The Great North/South Divide

For anyone who thinks Scotland is always cold and grey, here's a photo I took of a deserted beach in the north west of Scotland, not far from Gairloch a few years ago. The sand was so hot it you couldn't walk barefoot.
The rest of the UK suffered torrential downpours! ?

Speaking personally, I'm finding it hard to give up the clogs and shawl. But the ferrets'll have to go.

It is all to do with the trains. The up train was always heading to wards London and the down train coming away. Not phrases we use much today, but it was certainly common when I was young.

As a reader of 19th century novels, they nearly always refer to trains as 'up' or 'down' without any reference to destination. It is much quicker to say which platform for the 'up' train rather than which platform for the train to Little Balderdash porcorum, by which time you have missed it.

I think these terms were mainly used for mainlines. I doubt the slow train that potters along the Sussex coast between Arundel and Brighton has an up and a down - perhaps it has as you can get a London train from Brighton

The Collins English Dictionary defines The Far North as the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of the world! Today in Northumberland it's felt like the Arctic!

Don’t be silly, everyone.
Of course there’s a north-south divide.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=PT0ay9u1gg4

I've had that heated discussion with DH varian - I say we used to go 'up to London' from the Midlands, but he thinks that is daft.

Mind you, if you look at an Australian map, then Antarctica is at the top …..

I always find it strange to hear English folk talk about going "up" to London when most of the country go down to London. Just look at a map.

Coming from Glasgow we might have gone down to London, and up to Inverness, but if we went to Edinburgh (sort of sideways on the map) we always went "through" to Edinburgh.

Sometimes one Glaswegian might ask another "what are you doing tomorrow?" and the answer would be "I'm going through for the day" (no need to say through to where, it was understood that you meant Edinburgh).

Northernmost point – Out Stack, Shetland at 60°51′N 0°52′W
Northernmost settlement – Skaw, Unst, Shetland Islands at 60°49′N 0°47′W
Southernmost point – Pednathise Head, Western Rocks, Isles of Scilly at 49°51′N 6°24′W
Southernmost settlement – St Agnes, Isles of Scilly at 49°53′N 6°20′W
Westernmost point – Rockall at 57°35′N 13°41′W, which was only incorporated into Scotland in the 20th century. If Rockall is ignored, Soay, St Kilda, at 57.830°N 8.638°W is the westernmost point.
Westernmost settlement – Belleek, County Fermanagh at 54°28′N 8°9.8′W. Until 1930, the westernmost settlement was Hirta, on the island of St Kilda, but it is now abandoned; the island now has a military base, staffed during the summer months.
Easternmost point – Lowestoft Ness, Suffolk, at 52°29′N 1°46′E
Easternmost settlement – Lowestoft, Suffolk, at 52°28′N 1°45′E

Lizzypopbottle
Just the same as people who don't know south London thinks everyone pronounces it sarf

I know Rutland & Middlesex got wiped
We used to live in Middlesex
Strange that, it doesn't exist but we lived there

Years ago I think it was Private Eye which published a “map” of Great Britain. Round about Watford there was marked “ox carts start here”
Says it all!

lemongrove I'm not offended. I'm just amazed and amused that, in our tiny island, some places are still regarded as outlandish, especially "The North". I think many people imagine us standing on our doorsteps in our pinnies, arms folded, hair in curlers under a turban-style headscarf and our stockings rolled down to the ankle. Our menfolk are wearing flat caps and braces and have a whippet on a piece of string! ? That was ten years ago. We're bang up to date these days! ??☺

West Country those nice places that are far away
not if you live there

Midlands = Birmingham & Wolverhampton
ah, no, it stretches right up to Stoke-on-Trent and all those lovely places in between. It includes some of the Peak District too! It starts in lovely Herefordshire.

Birmingham and Wolverhampton are just about in the middle of the Midlands

As for the 'West Country ' - West Country = those nice places that are far away - it's just accessible for everywhere.



I agree, North East is North East England. Scotland is Scotland.

Yorkshire, as every person born there knows, is the centre of the universe and God's own county. Which means that the South is south of Yorkshire and the North is North of it.

Grey, thats the thing. The figure was thrown into a car. I didn't see anybody.

Monica with all due respect you are condemning Yorkshire to the status of some sort of geographical no mans land. If Manchester and Liverpool are designated as being in the North West (note the use of the word North) and if the northern border of Derbyshire is designated as being where the Midlands ends, it makes no sense that Yorkshire is not part of the North.

The Danelaw divided England vertically, not horizontally. Everything east of a line roughly from the Wirral peninsula to, and including Essex was in the Danelaw, everything to the west and south was not. So it was not thee original begetter of the north/south divide.

I used to love the way road signs in Scotland would have an arrow to “The South” - anywhere beyond the Carter Bar.
Or people’s children would grow up and move “down South” that could be Ponteland!

I used to think there was The South and The Noth and I’d lived in both.
Then my daughter went to work in Bournville and it turned out there was a huge area called The Midlands, in between South and North. I was amazed!

Sounds more like Royston Vasey than Carlisle! Were they local?

Yes Monica, I know exactly where you mean. Once I was there and somebody threw a carved wooden figure into my car. A roughly carved , evil looking man playing a violin. It was the strangest thing.

my sister cried because of the cold, NOT the school.

Mostly locals with their sarth east London accents!

I lived in Carlisle between the ages of 5 and 7. My main memory is that it is very cold there in winter and my little sister used to cry all the way to school and back because of the school

Oh, yes, summer outings to Talkin Tarn. I once had a door in the public loos there slam on my fingers, remember those big old heavy doors with a great brass penny operated locks? It was quite painful and three of my finger nails eventually died off, although they regrew.