Help me with a very anxious friend, please...

[stilettoed]

A friend is looking to relocate to the UK for two to three years, possibly longer (she's been offered a job transfer from her overseas office). She lives in a beautiful and pretty safe city at the moment and she came to the UK for a recce of places to live over the summer (her only criteria was one hour or so to London each way). She tells me that, having agreed the transfer, she's now getting cold feet as she couldn't find anywhere in the UK that is:

• Beautiful/scenic
• Close to a buzzy and attractive town for cafes and restaurants etc
• Safe
• Has good/great schools (she can afford private but if they stay long-term her toddler might need state school)
• Good range of kids' activities
• Isn't overrun with oiks and antisocial behaviour during the evenings/at weekends.

That last point is very important to her as she says that when she visited all these places she had been told were charming (Richmond, Guildford/Oxford/Cambridge/York etc etc) she was shocked at the number of rowdy teens and adults she encountered, vaping and cussing and generally being intimidating especially after daylight hours.

Of course the drinking culture in the UK is terrible and I can see why someone from a place that doesn't have this would be concerned, especially as she has a tween and a teen who have some independence where they live at the moment. My question is, is this in every British town and city? Is there no place that is still charming and welcoming and not overrun with marauding drunks and vapers and County Lines drug dealers? I'd like to reassure my friend...

Oliver Cromwell lived in Ely, its beautiful, quiet and lots of Cambridge academics and silicon fen people live there. The cathedral is called the ship of the fens. Lots cheaper than Richmond but less going on.

I think she probably lives in a very (white?) middle class area. I am an academic and have just spent 3 months living in the US. I think the difference between the UK and US is that money cannot purchase you the type of segregation that she is looking for. Frankly, that is a positive for me. Humanity is not that safe and sanitised bubble. It is too easy to ignore the fact that many people make different choices and have shit to deal with. If your friend wants to hide away from that, she should stay in the US. Fictionalised bubbles of wealth are achievable there.

i also would never choose to live in the US. I find their segregated society disturbing. It is impossible to deal with systematic biases and prejudices in a society where it is possible to simply pay your money to avoid them.

Just so we are clear, I am not accusing your friend of being racist. But I do think she should challenge her expectation of privilege.

Well, if it was good enough for Oliver Cromwell!
Also Hereward The Wake. What a guy.

My area of North London (Hampstead) meets all her criteria, although I can’t promise no vaping. It’s lovely, although expensive, and full of well-to-do Americans. Highgate, Crouch End, Muswell Hill, SJW would all fit the bill. Suspect she doesn’t want London though. (NB not saying a crime has never been committed in these places obviously but for a middle-aged American woman they are as safe as anywhere.)

You are getting some very silly replies OP. I remember living in a nice area many years ago when DD was a toddler - not especially affluent just a normal new build estate. Set amongst the houses was a small field with a play area for small kids and space to kick a ball or walk a dog opposite my house. I remember one occasion when someone had deliberately smashed beer bottles all over the ground - i guess lobbing them all over the field. I spent half a day going over the field picking out grass so the local kids who liked to play out wouldnt be injured (it was a family area). It could only have been someone from our own estate as no one would come to that little field otherwise.

I'd love for there to be a solution. Make alcohol really expensive... oh hang on that's happening. Thank you cost of living crisis...?

I agree with these areas; we live in one of them and agreed they are full of very wealthy Americans and they're pretty sanitised.

You aren't doing it right @boogiejive. It's a veritable hot-bed of oikery and vaping, that Guildford.

Would she live in a village? I think all towns and cities have this problem but villages seem quieter. My cousin lives in a small village in Hertfordshire, less than an hour from London. I'm sure they still get a few bored youths loitering about but generally you don't see yobbish drunken behaviour. I think people tend to head in to the neatest town if they want a drunken night out. Lovely schools and sense of community in many villages.

Barnes is close to Richmond (and overall nicer imo)

My friend lives in Hampton Court- it seems just lovely. Surrey generally seems it may fit her bill?

