Taking Sides: NORTH OF ENGLAND VS SOUTH OF ENGLAND

Also, Waitrose is better than Morrisons.

Though The North is like a totally different country compared to the south. Because in The South, the Big Issue is just called the Big Issue but in The North it's called Big Issue In The North. Crazy.

In Manchester, people wander around the Arndale Centre smoking fags. In Kingston, they'd set the dogs on you if you tried that in the Bentalls Centre.

Who was it who did a song called The Myth Of The North/South Divide? Was it McCarthy. Yes, I think so. It's not a myth though, there is a divide. Like in London, buses have two sets of doors - one by the driver and one by the stairs. They don't in Manchester (to stop scallies jumping on without paying). I'm not sure where in the county buses lose their other door. Actually, the one-door buss thing has a perverse side affect in that everyone says "thank you" to the bus driver when they get off, so it kind of encourages courtesy as well as discouraging scalliness - ace.

The one thing I found living in Manchester was that Mancunians really do hate southerners - Londoners especially. But southerners - Londoners especially - don't hate northerners. Southerners - Londoners especially - don't ever even think about northerners.

Mark M is half-right (London *is* unique) but London and the SE are so dependent on each other in financial / fiscal / social terms (where would the wealth of the SE come from without London?) as to make the "nothing to do" line ludicrous. There is no strict divide between London and everything else, but London's influence on the rest of Britain is just so massive, (far more than the other way round), and I think most resentment towards London comes from this: my point is that "England" cannot be separate from London because *it gets so much of its cultural input* from London. As I always say (and have bored enough people with by now), the High Romantic idea of "the countryside" has nothing to do with how most people in it actually live their lives, and this is where the London-vs-everywhere- else idea falls apart. I was born in Lambeth and I see myself as a supplanted Londoner anyway (talks and thinks quick, left-wing, tolerant) but applying this to other environments.

I have so little experience of the North of England that I can hardly answer this question. But, if I have an answer, it would be anywhere I feel I can get on in life and feel at home. Therefore I love the place in which I live but hate the town 10 miles to the north (amusingly, someone has actually put a sign "WELCOME TO THE NORTH" where Weymouth ends and Dorchester begins: Dorchester-as-North DUD DUD DUD DUD DUD).

Carsmilesteve, aren't you from Cheltenham?

But I guess, what I've done, is I've compared Worcester Park with Fallowfield rather than comparing The North with The South. I've not really answered the question have I? If this was an exam, I'd get no marks for what I wrote.

Anyway, Surbiton is *way* more cosmopolitan than Worcester Park...

But obviously the North is better cos we speak proper, like.

FAAAAHHHK AWWWRRFFFFF.

i of course consider such attitudes disgraceful

Have no north/south preference but I hate fucking West London, I do.

Right hand neighbours are what is known as a MYSTERY to me. Sometimes I hear their door banging but never see anyone there.

People across in the other block listen to loud ravey music 24/7. In fact I think it is probably GREG SCARTH, you git.

Divide *within* Dorset roughly along constituency lines - West and North more Tory, many fewer people moving in from outside, a lot of foxhunting etc: South (my patch) much more Labour support, edgier, rougher, more move in: Mid and North Poole generally Lib Dem, "new economy" and technocracy, Poole and Bournemouth vast conurbation and more and more studenty, Christchurch very genteel / retired. The split here is a North / South one (rural areas of West and East much the same): "deep country" / more socially mobile coastal areas. Interested in more such divides within counties from those who've lived there.

Mark M's and Gareth's myths both very true: I have literally never had a conversation with my neighbours, and this is no inner-city area ...

Mark S, I imagine people in Hertfordshire feeling like that when the new towns came in: wasn't Telford basically the Stevenage / Basildon etc. of the Birmingham / West Midlands overspill?

Billy: I could never have faced the National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield (which was criticised *for the wrong reasons* by the usual trad-right Blair-bashers) after Momus's hagiography 2 years back. Great writing. "Elton John's sales figures" indeed!

1. Momus wrote a hagiography of the National Pop Music Centre that referenced Elton John's

2. Part of this involved mentioning the focus given to Elton John's sales figures

3. This put you off

The mystery might me solved in a rather dull way if you are misusing the word 'hagiography'

It's my sleep deprivation, Nick. It all fits ...

