social unease, overcrowding and crime. Streets were calmer and quieter 20 years ago (the initial postwar period actually saw some population out-flow from London rather than the cramming in of the last two decades). Plus, as can be detected in some postings on here, there now seems (to someone returning from abroad) a real tendency by Londoners to despise other areas of the country - seeing it as a kind of hicksville. I'm a city girl myself - don't particularly like the 'burbs. But whereas I could happily live in many manageable cities, both here and abroad, I find that contemporary London has a seedy, end of empire quality that is depressing. The fact that there will almost inevitably be some further attacks on the public transport network there at some stage only adds to the gloom.

One thing ALL pro-Londoner say is that in LOndon at least not everyone is WHITE,a nd so you´ll children will be thoroughly "colourblind".

This is a really stupid assumption.

Did you know that teh country ahs also become multi-culti? It´s an international wolrd wide phenomenon, not just in London (lol).

I mean, have you EVER been to the country???? It´s a lot like the rest of the world.

In a way you betray your own bigotry, did you not know that ALL children are colourblind?

Kids don´t care about race or religion, only adults do, and Londoners in my experience are very aware of every non-white person ("Oh, Look how multi culti we are, look how tolerant we are" you´re so smug). I´d rather it wasn´t and issue in your head.

a non-white-non-british country person (!)

Probably for the best you don't live in Surrey any more..you clearly loathe the whole county. Don't agree with the comment about Surrey inhabitants not utilising London..where did you get that from then?

Aww, feel the Surrey love..it's a nice place really

People in Surrey probably don't want to live elsewhere because it's actually quite a nice place to live, all things considered.

Sorry, that was in reply to myredcardigan

Blimey - Belissima and Hatwoman - that is not my experience in London AT ALL.
yes, I recognise that some people fall into the mc / handbag / bathrooms / state-school-refusenik category, just as some people live up to a good range of inner-city stereotypes of disaffection.

But for us, and the majority of my local friends - we are sort of mc - but not wealthy mc, scruffy mc - our children go to non-faith state schools, with which we are v happy, and as in my DS's school, the demography is v mixed. In my DS's school probably 60-70% of kids are black, and include children of barristers, teachers, refugees, 'NEET', everyone. Multiculturalism means, in the words of a friend's child who has just returned from living in a N European, v white and homogenous country where she was badly bullied at school, and is now in a S London comp "It's great, it's the first place I haven't felt differnt because EVERYONE is different'.

It means that my partner can make a restaurant reservation over the phone without getting a reaction implying that his (actually v common and uncomplicated) Indian surname marks him out as coming from outer-space - as happenes where other membes of my family live, in rural England.

I can easily tire of certain mc manifestations of mc-ness - but the class divide is SO much more evident on my mother's remote coastal village than it is in London where everyone is up close - in my mother's village, the shooting / Range rover Driving / Parish Council BossyBoots are just as bad as the serial bathroom refurbishers!

I really would love to live in either a rural location, or the heart of a major city.....less keen on a sprawling deprived series of estates on the outskirts of a failing ex-idustrial town, perhaps. But even then, I hope I would loo positively on my neigbours and take them for who they were.

skatergrrl - obviously never been to hebden bridge (small yorkshire town) - I bet there are more lesbians per square mile than London, in fact I guarantee it.

Its' comments like that that make me dislike the arrogance of some Londoners.

...and don´t even get me started on Skatergrrl´s ludicrous assumption that there are no gay people in the country.

What?

I am not even going to deign to list the various gay couples in our group of friends...you probably won´t believe me !

Like I say, skin colour or religion or sexual orientation is not a big deal to kids, only to some adults. Adults like you.

I think it depends which part of Surrey you are talking about. I'm not talking about what I'd call 'London Surrey' ie Twickenham but further west.
I didn't know anyone who popped into London for lunch on a Saturday or just a a few casual drinks every Fri night. Yes, they made a planned trip to a museum but not popping in just to sit in a cafe bar in the way people here do with Manchester.

And yes, I did find a lot of arrogance. And also no concept that anywhere further North could possibly be as green or as pretty or as affluent. Very much a prevailing thought that nice, educated people moved South. They'd have choked on the fact that round here you don't get much change from 1m for a modest 4bed.

Each to their own and I say all this as someone who lived there a long time. It was like one big gated community or so many would have liked. You are perfectly entitled to hold a different view on Surrey though I think my first point stands.

I am a Scot living in Norfolk. We visit London as often as we can. Greenwich Park from our house is 1.5hrs. We either come for day trips or rent a house in Greenwich for a one during school holidays. I used to think Glasgow was the dogs bolleaux but having spent a week back there last year, London is definately better. I always thought that dh and I would retire back to Scotland but we now think it will be London.

I am going down for the day tomorrow to Oxford Street by the train on my own, already two people have told me that I am "brave".

Oh and when our numbers come up on the lotto on Saturday I will be turfing someone out their house on Gloucester Circus in Greenwich.

Skatergrrl's obviously never heard of Canal Street then if she thinks there are no Gays outside London!

IME the average mc London dweller (whoever that is) is less concerned with material things and possessions because their is less spare cash at the end of the month after paying our big mortgages.

The vast majority of my friends and peers have unfinished slightly scruffy houses, oldish cars and state educated children. Housing is eyewateringly expensive, its very true. One of the reasons I want to stay and stay is so that when I do eventually feel ready for life in Surrey or Hampshire or Wiltshire (long after the dc have grown up, I hope) we can downsize with some cash in the bank to see us through our old age.

I know I know about their/there