Re: Curious - what are the distinctions between England, Great Britain
I'm a Northerner, and lived most of my life here, but I did live "down South" for over three years.
The way I see it is the majority of Southerners simply have never been to the North, at least not properly. And fair enough they don't go to the North; I'm not blaming them per se. The Lake District & Yorkshire Dales etc are beautiful places to visit, but it's not like there's tonnes of must see stuff. I've visited various cities in the UK, and they're all the bloody same essentially so if you live in London what's the point of going to Newcastle, Leeds etc.
And so as such they don't really know what they're talking about when it comes to the abuse they hurl out at Northerners. They just see these shit films and watch Coronation Street and assume we're all like that.
One part of the South I lived in was the West Country, bordering Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire. And most people from around there had never been beyond Bath.
Take the piss out of Northerners and their accents all you want, but with your stereotypical West Country folk? Gimme a break
And talk about casual racism there. But then I honestly don't think most of the people I knew there had actually ever met a non-white person in their life.
Another thing about the South I never really understood until I lived there was the "City-Country divide" farmers always go on about. Coming from a suburb Leeds, West Yorkshire myself, I never understood the divide originally. In the North you can go from one to the other in no time.
Where I used to live there was a farm at the top of my road on the edge of my housing estate (not council btw
), yet I could get the train in the town where I lived and be in Leeds city centre in about 10-15 minutes.
When I lived in the South however, I saw why. As it seemed all there is in the South is London, the countryside to the west of it... and that's it.
Where I lived in Dorset I had to drive bloody miles to get anywhere, it's just full of little villages and crummy market towns. And then when I did the nearest city was Salisbury, which is rubbish. It's
not a city, yes it's got a cathedral and thus technically is a city, but I've been to a city, that wasn't what one. Biggish town at its best.
There was also literally ZERO public transport, just to get to the nearest train station was about a 20 minute drive, and even then it was a pretty lousy station too. If you wanted to anywhere half-decent you'd have to go all the way to London (200 miles east) and then go from there.
Oh yeah, and another thing, Southerners are so bloody miserable! I really missed the cheery Northern attitude down there. Ask a stranger for help and mostly they look at you like shit on their shoe.
So yeah, I'm glad to be back North now. Northern pride!
