Saturday 30 January 2016

An Interloper; the pros and cons.


                                

My life in the UK was spent between Sussex/Surrey (where I was born), Shropshire/Welsh border, and London. I really know very little about other parts of Britain, other than where I was at school and my knowledge of that area is pretty limited too.

I spent almost four years living in the West Midlands (in my people's house above), and had very mixed feelings about the place.

There is no question that the people of the Home Counties, and the people of the Midlands have a very different attitude towards hospitality. I'm not talking about those who were fortunate enough to have been educated away, or attended country-wide universities, but those who remained glued to their particular corner of the country.

I loved the countryside up there, and especially just over the border into Wales, but I never felt at home there. The locals had an uncanny way of making you feel like an unwelcome stranger, and they seemed to delight in as much.

I did all the usual things that one does to try to make oneself accepted into village life. I became a regular at the pub', I ran the local Youth Club for a year, I reintroduced the annual Horticultural Show (which had been allowed to lapse), I raised money to send a group of 8 village children on a fabulous free adventure holiday to Bavaria (my high point), and I organised fund-raising to buy an electric wheelchair for a local girl who'd had an accident abroad; amongst other things. I like to think that I did my bit to integrate.

However, none of these things really helped me to become properly accepted, and when I eventually left the area I was extremely happy to return to a much more sociable Sussex, and France.

I had a friend in the village who came from Liverpool. He once asked the village garage owner how long it would take for him to be accepted into village life. The garage man replied "Oh, at least TEN years". My friend replied "Remind me to leave in NINE".

p.s. I don't wish to sound anti my old temporary home area, because I'm not. It's actually one of the places where I'd still like to live. But being friendlier would have cost them nothing; I can't see the appeal of being inhospitable!


48 comments:

  1. I wonder if in the time you've been away attitudes towards 'outsiders' have softened somewhat. Your friend's quip to the garage man made me chuckle. And, yes, it certainly doesn't hurt to be hospitable.

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    1. I certainly hope they have, it was to their disadvantage to be hostile to outsiders.

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  2. I only spent a very short time there but always felt accepted. Perhaps it was because I was considered a "kiwi".

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  3. It's one of the nice things about where I live now. Six months in Brixham and it already feels like there's a little community building around me. I didn't have that in my previous village (and again, not from the lack of trying). x

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    1. Brixham has a very friendly look about it, as do all the fishing towns/villages along that coast.

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  4. Sorry Cro, but your geography is way out - Shropshire and the Welsh borders is definitely not the West Midlands! Unfortunately, I've heard the same remarks made about the Home Counties,(a stuck up lot!) and other parts of the UK - and in particular Cornwall - now there's a foreign country ! Londoners too, have a reputation of being rude.
    Perhaps the local people in your village recognised that you were just passing through, or perhaps you were just a bit too eager to push your way in and become involved. Your Liverpool friend's answer possibly gave a hint to his attitude towards the village, and it's inhabitants, which is why he wasn't accepted.

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    1. I used the words 'west midlands' to help those who may not know the UK too well. I thought west of the middle might help place it; it might even help some Brits.

      Your experience is obviously not the same as mine. I've always found people in Sussex, Surrey, etc, extremely friendly.

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    2. That's because you 'belong' there Cro. We all feel 'at home'..er..AT home! We gravitate to the Mothership...

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    3. I'm sure that's 50% of the answer, but the other 50% is suspicion of 'aliens'.

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    4. Wanda is right, Cro - it's because you belonged. I wonder though, would the locals in Surrey or Sussex be suspicious of say someone from Liverpool with a scouse accent - would they be made welcome?

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    5. As long as they were pleasant, honest, and wished to assimilate, everyone would be made to feel welcome.

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  5. I've lived in Liverpool, various villages in Lancashire, Surrey, Berkshire and Wiltshire before moving to France. The friendliest? Surrey and France, without a doubt.

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    1. I couldn't agree more, although I'd have to add Sussex to the list.

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  6. We started in Surrey and have lived, mainly, on the eastern side of England in four counties. We have always been incomers or whatever and I think it was because of being from the south east and therefore 'London'.
    I believe that people from other countries are given a higher status here in France than those from Paris.
    We soldier on.

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    1. Parisians are foreigners; I am just English.

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  7. In Cornwall I was told it was 'three generations in the graveyard' before you'd be accepted into the community.

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    1. Grockles will always be Grockles.

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    2. The three generation thing is also said here in Ireland.

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  8. The West Midlands isn't far enough North for people to have to rely on each other through "hard times"...

    Having lived in very many rural places in the UK....
    from near Guildford in the South to a small "town" the Far North of Scotland...
    I have found that West Yorkshire was the most naturally hospitable...
    followed by the coastal area of West Norfolk...
    both places where people tend to have to pull together in hard times.
    You don't know when you will have to rely on your neighbour... so you don't "rub him up the wrong way"!

    Conversley, in Scotland, I found that...
    despite the fact that there are often occasions when "hard times" hit...
    they seemed to actively shun "outsiders"...
    probably because most of their troubles...
    such as the "clearances"...
    had come from "the others"...
    but that said, all the really intelligent Scots had taken that invasion as a way of escaping the "Far North of the Wee Frees"....
    and settling in the Americas, Australia and Southern England...
    [Brum to Lincoln and south of that]...
    and making the UK what it was before the Wars...
    they must be spinning in their graves.

    Rural France, however, is the most naturally hospitable place I've ever lived...
    provided you are willing to be part of the community yourself, get involved and try to talk French...
    the latter somewhat difficult for many older Brits....
    who were taught to understand "Johnny Forriner"...
    but not necessarily respond!!

