Calling all Southerners: What's your impressions of the North

[anti-pacer]

Forget railways, what's your impressions of Northern England?

I've just got back from a mate's in Doncaster. She lives in an area that would probably like in place in one of the South East's most prosperous towns.

Do you think we all live in terraced or council houses, or do you accept we have areas of wealth in almost every town up here? Wakefield where I live is considered a town on its arse, but even here we have areas of wealth where millionaires live.

What's your impressions? Also, Northerners, do you think all Southerners are affluent?

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Is there anyone who genuinely thinks the north is entirely terraced houses and deprivation though? Similarly, do any Northerners honestly believe the south is all mansions and fox hunting?

I've been to plenty of places up north that are rather well to do and highly desirable places to live; similarly I've been to absolute hovels. The same is also true of the south, and indeed any which way you choose to portion up the country. You'd be hard pressed to find towns, let alone cities, which are entirely destitute or entirely prosperous. Even when you do, the polar opposite is never far away: see Wilmslow and certain suburbs of south Manchester, or Windsor and Slough.

 

[Howardh]

Is there anyone who genuinely thinks the north is entirely terraced houses and deprivation though?

Mr. Howard H
Birthplace; Farnworth
Place of Residence; Bloody Bolton-le-Moors.
Reason; It is.

Even well-to-do posh folk have to put their bins out. Sometimes they even get emptied.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My parents live in a 4 bedroom detached house in a very nice area which they'd never have afforded down South, FWIW.

 

[Cowley]

What about if you're a Westerner?

 

[radamfi]

Northern towns can have huge inequality within them, probably worse than down south.
For example, Rochdale is largely famous for being a ghetto but has the Bamford and Norden estates which are wealthy.

 

[AM9]

Northern towns can have huge inequality within them, probably worse than down south.
For example, Rochdale is largely famous for being a ghetto but has the Bamford and Norden estates which are wealthy.

It's no different in the South-East. Society is more unequal in the UK than it's ever been.
There's still unemployment down south, - not so much queuing outside benefits offices, more sitting indoors scratching a meagre living reselling trivia on Ebay, i.e. the non-jobs that the government seem to count into the 'highest employment ever' boasts.
A few years ago I was having a light-hearted conversation about St Albans, where a colleague jokingly asked why the City has allowed a Morrisons to open within its area. I replied that we had to provide somewhere for our gardeners and cleaners to shop. Yes, it was a joke, but the fact is, even here there are some who struggle to afford a quite modest lifestyle, - that is if they are lucky enough to afford a roof over there heads.
Similarly, there are many very pleasant areas away from the south-east where very comfortable lifestyles can clearly be seen, - and most probably at far lower house prices. The poor areas are also there although as in the south, but a casual visitor is much more likely to see the better off places.
As a slight aside, if I was really poor with little hope of getting out of the situation, I think that I would rather live in a universally poor area than regularly be confronted by large differences in wealth. Some poor communities really do help each other and seem to get along that way when they don't have their noses rubbed into their poverty by the rich.

 

[bramling]

Forget railways, what's your impressions of Northern England?

I've just got back from a mate's in Doncaster. She lives in an area that would probably like in place in one of the South East's most prosperous towns.

Do you think we all live in terraced or council houses, or do you accept we have areas of wealth in almost every town up here? Wakefield where I live is considered a town on its arse, but even here we have areas of wealth where millionaires live.

What's your impressions? Also, Northerners, do you think all Southerners are affluent?

Personally, I always enjoy being "up north" (going away for 3 weeks there from tomorrow!). Although some people can be a little nosy and "in your face" - albeit normally well intentioned - I'd take this any day over the smug self-centeredness of many southerners.

Sure there are plenty of terraced or council houses up north, but then there are plenty of council houses in the south-east too - just that they tend to be a little more hidden away. There are places "up north" the names of which have a terrible reputation to southerners - for example Blackburn, Burnley, Oldham, Sunderland, Bradford, et cerera, but having been to all these places whilst they certainly have run-down parts, by and large they're still fairly friendly in my experience, plus you don't have to travel very far out of town to be back in beautiful countryside. In all honesty, I'd say these places are still preferable to some of the south's monstrosity new towns, or even worse Luton. At least the north's towns tend to be comparatively spacious, and generally traffic congestion is nowhere near as bad as in the south.

