I am reading a great book at the moment – Pies and Prejudice : In search of the north by Stuart Maconie. From the title you get the idea! It really is an amusing look at the chasm between north and south – and debunks some myths.
Did you know that there are more swimming pools in gardens in the north; or that Geordies drink more champagne than Londoners?
Then an advert arrived this week in my office from Waitrose (surely a posh shop from the south) who are looking to open 10 new stores this year. The announcements are loud and proud in the various trade press. And there is a map of the UK and a list of relevant surveyors to talk to.
As you can see the map contains some interesting geographical splits. My firm has three offices and although we are all within 30 miles of each other in the east midlands we are in different parts of the UK. It looks like Leicester have been labelled ‘east’, Derby the ‘west’ and Nottingham firmly (well just) in the north.
I am not sure that Stuart Maconie would agree as I think he is of the view that the north starts at Sheffield.
I have never really thought of myself as a northerner. We are certainly tougher than the softies from London. But we aren’t really like the pretend toughies from Manchester of Liverpool? And the topless (male) footie fans from Leeds parading around in the bleak mid-winter are just plain daft – what would their mums say?
Perhaps we are the Home Counties of the North…
August 11th, 2010 at 12:22
When we did our place branding research for Nottingham some years ago, it came back very strongly that Nottingham is more southern and Mansfield more northern. We concluded that Mansfield should be part of Yorkshire and as you say, we should be a little more Home Counties.
I like that, it has a nice ring to it. “I’m from West Bridgford, you know, in the home Counties.”