h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Regional Stereotypes In The United Kingdom - A706097
Author: Freddy, Keeper Of The Word "fnar!", Zaphodista - U164010

Hi All,
Would like anyone who's interested to help out by writing a bit about what their part of the UK thinks of other parts of the UK. For example - Essex Girls, fairly or otherwise, have a reputation for being something less than a challenge when it comes to reproduction. In Maidenhead, where I live, Slough is regarded as something as a dump, filled with illiterates, junkies and people you wouldn't want to invite round for a dinner party (which was exactly how I found many Milton Keynes people to regard Bletchley). Legend has it that they were going to re-name "Slough" to "Victoria", after Queen Victoria, but she was appalled at the notion of having a place like Slough named after her. I think there's plenty of the "they're all 6 fingered, web-footed inbreds" biases, too. Newbury, The Forest Of Dean and much Of Norfolk, from what I've heard.
Also - should we include Eire and retitle the entry to read "British Isles" instead of "United Kingdom"?
Thanks - Freddy

Doesn't 'pansies' refer to effeminate men, rather than (necessarilly) gay men?

I always wondered about the stereotype of Essex guys wearing white socks. Where did that come from!?
-Lucinda

I went to a comedy night where the first act started out by singing an offensive song about the inbreds who inhabit Bury-St-Edmunds (the comedy night was IN Bury-St-Edmunds). About halfway into the first chorus he yelled "come on, Haverhill!" as though he'd accidentally mixed us up with the town over the ridge. (I think the idea was that he'd then have to work uphill to make us like him and that this would be funny ... he was quite funny but not for this reason. At the time I lived in Cambridge in any case and therefore couldn't have cared either way.)

Anyway, I think there is a meta-stereotype, if you like, whereby, in rural areas, every town is supposed to have a deep and cherished enmity with a neighbouring one (potentially dating back to the civil war -- I actually know that this is really true of two villages in Northamptonshire, I can ask my uncle and aunt (who live in one) for more details).

Hello,

How about adding these stereotypes? Perhaps we need to think about the source of these prejudices.

Scotch people are said to be tight
Scousers are said to nick stuff and look like Graeme Sounness
People from Portland are supposed to be 'inbred'
The Welsh like their sheep
Glasgow is for drinking and fighting

Yorkshire tends to do well, with the adjectives "bluff" and "genial" springing naturally to mind, with a bit of "Ay up vitnary" and "When I were a lad..." thrown in for good measure.

Being a Teessider myself, I like to perpetuate the following about Tynesiders and Wearsiders:
Geordies: Fat, drunk, violent and impossible to understand. Hate Mackems.
Mackems: Fat, drunk, violent and impossible to understand. Hate Geordies.

There is a wide diversity of regional stereotypes in the UK - perhaps Brit folk memory has even more stereotypes about regional groups than about foreigners?

Anyway here are some more:

People from the SW of England are all cider swilling yokels with a low standard of education except in relation to the operation of agricultural machinery. Think the Wurzels.

As well as Scousers, in the NW of England more generally there are Scallies, generally younger, shell suit wearing, involved in criminality. Perhaps they evolve into scousers when they get older?

On Yorkshire stereotypes - you can add whinging a lot and going on about how hard their life is.

People from the fens - a more than normal level of physical affection for close family relatives, combined with general backwardness.

Brummies - boring and depressing. Speak with a monotone accent. Think Nigel Mansell.

I reckon this could become an EG article, with a bit more info on where the stereotypes originate, etc.

Sprout

The Fens is like Portland then.

Exactly - Don't mention the rabbits...

Portland sexual mores in the Victorian era are a fascinating subject - sex before marriage encouraged within the community, 'close' family relations, you name it...

Sprout

I was thinking of adding inbred, but I'm not sure that counts as regional as you can probably draw a swathe from the Cotswolds to East Anglia of places with that stereotype.