On the subject of friendliness, the one exception I would say from my experience is Tyne & Wear. Not so much Newcastle city centre, but stray a little further out and in my experience things quickly becomes quite unpleasant. Seem to be quite a lot of particularly freaky pensioners in Tyne & Wear too.

The only thing I like about coming home having been "up north" is the feeling of anonymity. Outside the south-east, especially in more rural areas, one does pick up a feeling of being watched all the time. I think this is partly because things are more relaxed up north. In my street down south if someone put a table & chairs in their front garden it would be considered utterly mad, yet up north this sort of thing is standard practice.

 

[bussnapperwm]

As a Midlander, I get the impression of 95% of property owners South of Watford Gap are toffs from the news and those north of Stafford are addicted to dropping t'letters off t'sentences. And even I don't dare to get my mom started on the "Irn Bru drinking, Nicola Sturgeon supporting haggis bashers" north of t'border!

 

[otomous]

Personally, I always enjoy being "up north" (going away for 3 weeks there from tomorrow!). Although some people can be a little nosy and "in your face" - albeit normally well intentioned - I'd take this any day over the smug self-centeredness of many southerners.

Sure there are plenty of terraced or council houses up north, but then there are plenty of council houses in the south-east too - just that they tend to be a little more hidden away. There are places "up north" the names of which have a terrible reputation to southerners - for example Blackburn, Burnley, Oldham, Sunderland, Bradford, et cerera, but having been to all these places whilst they certainly have run-down parts, by and large they're still fairly friendly in my experience, plus you don't have to travel very far out of town to be back in beautiful countryside. In all honesty, I'd say these places are still preferable to some of the south's monstrosity new towns, or even worse Luton. At least the north's towns tend to be comparatively spacious, and generally traffic congestion is nowhere near as bad as in the south.

On the subject of friendliness, the one exception I would say from my experience is Tyne & Wear. Not so much Newcastle city centre, but stray a little further out and in my experience things quickly becomes quite unpleasant. Seem to be quite a lot of particularly freaky pensioners in Tyne & Wear too.

The only thing I like about coming home having been "up north" is the feeling of anonymity. Outside the south-east, especially in more rural areas, one does pick up a feeling of being watched all the time. I think this is partly because things are more relaxed up north. In my street down south if someone put a table & chairs in their front garden it would be considered utterly mad, yet up north this sort of thing is standard practice.

How do you hide away council houses? London has some of the biggest council estates in the world! A bizarre thing to say

 

[AM9]

As a Midlander, I get the impression of 95% of property owners South of Watford Gap are toffs from the news and those north of Stafford are addicted to dropping t'letters off t'sentences. And even I don't dare to get my mom started on the "Irn Bru drinking, Nicola Sturgeon supporting haggis bashers" north of t'border!

You need to get out (of the Midlands) more often.

 

[bramling]

How do you hide away council houses? London has some of the biggest council estates in the world! A bizarre thing to say

What I mean is that, round where I am at least, they tend to be concentrated in estates which one wouldn't drive through unless actually visiting the estate. Even in a new town like Stevenage, you could quite easily make a through journey through the town and not be aware of too much. That just wouldn't happen in many northern places.

 

[AM9]

Northern towns can have huge inequality within them, probably worse than down south.
For example, Rochdale is largely famous for being a ghetto but has the Bamford and Norden estates which are wealthy.

Three of the ten most deprived areas in the UK (including the most deprived one) are well within the London commuting area:

Jaywick
Clacton on Sea
Thanet​

Coincidentally, these areas are where the plight of their unfortuante residents are the most manipulated by UKIP, (or ex-UKIP politicians).

 

[bramling]

Three of the ten most deprived areas in the UK (including the most deprived one) are well within the London commuting area:

Jaywick
Clacton on Sea
Thanet​

Coincidentally, these areas are where the plight of their unfortuante residents are the most manipulated by UKIP, (or ex-UKIP politicians).

I would take issue with the assertion that these places are well within the London commuting area. Thanet's commuting potential has improved since the CTRL domestic services started, however the Clacton / Jaywick area is still quite some journey from London, especially in terms of time if not distance. I'm sure people do commute from the likes of Clacton, however it's not a journey I'd want to be doing on a daily basis.