Naughty North or the Sexy South? Dunno, but if London and Birmingham could swop places = Classic!

Anthony

Chris, don't summon Candyman Pinefox. These days, he's all about disparaging me.

No = no one, it's too much effort to bother writing out complete sentences when it comes to N.

there's a case to be made for the moral superiority of the north in terms of how much more plausible their lumpen mra/roid psycho was compared to this cargo cult imbecile

Inside-mind-Wolverine-Videos-reveal-bizarre-ramblings-21-year-old-triple-murder-suspect-struggled-cope-mother-s-alcoholism-parents-separation-job-hated.html

great dn

this lad needed a nice youth club but there all closed now

I've come to the conclusion and, the fact that this thread exists helps confirm it, that the Midlands is a bit of a mystery to me. For a start, I don't know where anything is. I had no idea Leicester was so far south and Stafford was so far north and what is Northampton? The accents are confusing, Leicester is slightly northern, Northampton sounds "Midlands". I don't know what's in the Midlands and what isn't either. Derby is the Midlands, right? Is Shrewsbury? Peterborough? Crewe? Worcester is but Cambridge isn't?

Derby is classic Midlands, Shrewsbury I never feel is nor Worcester, and i feel v borderline about Crewe - perhaps because it feels it’s one of those places that’s in no sort of zone at all. imv The Midlands is that cluster of industrial towns - Birmingham, Derby, Nottingham, Stoke, Leicester, Staffs.

Peterborough’s that Lincolnshire and fenland country for me.

Yeah Northampton feels the southmost tip of the Midlands to me.

to me for me jesus.

too many questions to spitball all of them at once. my first proposition would be that anywhere Staffordshire as now constituted and Derbyshire are at least partly more a kind of pre-North than tru Midlands. kind of. Shropshire & southern Cheshire too, but then they've both got a Welsh marches thing going on as well

Notts & Leicestershire also not quite tru Midlands either, or East Midlands as a discrete entity at least

i mean this is a big parcel of vibes that i don't want to spout certainties on but can't help playing with anyway

welsh marches and The Ambiguity of Cheshire < yes. i’m firm on Derby and Notts tho.

otm about vibes obv. my entirely correct but continuously shifting vibes based analysis.

Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire definitely seem northern because of the accents.

accents is part of it yeah, i guess underlying stuff about the industrial base and the geography, the gravity around Birmingham, idk need to think more on the vibes. obv "the Midlands" shouldn't be reduced to a monoculture any more than "the North" or "the South"

the Peaks is its own gravitational centre maybe

Worcester is but Cambridge isn't?

I'm from Worcester, which is definitely in the Midlands. I live in Cambridge, which is somewhere between East Anglia (which is sort of another thing?) and Estuary English-land, neither of which is the Midlands, but the top bit of Cambridgeshire where it turns into Peterborough is definitely East Midlands.
I'm also from Herefordshire, which has Midlands TV but feels sort of like its own thing, not quite Wales, not quite West Country. And my mum now lives in Stratford (Upon Avon), which is in Warwickshire (so Midlands?) but feels more like The South to me.
In conclusion The Midlands is a land of contrasts

Worcester is on this finger of Midlandsness which stretches down along the M5, from Bromsgrove and Droitwich, but then you've got The Malvern Hills which do not feel Midlandsy

Weird that Lincolnshire, or parts of it, are classed as East Midlands. It seems something different both geographically and culturally.

Lincolnshire is this corner of England that I haven't been to and know nothing about but it's neither out of the way nor small. Nottingham I get, Hull too. In between, a complete blank. What's there?

shrewsbury (shropshire) is of course the *west* midlands

here is a good youtube that explains everything:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muGjr7vnElY

WATCH ON YOUTUBE FOR EVERYTHING TO BE EXPLAINED (i am not the video owner)

my first proposition would be that anywhere Staffordshire as now constituted and Derbyshire are at least partly more a kind of pre-North than tru Midlands

Notts & Leicestershire also not quite tru Midlands either

Noooo, what is this? All of these places are proper Midlands! Staffs is more West Midlands, Derby & Notts & Leicester all East Midlands, and there is a bit of a different 'style' of Midlandsiness between West and East, though if you ask me to clarify I'd be hard pushed to answer.

