Homesick for Yorkshire of Past - North-South Divide After Losses

[rubyankleshoes]

(Re-posting in case I put it in the wrong section. Fairly new user.)

I would appreciate anyone's insights on this please, particularly as my family and friends aren't capable of giving input that isn't in one way or another biased towards what THEY want.

Firstly, I have felt homesick all my adult life. Grew up in Yorkshire with a large, extended family who all lived nearby and shared so much - in and out of each other's homes, at school with siblings and cousins, grandparents who picked us up when parents couldn't etc.. Left to go to Uni and never returned.

A few caveats that folk from other regions will surely be able to relate to: Yorkshire’s had its heart stripped out in terms of loss of vast chunks of its native industry. This blasted my family to all ends of the Earth. Add into the mix the fact that London has been allowed to become like a separate Nation State of its own that gives little pretence to actually levelling up other than hot airing about it.

Have now lived in several places including abroad and the SE- have never settled. Have not married yet or had kiddos (really want to before it's too late) .

Since Covid have lost x 3 grandparents in close succession. Heartbroken on levels I was expecting but worse than could even have dreamt. Always thought I would end up living near them and my darling grandparents would meet my offspring etc.

Am now compulsively collecting stuff that reminds me of them or invokes what our family used to be like/ utterly preoccupied with working out where on earth I can rebuild some semblance of what was smashed apart all those years ago in the name of (I would say simply 'survival' as it’s obviously part of it but also - a lot of Boomer over-ambition and Greed Is Good stuff from the 80s which drove some of our parents / aunts / uncles’ generations).

Just cannot figure out if there could even conceivably be enough opportunities left in Yorkshire to even survive happily there (just a simple job search on Indeed.com revealed 9 suitable job posts last month in the entire 3 Yorkshire counties against - and I am NOT joking 600+ posts commutable to London in my sector).

Yet, I can't help wonder if I could possibly reconnect on the level I am dreaming of / whilst also knowing full well it wouldn’t be the same. Would involve almost entirely new cast of characters so would involve starting again.

Mostly just the culture and stone houses etc and the 'look' of what my grandparents aspired to for us would be there - that's what would feel familiar. Plus, dialect and cultural comfort, laughing in pubs, (some though not all) people being somewhat less materialistic that the SE and more commonsensical / practical (apologies in advance to Southerners but Yorkshire had vaccinated its entire population before most other counties had bumbled through their clinically vulnerable and elders ;-) there’s a legacy there of mass-organisation that goes to levels of practically I have yet to witness down South).

And yet - I also love the South - the sun, the gentility, the opportunities, the progress for women and other groups. But it’s extortionate and can’t afford much better than Assisted Buy or a Shoe Box down there.

Is anyone else feeling this way AND how did any of you resolve it? Did anyone return to a 'homeland' and acually rebuild what they needed? Is a sheltered, safe(ish), dignified, kinder, homey, slower culture still possible? I see such a mix of experiences here including those who regret never leaving depressed areas and those who left the SE for better quality of life and now regret it. How to resolve this (and soon as don’t want to leave it too late for DC / marriage etc). Thanks in advance.

Apologies in advance for typos. I see a few! Woops.

Only 9 jobs in Yorkshire? Do you do something very obscure?
My son works in Leeds, partly WFH and lives in an idyllic Yorkshire village. Best of both worlds.

Nope not obscure. Designer-ish. It is kind of specific but I nearly had a heart-attack when there were literally 9 or so in the 3 counties and literally - well, I could work all over the big smoke billowing outwards into all the pearls and twinsets counties. If it makes you feel any better I would be skint whilst doing so in most regions?! ;-) Perhaps there may be a better month though? Or a different jobs search engine.

There are many yorkshires really - so it all very much depends. City/urban/really affluent/ very deprived. I’ve lived down south and abroad but have returned and made the Yorkshire/Lancs border my home. My partner is very much a southerner and prefers it here. (He’s still a soft southerner with a pole up his….not really he’s lovely) There is generally more space, property is def more reasonable but not as much as it was, wages are lower but hybrid working means that’s less distinctive in some sectors. Community - well it’s what you make it and also depends. I do think there is a frankness that is distinctive and I notice that a lot when I visit in-laws down south. Schools generally good, amazing in some places. I do need to see the horizon and very rarely sit in any traffic. Slower culture yes def and London is only 3 hours by train so it’s not the moon anyway..

Don't get me wrong I know that not all of Yorkshire has gone bellyup but I have witnessed all the great efforts towards reinvention but it cannot compete the way it used to. It scares me cutting myself off from opportunities. Have watched others return and really struggle to find work. Or find alternative work if the one job they do have starts to go wrong.