 

[AM9]

I would take issue with the assertion that these places are well within the London commuting area. Thanet's commuting potential has improved since the CTRL domestic services started, however the Clacton / Jaywick area is still quite some journey from London, especially in terms of time if not distance. I'm sure people do commute from the likes of Clacton, however it's not a journey I'd want to be doing on a daily basis.

Although you personally might not appreciate the delights of commuting from the Sunshine Coast, many do, particularly as it has become a low-cost retirement area that it is still practical to commute from.
Clacton has been within the London commuting area since the early seventies when I used to commute from Colchester. There are now 5 trains leaving Clacton for Liverpool St between 06:30 and 08:00 every weekday morning. On a Saturday morning, the service is one per hour. The normal Mon.-Fri. direct service is one train per hour. It's not even just a convenient start point to address a greater commuter flow from Colchester Witham or Chelmsford because in the same period, another five trains start from Colchester itself.
How is that not a service to serve a commuting customer?

 

[Bromley boy]

Forget railways, what's your impressions of Northern England?

I've just got back from a mate's in Doncaster. She lives in an area that would probably like in place in one of the South East's most prosperous towns.

Do you think we all live in terraced or council houses, or do you accept we have areas of wealth in almost every town up here? Wakefield where I live is considered a town on its arse, but even here we have areas of wealth where millionaires live.

What's your impressions? Also, Northerners, do you think all Southerners are affluent?

It's grim up north

In all seriousness I quite like what I've seen of the north. There is a lot of truth in the stereotype that northerners "call a spade and spade" and seem to have more common sense than southerners. There's also more sense of community and "togetherness" that you just don't find in the south east.

The standards of living are far higher, mostly due to sensible house prices but then again there are wealthy areas of the north such as Ilkley, Harrogate and the "bling" parts of Cheshire.

In fact, if it wasn't for my ties to the south east, I'd be tempted to move to Leeds or Manchester.

 

[sk688]

At school, my economics teacher used to refer to quite a lot of the North as areas which have suffered post industrial decline, but areas like Manchester and Liverpool are being regenerated. We were also told that although there are some places in the North, which are very well off, like Wilmslow, some areas are very poor ( have to use anecdotal evidence as haven't really been to Northern cities)

In the south, some of the areas are really rough too. Take London, which is often said to be extremely rich. Rich it may be, but it is horribly unequal. Parts of South London are horrid, like Peckham, and North London too, with areas like Edmonton, Tottenham etc. Even near where I live in West London, you still have the hole that is Wembley Central just a few stops away, and the equally unpalatable areas of Harlesden and Stonebridge Park too

Having said that, the only place where I have felt threatened, was in Greenwich, near the Foot Tunnel entrance, where some roadman threatened to shank me

 

[Bromley boy]

Parts of South London are horrid, like Peckham,

I take it you haven't visited Peckham recently. It's all microbreweries and hipsters these days!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

About 30 years ago, after living around Hampshire/Surrey/London all my life, I moved up to Lancaster. The two things that struck me were:

• How much friendlier people seemed to be (in terms of routinely saying 'hello' to strangers etc.)
• How much the architecture was dominated by grey slate instead of red brick (I have to say I do prefer the grey look)

About 10 years later, I moved back down South, to Hertfordshire. The two main things that stuck me were

• How much worse the public transport was and how much more car-dependant the culture seemed to be. I recall particularly noticing the large proportion of expensive-looking convertibles - something I rarely saw in Lancashire.
• How every other person I met seemed to be a budding entrepreneur keen to tell me about how rich his business idea was going to make him (needless to say, I don't recall any of these people actually succeeding). I'm sure most just stayed in regular employment, while continuing to dream.

 

[bramling]

Although you personally might not appreciate the delights of commuting from the Sunshine Coast, many do, particularly as it has become a low-cost retirement area that it is still practical to commute from.
Clacton has been within the London commuting area since the early seventies when I used to commute from Colchester. There are now 5 trains leaving Clacton for Liverpool St between 06:30 and 08:00 every weekday morning. On a Saturday morning, the service is one per hour. The normal Mon.-Fri. direct service is one train per hour. It's not even just a convenient start point to address a greater commuter flow from Colchester Witham or Chelmsford because in the same period, another five trains start from Colchester itself.
How is that not a service to serve a commuting customer?