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    1. My oldest son lived in Edinburgh for a few years (work). You could always guarantee that anyone who smiled at you had a southern English accent, and anyone who didn't; well you can guess. Certain folk took pride in being dour.

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    2. My first Husband - English - asked for a pint of bitter in a Glaswegian pub and got thumped in the face. Mind you now I could half understand why.

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    3. Intrigued - how did you know that anyone who smiled at you had a southern English accent? Did they smile, speak and say "Hello, I'm from Southern England , and I have the right accent" ! Sorry Cro. but that is a ridiculous statement !
      And I'm doing a mia more here !!

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    4. It was simply my experience, and it really stood out. There was a big English community in Edinburgh, and all the ones I met were smiley and pleasant; the natives were much more insular. I can only relate how I find.

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  9. Paris always feels like home from home to me.

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    1. I love Paris too. People talk to you in cafés and restaurants.

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  10. As you may know Cro, my first eighteen years were spent in a very rural part of Lincolnshire - in the fens - and of course I always felt at home there, although I couldn't envisage ever going back to that area because i have moved on.
    As to the Midlands. I spent getting on for twenty years living and teaching in Wolverhampton and living only a couple of miles from the Shropshire border, but I can't sayI ever felt really at home there.
    Up here now for the last twenty five years - North Yorkshire - I really feel at home.

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    1. I'm just trying to drum-up a bit of north/south divide controversy.

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  11. I think it's called jealousy!

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    1. I don't know why they should have been jealous.

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  12. I am loath to generalise about the friendliness of different areas of the UK Cro although, I have only ever lived in North London and Hertfordshire, both of which seem very friendly to me { this home county is definitely not stuck up Coppa !! } I believe that it's who you meet along the way that determines one's experience. I have heard many people say that the French are an unfriendly lot but, whenever we are in France they are nothing but delightful !! .... and, when we went to Edinburgh eveyone that we came across were very friendly. Our daughter was at Liverpool University and, having never been there before, we were AMAZED at the above and beyond friendliness of the Liverpudlians!!
    I remember when you showed us that house that you lived in ....... I absolutely LOVE it. It's SO pretty. XXXX

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    1. I agree, it's impossible to generalise. I quite expect another village down the road might have been totally different.

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    2. I'm relieved to hear it Jacqueline, but it can't be said for others - and it's the same wherever you go, be it town or countryside - there are friendly folk and unfriendly - it's the nature of man !

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  13. Small-minded people, I presume.

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  14. It is hard to understand people deliberately being unfriendly to new neighbor's, especially to ones who get involved with the community and improves the quality of life for its residents. What does it cost to be friendly?

    It was their loss when you moved.

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    1. I don't know about that, but in my short time there I certainly did my bit.

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  15. Isn't it possible that your experience and reception in the village had to do with class?

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    1. I have no idea from what class they would have been; a good mix I imagine.

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  16. I live in the East Midlands so I hope I don't count as being unfriendly. Village life can be difficult - we have lived in this same village for over thirty years and used to join in with everything and knew everyone. Now it is a very different matter - there are newcomers who we don't know and never see at village functions - in my opinion a village is something more than just somewhere to live.

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    1. Newcomers can be just as unfriendly as natives, but maybe they just want privacy.

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    2. Having been a townie all my life, I am actually slightly scared of the people in the village. It is a real culture shock.

      It goes both ways, they are afraid we will do something hideous to the house and they dont like change and I am not used to people standing at the end of my drive monitoring our work men and then over hearing in the pub chinese whispers of what is going on in my house. I am like what does it matter to them?

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  17. I have just written a similar post ( but from a slightly different perspective)

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  18. Oh how I wish I could say Paris is very friendly and people talk to you in cafes. I have never been there.
    But as a tourist I must admit every where I have visited people were so lovely. One of my best dreams is to live in an English village much like
    Mrs. Marple and Weaver or a French one like yours.

    cheers, parsnip and thehamish

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    1. The 'classic' English village is a wonderful place to live; my own native Surrey village was like that. Here in France everyone is friendly and extremely helpful; nothing is ever too much for them. We all look after each other.

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  19. I agree with Jacquline on several, perhaps all, of the points she made. Generalising is pointless and, in itself, indicates, in my opinion, a narrow view of people and places.

    I was born in Liverpool - a city of 'incomers' from Wales, Ireland, Scotland, West Indies (slave trade connections), China, West Africa (trade links) and so on. I believe there were some English too but I never met any.

    I lived in Liverpool and worked and went to Uni there and felt very much at home. I moved to the Wirral and felt very much at home. I moved to a village in Cheshire and felt very much at home.

    Then I moved to a Hebridean Island out into the Atlantic off Scotland and realised just how 'different' I was in my upbringing, accent, outlook and everything else. Yes I was once told by a senior politician and Minister of Religion that I was 'not one of our kind' but now, 40 years later, I feel that I belong although I will never be a true Hebridean because I don't have the generations of relatives. My son however will have that because he's never known anywhere else. He hasn't had to try to integrate. He is naturally part of the community.

    For 9 years I lived half my life in New Zealand and I felt part of the community almost instantly. Of course I got jibes about being a Pom. But then New Zealand - if you are not a Maori who were incomers 600 years ago - is populated by incomers who were once upon a time Poms or immigrants from somewhere or other relatively recently.

    Perhaps, Cro, one of the things is that I've never actively gone out and tried to integrate anywhere. I've just allowed it to happen.

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