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...

Cruel you are 😂

OP, I don't see many 60- something people (you know, the punk generation) scampering to get back from their full time jobs before darkness falls. Your neighbours are not typical.

Also I have always fancied Boston but this thread has put me right off.

She lives in a 'lovely area' of a US city and it is 'economically diverse'? Yeah, I bet it is.🙄
I dislike yobbish behaviour from anyone, rich or poor, and I have never been drunk in my life. But it sounds to me like she is never going to find anywhere good enough for her here- she seems pretty determined not to.
I've lived in several cities here, including a far from fragrant parts of London for 7 years, and even for a short time in the USA. IMO people are pretty much the same everywhere, and you're usually pretty safe, provided you avoid the very worst areas. But at least in the UK you and your kids are less likely to get murdered......check out the school shootings over there. Not in the poorer areas, on the whole.

😆

I'm a little old woman, and I have no probs going out and about round here after dark, in an old red-wall mill town. Maybe she should come up North and live here with us oiks.

I mean personally I don't think "vaping and cussing" are sufficient to constitue oik like behaviour - swearing and smoking of various kinds is a lot more prevalent generally in the uk than the US, even (looking around my office) among naice middle class civil servanty types so the move might be a bit of a culture shock!

If her standardard are that high I agree with pps that there's probably nowhere in the uk that meets her criteria....but as long as she's prepared that if she walks through a busy city centre on a Friday night there will be some loud drunk people around, the rest of the time you can easily avoid "oiks" in thousands of nice areas.

@Wasabiprawns yes, when I visited I noticed that the teens seemed to mostly be engaged in healthier activities (the basketball courts and baseball fields were packed on weekends) rather than hanging around the town centre and drinking/vaping etc. Her kids are on multiple sports teams and they also play music, volunteer and generally keep very busy. I don't know who wouldn't prefer that for their kid here but according to many on this thread wanting something similar in the UK makes you a totally unrealistic prude 🙄

@Holidayinginmymind it isn't a 'white' area (that assumption is annoying, to be honest, why do people think that only places with majority white populations are 'nice' and safe? That's offensive and simply not true).

Not that it should matter but my friend and her family are not white, again why have so many on this thread assumed that they are? Non-white people can't be successful academics who want safe environments for their family? If there are hidden prejudices to be examined it's up to those posters to look for them in themselves.

@Puffalicious Hampton Court is a great idea. She would love the history of the area I'm sure! Thank you x

@LuciaPopp Hampstead is so lovely! She was hoping for somewhere outside of London (commutable, like the place she lives now) but I think your area would tick many boxes. Thank you!

I live in Oxford and find her assessment slightly odd. I'm clearly doing it wrong to be happy walk around by myself at night and to have my young teenage kids get themselves home from school and to clubs on the basis that it's probably one of the safest cities in the world.

But then I don't find a Wetherspoons in the dodgy bit of town and hang out there so maybe that explains it.

She will at least not have to worry, each and every day, her child may be shot at school. Or to endure practice lockdowns and where to hide when they come.

The assumption related to the area only comes from my experience of the US. It is not remotely an assumption I would apply to the UK.

That your friend is an academic irrelevant. I made no assumptions about their race, only the demographics of the area they live. And whilst I am happy to stand corrected (although I am pretty sure the demographics bias is not at all atypical in the US). Nevertheless, the desire for a safe, sanitised and wholly unrealistic bubble has nothing to do with them being an academic. It doesn’t make it less privileged and less unacceptable, in my view. There is bigotry is in assuming that those places you mentioned aren’t safe and aren’t desirable because some people make different choices and live differently to you.

Blimey I thought I was a judgey snob but I obviously need to up my game

What area does your friend live in Boston OP?

What's an oik?

Are you the "friend"?!

Yeah because no British children do multiple sports and play musical instruments etc.

I scurry about with my little dog 11pm at night sometimes and fortunately have yet to be accosted.

@Holidayinginmymind you're also incorrect about the demographics of the area in which they live. There is no 'bigotry' involved visiting a place, witnessing fights/antisocial behaviour and thinking that perhaps you don't want to bring your kids up in that environment. Again, some on this thread seem to be conflating poverty with antisocial behaviour (again, who's being judgmental now?) when it's clear that in the UK the toxic obsession with getting shitfaced spans all social classes.

Somebody British and a bit lively, I think.

From what I remember, about 40 mins into Central London. Might be a thought.

Hertford seems very nice, with good links to London. Welwyn Garden City always sounds to me like it should be very neat, tidy and safe! 20 miles from London. Don't know what it’s actually like.

Hertford is full of oiks by the OP’s definition.

I am laughing as she's worried coming from Boston? I grew up there and my family still lives there.
I love Boston - it's where I'd move to if I had to move back. But it's a university city and loads of partying drunk kids in certain areas! It also has depressed areas and it's fair share of crime. I'd say Richmond is positively genteel in comparison!
And they are definitely facing their own problems (how many threads here about 'are you mad to move to America with its drug, gun control and idiot government' do we see on MN regularly)?
If her job is paid in dollars she'll be laughing all the way to the bank too.
She's fooling herself if she doesn't realise all those places you've mentioned are safer.
But why not move in to the London itself? Does she have a relocation package? I'd be looking at Fulham, Wimbledon, Barnes as well as Richmond or Hampstead. All pretty with green spaces and the Thames (for Barnes and Fulham). And safe as a city can be.

This is where I was also going to suggest, OP.

I think the OP/"friend" are incredibly snobby and judgemental. There are plenty of beautiful places in the UK which aren't overrun with antisocial behaviour. And coming from Boston they're far nicer by comparison!!

And that's before you even start to consider the issues with guns and gun crime in the US.

I'm pretty sure we could find lots of stories about crime taking place in Boston. And that's the point - OP/friend are applying standards to the UK without doing the same to the so-called "beautiful" place where friend currently lives.

Richmond and Oxford are both lovely places. And there are many other lovely places mentioned on this thread too.

@SpidersAreShitheads you've been to every area surrounding Boston, have you, for informed comparison? Good to know!

Don't call people you don't know snobby and judgmental, she's neither of those things (and being a person of colour she's probably dealt with a lot more judgement than most of the posters on this thread who, ironically, were very quick to jump to the assumption that she is white and wealthy).