I would be mildly interested to know how many commute from Clacton to London on a typical morning. 5 services isn't that much, and they can't carry that many from Clacton otherwise there would be no room for people boarding at the many intermediate stops. I can imagine there are people who may do journeys like Clacton to Colchester or Chelmsford. I like the term Sunshine Coast, makes Clacton actually sound half pleasant!

 

[sk688]

I take it you haven't visited Peckham recently. It's all microbreweries and hipsters these days!

No not recently , way too far for me

 

[krus_aragon]

Mr. Howard H
Birthplace; Farnworth
Place of Residence; Bloody Bolton-le-Moors.
Reason; It is.

Even well-to-do posh folk have to put their bins out. Sometimes they even get emptied.

What if they live in Brimingham?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

My second son studied 3 years in Manchester and used the bus every day - sometimes several times, he got into the local habit of thanking the driver.

When he did this in St Albans - he was treated like a care in the community misfit....

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I've lived up north for most of my life, predominantly in Huddersfield and the surrounding areas. I also spent a couple of years studying in Kingston upon Thames and my family was based in Taunton for a few years too.

I'm not sure I'd agree with those that say the North is friendlier, though people are generally more willing to help someone in need. There's a tribalism (rivalries between neighbouring estates or towns) up north that didn't really show up to me in Kingston but was just as prevalent in Somerset. Tauntonites definitely had a generational gap, with younger people being far more tolerant than the older folk. Both Kingston and Taunton folk seemed to place far more importance on one's economic and educational background than Yorkshire and Lancashire/Merseyside people though.

 

[Bletchleyite]

[*]How much the architecture was dominated by grey slate instead of red brick (I have to say I do prefer the grey look)
[/LIST]

Very much depends on the area. Manchester and Liverpool are very much dominated by a very deep red brick rather than the sandy light red colour usual in the south, or the typical yellowish London brick colour.

 

[anti-pacer]

I was out in Bawtry last night. It's a small former market town 9 miles south of Doncaster, and being on the border with Notts, it's the gateway to Yorkshire.

Bawtry, for its small size hosts an impressive array of bars and restaurants, some quite high end. It's a prosperous little place with clientele to match.

I was with my friend and we got talking to a couple who were up here for a wedding today. They were from Redbourn, Herts. My friend being local to Bawtry asked the woman what she thought of the area. Her answer was, "It's lovely. Not what I was expecting". I asked what she was expecting, and she told me "a bit more Coronation Street and council houses". Her friend (not present) was marrying a local lad, but they also lived in Redbourn, so the couple we were speaking to had never been up this way.

It begs the question what "some" Southerners think the North is like. It's a massive area covering three regions, so it's hardly all going to be the same. Do these people honestly think that ALL Northerners live on council estates, drink pints of mild in some rough pub, and class eating out as sitting in McDonald's? Laughable! I cannot believe their shock that the North has wealthy areas. Bawtry is nowhere near as wealthy as some of our areas either.

As a Northerner, I don't think of all Southerners as living in massive houses on gated private estates, sipping Bollinger at the local wine bar, whilst discussing how well Harriet and Pippa are doing at their expensive fee-paying school. Sure there is that, as there are in parts of Northern England, but although we do have a higher number of deprived areas up north, we don't have a monopoly on it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As a Northerner, I don't think of all Southerners as living in massive houses on gated private estates, sipping Bollinger at the local wine bar, whilst discussing how well Harriet and Pippa are doing at their expensive fee-paying school. Sure there is that, as there are in parts of Northern England, but although we do have a higher number of deprived areas up north, we don't have a monopoly on it.

TBH I'd say there were more downright nasty parts of London proportionally than any given Northern city, and because of the high house prices you're more likely to have to live in them, too.

 

[Abpj17]

Northern towns can have huge inequality within them, probably worse than down south.
For example, Rochdale is largely famous for being a ghetto but has the Bamford and Norden estates which are wealthy.

I imagine the inequality in Kensington & Chelsea is significantly higher.

I think any town in the UK will have it's fair share of people who are misperceptions, lack of curiosity and limited horizons and so haven't travelled or thought about places outside their limited world view.

 

[najaB]

What about if you're a Westerner?

Do Scots get a say in this?

 

[anti-pacer]

Do Scots get a say in this?

I would love to know what Scots think of the North of England.

Fire away.