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6 hours ago
5
I was born in Barnsley, my father a coalminer. After Reading University, I moved to London and made a career in advertising for 40 years. My accent’s softened, perhaps, but I am and always will identify as a northerner (It’s not easy being an English northerner surrounded by southerners. Here’s how we survive, 6 January).
Working-class common sense and direct, plain speaking worked for me. Southerners often see this as being “blunt”, especially in the business world. There, it’s all about endless talking that means nothing and makes sure nothing gets done.
Poke fun at my accent? Fine. I can laugh at our “flat cap and whippet” image. But if I come back with cockney rhyming slang, southerners aren’t amused. If you can’t laugh at yourself, don’t laugh at anyone else. But if I want to annoy a southerner, I’ll point out that without us northerners, they wouldn’t even exist. Because without a “north” there can be no “south”. Some work out that without a south there is no north. “True,” I smile. “But I thought of it first.”
Stephen Deput
Richmond, London
It’s not about north or south. It’s about class. I grew up in County Durham, my dad went down the pit at 15. I went to Leeds University in 1988. It was impossible for me to get on there, not because of the southerners or even the professional cockneys, but because of the public school mob. Suddenly empowered by concentration of numbers, young men who’d not have survived my comprehensive were now loudly mouthing a code of behaviour I could never accept. Bullying, cruelty, homophobia.
Loutish stupidity is not an exclusively southern characteristic, neither is it exclusively of the wealthy. But put all these braying yahoos in a pot together, allow them to dominate socially through an ability to obsequiously engage with middle-class lecturers, accept their ideas of what is good taste and acceptable conduct and you have a situation familiar to generations of working-class students, whether they are northern or southern. We are not “professional northerners”. We just had to work harder to get there.
Michael Whatmore
Ryton, Tyne and Wear
I was highly entertained by Robyn Vinter’s article, and especially her recollection of southerners’ lack of geographical knowledge of the north. As a student from Nottingham, in London in the 1960s I was fortunate to meet my future wife, who came from Sunderland. Two comments stand out: “Did you know each other before you came down here?” and “That’s nice, you’ll be near each other in the holidays.”
Nick Hopkinson
Tockwith, North Yorkshire
If you would like to commission an article on “It’s not easy being an English Midlander”, I’m your man. Being a put-upon northerner is an easy cliche. Being anywhere near Birmingham or the Black Country is much less romantic. Hated accents, manufacturing destroyed and an easy victim for lazy comedians – we get the lot. I await your call. A thousand words? A piece of cake. Gone on, I dare you.
Tony Clewes
Walsall, West Midlands
Try being a southerner in the north! I heard a lot of “Are you posh?” when I lived in Greater Manchester, plus I faced a lot of discrimination in getting (blue‑collar) work. Then, I would be told that “northerners are more friendly”. So much bollockspeak.
Jill Hubbard
Gosport, Hampshire
I went to a northern university in the mid-1960s and had the misfortune to have come from Bath. The teasing was gentle, but my, it did go on.
Mary Bolton
London
Robyn Vinter’s article reminded me of an interaction in my first week at the University of Bristol. I asked my lab partner to pass me sample A. Unable to comprehend the short a, she thought I was talking about a French chicken, having heard it as “sam poulet”. Once the confusion was cleared by me pointing at the vial, I was helpfully told the “correct” pronunciation. We still joke about it now more than 20 years on, and rightly or wrongly the resulting “unplaceable, vaguely northern voice” has probably been one of the most valuable professional assets I took from my time as a student.
Dr Craig Armstrong
Pocklington, East Yorkshire
I’m not even truly northern, being born and bred in Staffordshire, but since I moved to London aged 19 and then to the home counties I’ve found that being “northern” has come with a lifetime of discrimination, mockery and bullying. I have a fairly neutral accent (in Staffordshire I was teased for being “posh”), but I say “a” not “ar” in words like glass and bath.
One memorable incident at work was a budget meeting where a whole conference table stared blankly at me while I discussed staff costs, until one person had an epiphany and blurted out: “Oh, you mean starff costs!” Cue murmurs of realisation, chuckles and smiles of relief as the room finally understood me. Heartbreakingly, this was at an organisation whose mission was improving social mobility, and which was supposedly dedicated to the concept that where you come from shouldn’t have bearing on your future. Their own behaviour proves that, sadly, where you come from does indeed influence your whole life.
Name and address supplied
As a Yorkshire-raised lass and Edinburgh-trained vet, I got a job in a practice near Cambridge. It took some months before I was capable of taking messages on the telephone as I was completely bemused by the strange southern vowels. Having married an Essex man raised in Reading, I brought him north to the West Riding 30 years ago and now delight in occasionally mocking his pronunciation, which has resisted civilisation. And don’t start me on “scones”.
Dr Geraldine Hale
Riddlesden, West Yorkshire