I think when you're grieving older family members (sorry for your losses, by the way), it's very common to disappear into nostalgia and longing for your childhood. That certainly what I did when I lost my dad.

I will say though, that I live in Yorkshire and I don't recognise the place you're describing. There are jobs and prosperity here. Women have advancement. It's as good a place to make a life as anywhere really, I admit it's not London (thank god), but nowhere else is really.

Do your parents/ siblings/ cousins still live in the area? If so then try and work out if you can find some version of your current job near them and see how it goes.

I understand feeling homesick and dealing with multiple losses but sometimes it is more about you, rather than where you are. No harm in trying out options though, just try not to build up everything into a huge problem, rather than the natural consequences of change.

Thanks both for replying. I think that whilst many people in the SE are friendly and become more so the longer you live with them and come to understand them - Yorkshire yes is frank but also friendly. I think... I guess this isn't strictly a North-South divide dilemma so much as also to do with my being Gen XY and living through vast social change. They say it takes a village to raise a child and all that - I know I can go get myself a village. The issue is I can't rectify my family. They are literally all over the globe. So I guess what I am asking is - is the 'th'village' enough? I know no one can tell me what to do per se. Just wanted to see what came back!

Sounds like a time of transition and reflection for you OP. I like the saying ‘wherever you go, there you are.’

Thanks ever so much also Breezy and Gaggly. It's super good to hear that women DO have advancement in Yorkshire. Obvi misogyny is everwhere. It's just... well I do notice a touch more of it when I go back but who's to say what a person is going to encounter on a case by case basis? Leeds and parts of North Yorkshire in particularly appear to be going strong. I'm not from that part though. So that would be another weirdness. It's like - can't go back but would a different position in God's Own County fill the void?

To answer other questions: only one cousin left who hardly speaks to me. One aunt and uncle. A bunch of others further up. And... a network of old school pals who purport to want to meet up but actually haven't been in same room as for 20 years or so. A few of parents' more distant rellies.

It would be a major life reconstruction. Not impossible. Not quite that film where she buys a house in Tuscany ;-). Not even All Creatures Great and Small (glowy sanitised recent version). But do-able. Because I am achingly homesick and still speak the lingo ;-)

Thanks also for condolesence and yes Moopy - that's correct. It's a time of reflection. As a single woman somehow I feel it's becoming more and more eccentric to make the kinds of purchasing I am making. Like - I had to have a tea trolley as my Granny had one. And I have this profound fantasy about wheeling it in on a Sunday with kid(s) sat in front of something wholesome (Narnia?) spread with Battenburg and crumpets. Is this my biology telling me to breed with the nearest flatcap?! Lolz. Anyway... I read that homesick for the 90s thread too and that covered other aspects of it. I think I literally just want to live forever in my Granny's house in the 90s. Only now I will never be there again.

I know we all have to move forwards and society has to keep on developing. But... I dunno. I feel as if we're losing way too much.

I did teach for a spell in the SE. I was so shocked by much of what was going on. But thereagain, when I did grow up in a Yorkshire with the economic bottom falling out of it - I was likewise not thrilled with what went on in 'our' schools back then.

Only thing to do is try it and see. If it's not all you dreamed of, you can always come back. I'm a fellow Yorkshire woman who's never gone back since uni. I get nostalgic for it of course and sometimes fantasise about buying a stone cottage with weavers windows and walking the moors at weekends. But I ended up spending a lot of time up there due to a close relative being very ill recently, and I think it cured me. I find people down south friendlier and more open, there's more diversity I'm every sense and people mix. I find that whilst a traditional Yorkshire person will be chatty, it doesn't go deep and it's harder to reach out to people from different backgrounds. That's just my experience.

Hiya Mambo, this is a great insight - thanks also for sharing. You know... me and some of my fam once rented a cottage near Top Withins (for those who weren't force-fed the Brontes - which by the way is not a a bad thing to be force fed with) that's the place that inspired Wuthering Heights. We had some this one sunny day where we were able to sit out at pavement cafes in Haworth. On that day - we were moving back ;-) (lolz). Another morning - we woke up (bear in mind this was July) and could not have even cut the fog with a samurai sword (if, you know, we'd had one with us). Every time since that summer holiday that I have committed to spending a week or two up there in the 'good months' it has delivered in terms of drizzly raincoat requiring summer's days. There's a lot that can get blanked out through the rose tints of nostalgia. I hear you.

I think it's really hard to remember accurately all the aspects of Yorkshire society that used to feel suffocating and difficult. And of course, like both of us, Yorkshire itself has changed hugely too.

Maybe everyone's right - a shorter term plan might be wiser than idealising the whole thing out of all proportion.

