Crossing The Great Divide

I don’t really do the North. Not because I don’t like it, it just seems like a very long way away – or that’s what I tell myself anyway. Being born a Southerner, it was never encouraged to venture north of Watford. The Parents knew nothing about the north of England, except what every Southerner knew to be fact – It’s Grim Up North. They have travelled the world and yet, until The Brother made the monumental decision to go to Durham University – Durham, as in near Newcastle, as in almost Scotland; you couldn’t get much further north – they had not been further north than Birmingham, my old university. At the time, it was quite a brave move for me to choose Birmingham University – as The Father said more than once, “I’ve driven around Birmingham a couple of times – you’d only drive around it to get somewhere else”. Birmingham was the furthest north anyone in my family had ever been. I was an intrepid explorer, braving the unknown. The unknown turned out be rather nice, as it happened – Birmingham wasn’t what it once was. Of course, I struggled to meet a Brummie in the university itself, most of the students were fellow Southerners.

That seems to be the case not only with the university in Leeds, but the city itself. All I kept hearing were southern accents. Not once did I hear anyone say, “I’m just goin’ up t’moor” or any other classic Yorkshire phrases. Then again, we had driven up to visit a couple of The Husband’s school friends, both from Solihull, who had settled with their partners in Leeds after attending the city’s university. Perhaps a lot of Leeds Uni students had stayed in the city after graduation – the centre was awash with young, overly-trendy sorts with all the newest clobber and hairstyles. There was not a ‘nowt’ to be heard anywhere. The old stereotypes of northerners being vulgar, uncouth and poor are just that – old. There is tremendous wealth ‘oop north’ now – the opening of Harvey Nichols in Leeds fourteen years ago is testament to that. In a massive reversal, many Southerners are packing up their bags and moving northwards for a better ( cheaper, more relaxed) quality of life.

We spent our time in Leeds shopping, eating and drinking in a grand fashion. We visited the designer shops in the Victorian Quarter (where I felt distinctly unfashionable), had a very civilised cup of tea on the terrace of a listed classical building overlooking parkland, drank cocktails in a canal-side bar, and dined exceedingly well. We couldn’t have done better in London. Now if they could only do something about the weather, which unfortunately does continue to be Grim Up North...