The Great North/South Divide

Different people, different characters, nothing to do with where they come from.
Absolutely Ginny

mind you, lemongrove, the two neighbours may have arrived in those UFOs seen over Wiltshire many years ago …..

Wiltshire? Where you can't go anywhere without someone stopping for a chat?
in fact can't shut them up sometimes

Looked at objectively in fact, your SIL is just as much to blame as his neighbour in not speaking for 18 years.

I thought you may have a story like that Paddyann

Just thinking of ‘neighbours’ up and down our road. In the corner are a family from ‘up north’ who won’t even catch you eye. One from Inner London who is always up for a chat. Both next door neighbours are locals and perfectly friendly. A little further along , are couples and families from Dorset, Northumberland and Scotland. These always acknowledge others . Different people, different characters, nothing to do with where they come from.

My Sil comes from Wiltshire ,he tells me he and his next door neighbour had never spoken and they lived next door to each other for 18 years.
Now he call his Argyll home his little piece of heaven,knows everyone and speaks much more to folk than he would have ever believed before he came here.Its a very multicultural area and most are what someone upthread called "seperatist" .not so ,just people who want to control their own country .You know, like the English ,who have always run their own affairs .( even in the EU)

I have found though, that the friendliest people seem to live in Wiltshire.I expect we all have our own versions though as to who we have found to be the friendliest.

Perhaps the pigeons and whippets gave a false impression
Greyduster
Speaking as a Yorkshire woman I have to agree that some in the North ( yes, that includes Yorkshire) do have a chip on their shoulder concerning Southerners, a sort of bragging
Self defence mechanism I suppose. They will be the ones that have never lived anywhere else.I’ve lived all over England and never felt in the slightest that anyone was better than anyone else simply because they live in another part of the country, neither has anyone been insulting to me as a Northerner.

The daftest thing anyone said to me was when we had relatives from Wales visiting us in South Yorkshire, who had never been this far North before. He said “I never imagined you would have so many trees here” ! It would have been ill mannered to ask if he had thought we lived in a desert of coal dust, pit wheels and smoking factory chimneys, and kept coal in the bath! We were pleased to be able to send them home with a far better impression. My DH regularly wears a ‘flat ‘at’ but he’s Welsh.

Yay! A few fellow Neasters on this thread.....by that I mean NE Scotland! I’m 30 miles north of Aberdeen and there is still 200 miles of country beyond here. I’m 2.5 hours to drive to ds and family in Inverness and 5 hours to dgs in Wick.

Must remember to buy woad today.

Growing up in Guildford, I thought the north started at Watford Gap. I've now lived on the borders of Durham and Northumberland for 30 years and the south starts at Scotch Corner! It's all relative. One friend said she couldn't visit us because it's too far - but she went to Scotland on holiday.

We go south to visit friends and family, but I'd rather go north to Scotland and I'd rather visit Edinburgh than London.

When my son went to uni in Bradford many of the friends he made came from 'the north' but one was from Chesterfield and considered himself a northerner, so they had to move the dividing line southwards to include him.

Well that confirms we are different depending where we live Jane Nowadays I go into town.

By the way downtown in the US seems to be the equivalent of up town here. We always went up town to the shops and up to London

We go Doon the Toon up here nonnie.

Surely flat 'ats and braces worn by peoplewho don't know which knife to use to eat their peas start at Watford?

I thought the Welsh had such a reputation for hating all the English who buy second homes there that they speak Welsh so we won't understand.

Those barbarians who live beyond Carlisle all wear skirts with nothing underneath and play the bagpipes all the time.

Everyone in London is rich and frequents posh bars every evening while they plot against the rest of the country and steal our money.

By the way downtown in the US seems to be the equivalent of up town here. We always went up town to the shops and up to London.

To me, there is no north/south divide.

I live in the north now but have lived in the south, too. All my family lives in the south, though most started in the north. I don’t find any noticeable difference except the accent. Too many northerners have a chip on the shoulder about the south, believing that southerners think themselves superior.

I think that sums it up nicely janea.

M0nica thank you for the explanation for the 'up to London' - it is always something that has annoyed me but I now understand and it makes perfect sense.

I think there are regional distinctions but many are fading fast. With the closure of so many local pubs the once area specific pub games are fast disappearing, and skittle alleys etc no longer functioning. To me the further near London I venture the faster the pace of life appears to be and the quality of life more difficult.

I feel totally at home and relaxed in Wales and have always felt so very welcome. I am aware of pockets of deprivation there, as in other areas. Scotland is just a far country to me which is feeling increasingly separatist. I realise many disagree with me, but I feel I have to say how I feel. Due to hearing problems I cannot follow the spoken word there very well at all and lip reading is harder too. There was also a fierce nationalistic identity palpable on our last visit which I believe to be the result of the 'b' word and we both got a little tired of hearing about how little London understands Scotland. Dear Scots, it is the same in many areas of England and Wales too and I feel we are all becoming marginalised.

I live in the NE of Scotland, like Wheniwasyourage, and it is remarkably civilised...we have running water, inside lavvies and sometimes it gets really HOT when it's bad in the South.

Varian you go up to London because it is the capital.

I have lived all over the country from Leeds, Glasgow and London and now settled in the East Midlands.
I have to say the countryside round here is beautiful and the people are the friendliest I have come across. It is the most underrated part of the UK. It is also one of the quietest.

janea that is hilarious and rings true!

Although I am originally from the Home Counties nowadays I find people down south not to be very friendly.

Perhaps that is the 'wrong bit' of the South SueDonim
People are very friendly in Bristol!

JaneA that clip would be very funny if something similar hadn’t happened to on a visit to London a few years ago when we, who both lived and worked in London in the sixties, got lost trying to find The National Army Museum. We tried to ask four people: the first one looked at us as if we had two heads, said nothing and simply walked away; the second held up his hand, hardly broke his stride, mumbled “No, sorry” as if we were trying to sell him something and walked off; the third one didn’t speak English and the fourth, a charming lady who told us she was a Chelsea resident, offered to take us there.

I just take each person as I find them. Everyone is different and
people move around so much these days .

I'm a few miles from Aberdeen and there's no such place as the far North East! We're North East Scotland and that's it. We've also got a lot of land to the north - Caithness & Sutherland, Orkney and Shetland.

From our numerous trips up and down the motorway system, I think The North starts appearing on road signs on the M6 somewhere north of Birmingham but south of Manchester.

I do think there are regional differences between folk. Although I am originally from the Home Counties nowadays I find people down south not to be very friendly. I'm used to almost everyone here giving a greeting as you pass in the street, although right enough if you tried to do that in rush hour London no one would ever get anywhere!

I certainly think Scotland's different regions have different characteristics. There's Glaswegian humour, Edinburgh poshness, the Far North (now that does appear on roadsigns!) couthiness, Aberdonian pragmatism, Perthshire 'county' characteristics. All stereotypes in one way, in that everywhere has become so much more multicultural but there's an underlying shared experience, I think.