York Guides

from The Daily Mail

A new book It's Grim Up North says the North is superior to the south. Rubbish, says Essex man Simon Heffer, whose hilariously outrageous prejudices are only mitigated by the fact that he married a lass from Yorkshire. Read some of his most outrageous quotes here - plus Sheffield's Roy Hattersley's strong response - and weigh in on the matter yourself with our reader comments at the bottom of the page.

Simon Heffer says...

"Northerners are, it seems to me, permanently on the defensive. And who can blame them? It must annoy them hugely that they are stuck out on a limb geographically and culturally, miles from anywhere or anything (and quite possibly anyone) interesting."

"To many Southerners, the North represents everything that is bad about England: foul weather, foul food, foul urban sprawls and a huge waste of taxpayers' money trying to make the whole shooting match work."

"Most Southern taxpayers asked what they do for charity could legitimately reply that they subsidise the socio-economic landfill site that is the North."

"Of course, I know there is much of beauty in the North: The Lake District, the Yorkshire Moors and the Pennines. I have even managed the odd afternoon free from driving rain on my visits to such places, and enjopyed seeing them without acquiring pneumonia. But to be frank, it requires a superhuman struggle on the part of the visitor actually to enjoy anything north of the Watford Gap."

"I well remember the trauma, as a small child about 40 years ago, of accidentally watching an episode of Coronation Street, and being told that what I saw was not a documentary-style reconstruction of life in the late Middle Ages."

"Mills, predictably dark and probably satanic, loomed on bleak horizons. As the train pulled up at Wigan, rain lashed against the windows. Welcome to the North."

"There is much to be admired up North: Durham Cathedral, York Minster, Fountains Abbey... However, one is forced to conclude that our forebears built such fine churches in profusion because of the amount of praying they knew they and generations after them would be doing for better weather, better food, and indeed better everything."

"I know that Blackpool is currently on a wave of postmodern ironic popularity, and I wish it well. But in my humble opinion, its main use to society will one day be as an alternative to custody once the prisons are full."

"One thing many Southerners would agree with our Northern cousins about is that there are some terrible things about the South. Which must mean that by any definition, and by common consent, the North is a hell of a lot worse."

"For all the oases of glorious, uplifting culture - the Huddersfield Choral Society belting out the Messiah, an afternoon at Headingley or in those sublime cathedrals - there's still an all-pervasive sense of crushing third-rateness. In everything, that is, except women. But then, as I married a Yorkshire girl, I'm probably in a better position to judge that side of Northern life than most Southerners."

Roy Hattersley fights back for Northerners...

Despite its title, a new book, It's Grim Up North, takes issue with every 'misconception' about Northerners and concludes that life 'oop there' is infinitely richer than anything the South can offer. Yorkshireman Roy Hattersley extols the virtues of his beloved birthplace and says, anyway, what fool could possibly admire that part of Britain where fish and chips are eaten with a little wooden fork? Here we feature highlights of his argument...

"The moral applies to the whole Kingdom of the North: 'Never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. If he does, he will tell you without asking. If he does not, why humiliate him?'"

"Have you ever heard anyone boast about coming from Essex or Hampshire? Some Southerners are so ashamed of their true origins that they claim allegiance to Middlesex - a county that no longer even exists."

"The industrial revolution which made England great was born and bred in the North. The event symbolising that explosion of ingenuity and energy was the first public steam train service. It ran from Stockton to Darlington, not Godalming to Guildford. It burst into life because Northerners were prepared to work hard at rough trades and dangerous jobs."

"The nation's cotton was spun in Lancashire and the country's wool woven in Yorkshire. Most of the coal that fuelled England's industry was mined in Northern coal fields - often from seams so narrow the colliers had to crawl on their bellies."

"Southern detractors try to portray us as one big Salford while they talk as if they all live on the weald of Kent or the Sussex Downs."

"I keep being told Coronation Street has done nothing to enhance the region's reputation. But if it came to a choice between living with the crazy geriatrics and backward teenagers of Weatherfield or the pathological criminals of Walford - where EastEnders live - give me Coronation Street."

"The North has a hard beauty. It is not a country for the feeblehearted. We are, however, neither unfeeling nor insensitive. The two great love stories of the English language - Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre - were written in and about the North."

"There was a university in York when Oxford was just a place where cattle walked across a muddy river, and the Venerable Bede taught Latin and Greek in Jarrow when Cambridge was a couple of planks across a stream."

"The Pilgrimage of Grace - which began on a Yorkshire moor - would have stopped Henry VIII from plundering the monasteries for personal gain if, on the march to London, the South had risen up with equal courage."

"I have never paddled on Blackpool beach with my trousers rolled up to my knees and a knotted handkerchief to protect my head from rare rays of Northern sun. My bath is not full of coal. I do not have a pigeon loft at the end of my garden and I heartily dislike tripe and onions."

"I am proud that, between the wars, unemployed men marched to London from Jarrow, that we are home to the best brass bands in the world, like plain food and despise people who 'put on airs'."

"Who could possibly respect a part of the country where they can only eat fish and chips with the aid of a little wooden fork? If God had meant us to eat ladi-da, he would not have given us fingers."

"The episode that for me typifies North versus South in English history took place outside Hull in 1642. The representative of a Southern government demanded entry into the city to levy taxes to pay for the extravagant lifestyle of Charles I. The burghers of the port slammed the City Gate in his face."

"The North is where I was born. It is home. And therefore it is the best place in the whole world."