But I'm saying that coming from the loud, veritable craziness of inner-city Glasgow. I love the colour of my city, but I get that she wants quiet.

🤣

Nowhere is perfect.

I saw 10 police cars doing drug raids on houses in Godalming. Lots of trouble there and in nearby Guildford

I love Richmond and used to go out there, but you will get a mix of people from nearby places who may cause bother. Both privileged and the less affluent.

The European countries you have mentioned have their own problems that I have seen first hand.

But I have to say it's a bit rich from someone coming from the US. I have different sets of friends and aquaintances from the US. All they ever do is criticise EVERYTHING in the UK and compare it to the US. From homes sizes to the narrow roads. It's a superiority thing!

I would tell her to stay put - she'll not stop whingeing I guarantee.

This. The US is massively more segregated. We’re not. Overall I’d rather live here personally, and if I was poor I’d definitely be glad not to be in the States.

Yes my friend didn't understand how we could be all mixed in together. That was one of her criticisms.

Lots of prejudice and segregation.

And to be honest, if she’s that shocked by ‘vaping and cussing’, I think she should stay in Narnia suburban Massachusetts

I'd love to know if there's anywhere in the UK where people aren't doing one or the other.

I find this post a bit confusing. Weren’t there over 15,000 gun homicides in the US annually at the last count? Total homicides all types in the UK only 600ish.

My friend doesn't live in Boston proper, she lives in a lovely area not far from the city

Well ok, she’s not comparing apples with apples then is she? She’s comparing what is effectively a commuter village in the US, with town centres in the UK.

There are loads of quiet commuter villages or commuter suburbs near London which she could look at. They will be quieter as the local teens will mostly head to the nearest town/large high street at weekends and evenings.

I do agree there is a drinking issue here but I also think it’s inevitable that town centres are going to be louder and messier than areas outside the centre, whether here or in the US.

My 60-something neighbours never venture out after dark, which means they're housebound after 4pm during the winter months. Why do we accept this kind of behaviour in our society

Round here, we force old people to go out after dark by holding social events in the evening 😀

Ha! Yes. My parents (in their 70s, living in central London) have a far more active social life than me and are always out and about of an evening after dark! My mum also does volunteering shifts that start at 11pm or 2am and she walks there.

Also Hereward The Wake. What a guy.

Anyone else giving him a Google?!

Swings and roundabouts. My sister lives in a nice neighbourhood in Boston and there aren't binge drinking gangs roaming the streets on a Saturday night but her kids do have annual drills at school in case a gunman tries a mass murder attack.

"Nice neighbourhood" in the US by the way is often a euphemism for "white".

But at least she could take comfort in the fact that her kids who can't cope with someone vaping won't be shot at school by a fellow pupil.

As has previously been mentioned, the USA is BIG. There is enough space for extensive areas, with certain characteristics and their own infrastructure, (schools, malls etc.) to develop, which are largely self-selecting and self contained by virtue of affordability. The poor, ‘oiky’ people are segregated and ghettoised in a way UK citizens can’t imagine. People who don’t ‘belong’ would rarely venture either into the rich areas for fear of being shot by residents or police or the poor areas for fear of being shot by residents. In the UK, which is tiny by comparison, everyone is in relatively close proximity, used to mixing with all sorts of people, rather than just with clones of themselves, and state schools in the uk are a huge melting pot, as catchment areas can easily contain both leafy avenues and inner city estates. (Only 6% of children in England are educated privately). Much healthier for society imo than sanitised separation.

Boston to here? The poor soul. I wish her luck. I'd be moving to Boston any day of the week than here. The U.K. has oiks in every corner of the land? Even the countryside has the cash point crew that stands randomly about the village shop.
It's mostly down to people have nothing to do or no money to do anything.

@watcherintherye my dc has the gun drills/potential madperson scenario planning in their U.K. school albeit once a year.