I will give you that Stoke feels 'pre-North' to me. Peterborough and Northampton just squeak into being technically Midlands but they feel 'pre-South'.

Lincolnshire is this corner of England that I haven't been to and know nothing about but it's neither out of the way nor small. Nottingham I get, Hull too. In between, a complete blank. What's there?

Lincolnshire is weirdly big. I think of it as Lincoln cathedral and the good university a bunch of friends work at, but it's also Skegness and Grimsby and where Thatcher was born.

(xp) Peterborough's north of Birmingham!

Yeah, and in the same way, Stoke's only just more notherly than Nottingham in actual location, it just feels different! It might be because Peterborough's actually in Cambridgeshire, which is totally a southerner's county.

Notherly? Northerly, you know what I mean.

Notherly is probably in the Midlands though.

Okay, hang on, need to check if this opinion is controversial... East Anglia is part of The South. Is that just me or is that a commonly accepted feeling?

East Anglia and the West Midlands are their own (single and unified) region

a lot of the issue here is that england's second city (the birmingham-wolverhampton agglomerate) functions as a vast undervalued cultural black hole for reasons that ozzy osbourne and kevin rowland have spent a lifetime explaining to northern AND southern melts (who comprehend this not)

We need Adrian Chiles to arbitrate on this matter.

the black hole thesis is basically the same as the one for modern times that cambrian chronicles offers on youtube re pre-norman times in "the medieval kingdom that was erased from history" btw (also known as "video unavailable")

(content warning: giraldus cambrensis as one of the sources)

as a Wessie my main definition of Yorkshire is the hilly terrain, which is why flat zones like Doncaster feel quite alien to me and could be anywhere similar to Northampton - whereas towns of Lancashire on the edge of the S Pennines like Rochdale feel more like home to me.

I'm from Worcester, which is definitely in the Midlands.

* waves *

one thing that really confuses me is when people from the midlands say they are northern. it's not something I've seen on ilx in recent times but I do remember someone posting that they were from Wolverhampton and also they were northern and being like **wtf**?!?!? no

but the top bit of Cambridgeshire where it turns into Peterborough is definitely East Midlands.

I have a friend here from that bit and he def sounds like he's from the East Midlands. tbf Peterborough historically was in Northamptonshire they just picked it up and moved it into Cambridgeshire brick-by-brick in 1889

To get even more granular, the bit to the East of Peterborough, Fenland, is definitely East Anglia but is probably not East Midlands. Don't know if I'd call it "South" though. All I know is that it's officially the most miserable place in the UK - https://www.fenlandcitizen.co.uk/news/people-from-fenland-the-most-unhappy-in-the-uk-9045306/

another vanished kingdom: west anglia

Lives on in this institution - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_West_Anglia

Staffs is more West Midlands

i know you're right but i mean kind of? South Staffs used to contain Walsall and maybe the entire Black Country, but it doesn't any more - and North Staffs is Stoke and whatever that is

Derby & Notts & Leicester all East Midlands, and there is a bit of a different 'style' of Midlandsiness between West and East

this is also "right" but Derby is pulled North by the Peaks maybe and then places like Chesterfield feel like the almost-North too

Nottingham and Leicester i'll give to the East Midlands absolutely, other bits of Notts i feel a little differently about, when i think about Derby i know in my heart it's the Midlands i just prefer to ignore it out of existence

not the entire Black Country - Dudley & Stourbridge were in Worcestershire

oh yeah good shout

the North starts at Stoke as any fule kno

kay, hang on, need to check if this opinion is controversial... East Anglia is part of The South. Is that just me or is that a commonly accepted feeling?

― emil.y, Sunday, 7 April 2024 14:16 bookmarkflaglink

I don't think this should be controversial but has made me think - technically I am from south of the Watford Gap and I have lived in the south my entire adult life, but I still think of myself as a midlander and probably always will, I strongly believe the midlands is its own thing and not north or south. but some of East Anglia is further north than the west midlands - Norwich is further north than Birmingham for instance

on the other hand I call my mum "mom"

there is also "the west is its own thing" argument which I personally agree with - the south west/West Country doesn't have a whole lot to do with the rest of the south and probably has no reason to be grouped together with it really

West Country / London / Anglia / Central / Yorkshire / Border / Meridian / Granada / Tyne Tees - I don't make the rules

tbf that sort of works