Suffolk coast - unfriendly or just me?

[Swiftie23]

Hi everyone, basically what the title says. We relocated here (DH’s family is local and from here, all based between 10-30 mins from Southwold). The village we moved to is gorgeous and very special, but the reception from the villagers has been a bit strange. One neighbour is actually hostile and the others treat us with bemusement, we’ve even found shopkeepers and tradesmen to be downright rude on occasion. The atmosphere is just off, and we’re not sure what we can do, we have gotten involved and helped out in the village, but not helping much. From what my DH says, Suffolk is renowned for being unfriendly to holiday letters but we live here permanently. We are also struggling to meet people our age (average age seems to be about 60/70), which isn’t a huge issue since we have family and see our friends often, but would be nice to have some local friends we could have dinner parties with etc.

Has anyone else experienced something similar when moving to Suffolk? Any tips?

getting this up again - how are you doing @Swiftie23? We have just been renting in the area for 6 months (looking to buy ideally). No family connections, so also looking to build a reliable support network.

I actually find most people quite friendly in an everyday way (but maybe my European heritage means I don’t except much in terms of chat). What I am more worried about is finding people to connect to and become actual friends - also based on the limited amount of people who live there (as compared to London and surrounding areas).

My kids are still under 5, but let me know if you ever want to catch up when I am around :)

Brand new

I live in this area. We moved from London about 15 years ago. I don’t find people unfriendly as such, just disinterested, which is fine as I am too! I think a lot of people here just want to keep themselves to themselves. A lot of people have moved this way for a quiet life, there are a lot of people who’ve moved from London and you wouldn’t know they have as they don’t really talk about it. I certainly wouldn’t volunteer that I’ve moved from London in real life as I know a lot of people can be judgy about it. It’s a bit of a funny old part of the world really but I love it.

I’ve visited a lot of places in the U.K. and a pub in Southwold is the only place I have experienced overt hostility/rudeness from grown men in their 60’s