The North/South Divide, Part Une

As an honouree northerner myself – my parents only moved to the southern counties whilst expecting me (I am not sure behind the reasonings, but I have heard a rumour/made up that it was because they were not keen on losing my brother or me to the pits) - and having spent large portions of the past three years in the Lancashire and Yorkshire counties, I decided that I was in an excellent position to compare the northern and southern lifestyles in order to determine is there still the north/south divide that everyone talks about.

This section of my blog is part one of at least a two part thriller about the differences I have found in the lifestyles.

There are many common conceptions of a typical northern person from those of us who reside in the southern counties, most of which generally involve reading by candlelight and lashings of gravy. Having followed my favourite northern football (soccer, just in case this poor excuse for a blog drums up some miraculous foreign following) around the country for the past five years and having been cohabiting with a northern girl/lass for the past three years, it quickly becomes apparent that these conceptions we have are not all true. Whilst gravy is a staple part of the diet and generally accompanies every foodstuff with the exception of curry, the views about things such as the candlelight are in fact not correct. Some might find it a shock to the system, I certainly did the first time I stayed ‘oop north’ but electricity does exist in this part of the world.

Food is certainly an area where the north and south differ in terms of what is considered ‘nice’. Like I say, on the whole up north, if you can have it with gravy, it is ‘nice’, if not it is a foreign import that should not grace the dining table. I am not sure where Bisto is manufactured, but I would not be surprised if every reasonably sized northern hamlet did not have a storage factory for this product in particular. Chips and gravy, pie and gravy, stew and gravy, the list is endless and something which I find amazing as a southern resident is the fact that all of these are readily available from the local chip shop and will be regularly eaten at Friday tea time – fish and chip night.

Whilst gravy and its accompaniments provide at least 50% of the diet in my experiences up north, a large portion of the remaining nutrient requirement is provided by curry. Each and every town has an excellent Indian takeaway supplying a variation on the nation’s favourite – Tikka Massala. Within weeks a favourite will have been found and when you can’t be bother to mix t’Bisto, will supply you with the calorific requirements you desire.

One delicacy which I had never had the pleasure of sampling until I ventured north was the vinegar sandwich. I am not sure how it is classed as a sandwich as it generally appears to be a slice of bread soaked in vinegar which is offensive to each and every sense that a human possesses.

On my travels one thing I have noticed about the north of the country is the friendliness of the people from the north, even if you have no idea who they actually are. With the exception of my travels to Liverpool I don’t think I have ever met a northern person who I did not like. Wherever you go in the north, you walk into a shop and it is “alright love”, “hello lad”, where as down south you will be lucky to get a grunt out of a typical service provider.

With regards to Liverpool, my only experiences are on match days at either Goodison Park or Anfield so there is a chance that my views are slightly blown out of proportion by the atmosphere. The first time I went to Liverpool I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I stopped a random woman on the street and asked for directions “I wouldn’t park around here, there are some secure car parks which are guarded just up this hill” – my views of Liverpool had changed immediately, I had been told where I could park and not expect my car to be stolen… although obviously there was still a nagging doubt that I was being setup. I parked a good ten minutes away from Anfield and walked to the pub which our fans were cooped up in (potentially the Arkles but I am not sure – it was quite close to the ground though), which is when I saw what Harry Enfield had been predicting for me to see on my visit to the City of Culture. As I rounded a corner by a petrol station I had the pleasure of witnessing a brick being put through the windscreen of a car… I have no idea on what was behind this but the driver was definitely wearing blue and white, whilst the attacker was certainly a Scouser. Following this scene I swiftly went into the ground to watch us suffer a poor defeat at the hands of the referee and then swiftly made my way back to the car after the match.

The second visit I made to Liverpool was the same year when we played Everton at Goodison Park on a Saturday afternoon. The match was pretty dull from our point of view, we managed to lose despite Everton having their third choice keeper sent off… Following the difficulty in parking and getting away from Liverpool earlier in the season I decided to use the train to get to this match and having got a taxi to the away pub with a few mates before the match, I decided I would walk it back to Lime Street Station as I didn’t have too long before my train. Obviously as an outsider to the city I did not know the way, but my hopes were raised when I spotted a couple of policemen at the side of the street. I strolled up and said to them “hi could you tell me how to get to the station please”, to which the ever important police man replied in his lovely Scouse accent “Ayyyy I believe you mean, excuse me officer, I am sorry to interrupt your conversation with your colleague, could you please tell me how to get to the station?”. My reply to this of “Sorry I thought you were working”, looking back could have quite easily got me into trouble, but luckily I managed to get directions and once again, very swiftly leaft the city (for the second time in a year), which seemed to have a problem with anybody not sporting a red or blue football jersey.

This appears to be similar in the south… we are more inclined to tell a complete stranger to knob off, or even better ignore them completely. If anybody has ever got a train from say Manchester to London they will no doubt have experienced this… When the train leaves Manchester everyone will be chatting about where they are going, what they have been doing etc, yet as soon as the train gets south of Birmingham and starts filling up, there will be complete silence. People will no longer speak to one another and the journey will be dull and monotonous until the London skyline appears at which point almost every southerner will get on the phone and have a grumble about how dull and painful the journey has been…

Part two of this section of my blog will continue my musings on the difference between the north and south of the country, with particular focus on the differences in the way we speak and the different names which we give to everyday products – something which causes much confusion in a relationship between a southern and northern pairing. As you can imagine, I have plenty to say on the subject and I apologise for the roundabout way in which this section has been written.