I think though, for me, I also have this pressing sense that - if I don't 'reconfigure' the family then no one else is going to. If I situated myself, say, somewhere North of Leeds then I could actually help 'join the dots' between the ones who remain. Maybe that's too much pressure though, most of my other gigantic family (especially the ones my age and younger) struggle with even the basic courtesy of sending Christmas cards these days. Maybe I am wishing I could be like my Granny but there's just no way.

So how to reinvent and do family life for now and not feel as if... I think I am feeling like I have failed her. And myself. It's really tough not to have a family of one's own. And that IS a sentiment Charlotte Bronte could get behind!

I want to add something else. I have had a very serious illness as an adult. This has changed a lot for me. However, there are people - including ones I grew up with, who have done the perfect Yorkshire Mum thing. And obviously their instagrams are out there to prove it. I know our whole generation have all that to contend with. But between those accounts that you know you shouldn't look at but feel compelled to and the memory of my Granny and her legacy... I think I am feeling actually vast pressure to magic different outcomes and be the type of woman I suppose I always felt I should be. It feels like there is a prototype that went before me and even if I choose not to live up to it - I will still feel like I failed by not emulating it.

Are you sure you are from Yorkshire?
We don’t usually go in for so much introspection, either move tha sen home or don’t

Joking aside I am not sure you will be able to recreate your childhood if you do come back, you will be an in comer, which is fine and I am sure you will build up a network but it won’t be as it was - seems there are some rose tinted specs at play here.

Ay lass, obviously I am from Yorkshire. I know all the lyrics to On Ilkla Moor Bah Tat and even have t'Holmfirth Anthem on my Spotify. Lolz. You know you're from Yorkshire if you think a Pea Shooter is a normal piece of childhood equipment ;-)

Yes that's exactly reeght. However, I was in Hebden a while ago and was welcomed back better than expected. Even though I wasn't born there. Having said this - I was very much put off my adults smoking you know what in front of 6 years olds. So not Hebden. I guess though, there is being an offcumden / innercomer (whatever tha' village's version of that term 'appens to be) but... there are whole other levels of being an outsider.

Holidayed in Harrogate and everyone took me for an insider and started asking after my family which was amusing.

I guess what I am saying is - I will never be an 'insider' in the SE or any other part of the South in the truest sense of the term.

But yes Rose Tinted glasses aren't always the most helpful,

Am sure after the adrenaline of the first 3 months after the move wore off the reality would hit. Much of it good but also some of it very real.

Have you been drinking moorhouses or what

I live in Yorkshire and have done for most of my life but I’m a foreigner really. I’m out in the east whereas you’re from the west, it’s quite different in West Yorkshire. It’s a great life for the children, very safe, great schools. But it is a tad backwards in some ways. We really are a part of the community and there’s lots of incomers and they are welcomed especially if they help run various things. Not many jobs though

With all due respect love you need to get a grip.

I think this kind of nostalgia for a warm, tumbling life of home and family - cousins and grandparents in and out of each others houses and te security and belonging that brought is common wherever people are from.

Places change, people sadly pass away and also we change, so when we go back the place doesn't feel the same because we see it though different eyes.

This kind of harking back and longing for a time to which we can't return is something that hits us at times of crisis or as we age.

Errrr, 3 counties?? Which one are you missing? You do know there is north, south, east and west Yorkshire?

Er no.

Riding even means third

Sorry, I haven’t read the entire thread yet but just wanted to share some thoughts that might be helpful, I hope.

I completely understand that long to reconnect to where they were from and where you were raised. When my dad died, that urge in me was almost physical- I started looking at houses back in my hometown and even on the road where he lived (not my childhood home)

It’s hard to explain, but I wanted to stand in pubs he drunk in and take seedlings from his garden. To nod at someone who’d known his as a young man and see the seasons from his bedroom window. It felt to me like I’d wasted so much time just not realising before then that all roads led back home.

A few years on, the feeling is much less visceral, but one way in which I’ve scratched the itch was by going on ancestry and learning my family tree - it’s helped me to feel connected to my dad and to know my roots better- maybe that’s a project for you too now you’ve lost your grandparents?

Secondly, as you mention you would like to start a family sooner rather than later- I would say, as everyone does, that priorities truly shift beyond your anticipation really at that point. Eg, you might consider a job back home with less financial reward or pace than you have now, because it offers flexibility or a short commute? Or because you can have a garden of there’s a great school nearby? (You may have those things now of course!)

I would ask yourself where you see yourself further down the line- does it appease the yearnings for example to tell yourself that a move back will happen “one day down the line”, years from now? If not, then maybe you have your answer.

Lastly- one thing I did notice when lurking around the ancestry side of things (it’s very easy to spend hours!) … is that every couple of generations, there was a game changer who altered the story for years to come. A move to London. An emigration. A marriage in another county. And so the story played out- with new horizons and new branches on the family tree. Maybe that’s your role!