West Yorkshire

I'm from Chesterfield so, to get any semblance of normal life had to go to Sheffield so know that particular part of South Yorkshire very well indeed.

I was in Chesterfield for 28 hours this weekend, by my reckoning it was 24 hours too long. I braved a trip into town on Saturday morning and it was like being in Poland in the seventies only with mobile phones and worse haircuts.

By far the most in depth discussion of Yorks I've experienced was reading David Yallop's "Deliver us from Evil" book about the Yorkshire Ripper. Scary stuff, but gripping (and no, I'm not normally the type to get his kicks from True Crime tales).

Slightly harsh to categorise your beloved homeland in such a way - sorry about that.

I have a real soft spot for Leeds. Had a good time and saw a lot of good gigs there when I was at sixth form and university. Much better than the tourist hell hole that was York anyway. Might move back there one day, when I'm tired of the big ciy.

Damn it gareth I'm getting a little home-sick for the first time in years. stevo (born in Dewsbury, raised in Huddersfield)

Dislocating my finger by trying to chase a fell runner down Ingleborough and tripping on a rock
Having tea at the Wrinkled Stocking cafe in Holmfirth
Getting lost round the one-way system in Pontefract

So I don't really feel qualified to judge

As someone who's stayed in the North (I've been back in LEeds for about 5 years, and have never lived further South than Sheffield), I'm kind of mindful of the generally metropolitan bias on this board, and am quite self-conscious about seeming provincial (although when sufficiently drunk will undertake a vociferous defence of staying).

IME, Northern town whipping boys (whipping towns?) = Doncaster and Barnsley. I teach in Doncaster, though, and can vouch for the good hearts and enquiring minds of my students, at least.

BTW I was born a mile or so from KIPPAX (maybe the Kippax, maybe only a Kippax), and after long exposure I now reluctantly acknowledge that there's a lot more to York than tourism (there's floods, for a start).

I can imagine Yorkshire to be quite nice, apart from the Yorkshire folk and them NICKING R LAND ect ect. Also we are better at cricket than them. Ah, how I love the Lancs vs Yorkshire FITE (despite thinking Leeds and Sheffield are ACE). I can't be arsed taking it seriously though. I think only people who play cricket need to do that for an excuse to shout about the War of the Roses in ver PUB.

Ellie, Doncaster is definitely a whipping boy, it's an odd old place but not as shitty as Rotherham, or to go a bit further south, Mansfield which is the pits of the earth.

I live in sheffield at the moment, and for shame I've only ever visited leeds twice and bradford once.

I have these cufflinks.

How can this happen to a town

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1423592101&context=set-72157601439895276&size=l

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1423561899&context=set-72157601439895276&size=l

need to do a yorkshire luminaries poll

sutcliffe
bettison
savile
boycott

etc

It takes me 15 minutes to walk from my dreary council estate to Rectory Park, the rectory itself has a National Heritage plaque (some former priest was a top 18th century astronomer) and the park descends into a deep basin where all you can see is trees and fields. At the bottom of the park is a moated island with a documented history going back to the 12th century (Jordan de Tornil - The Constable of Wakefield) and the remains of Thornhill Hall which was accidentally blown up when some silly fucker ignited the gunpowder stores during a civil war siege in the 17th century. The place was echoing with bird-song tonight, it is such a fucking awesome place. Really picturesque pub by the rectory as well but is full of yeo-nazis. Anyways I am just rambling because it has won a 300k grant and it is one of my fave places and I am curious at how they will waste it. The Savile name is also connected with the history of this place and Savile Town is just a couple of miles down the road.

what is a yeo-nazi?

yeo-nazis are white men of various working trades who look like hateful, boring racist fucks and are usually quite polite until the veneer slips away after a few pints when they unreservedly confirm all your suspicions about them. I used to work with people like this but have lost the ability to blend with them without saying something treasonable. They are yeoman in the sense that they feel superior to the peasantry and they hold a lot of opinions that are pure nazi ideology and they are actually nazi cunts.

i lived in The West circa 93-94-95 and i never felt cold like it.

that is a shame I would like to hang in Yorkshire pubs.

There are some very good Yorkshire pubs. I am just moaning about my local, shit I lived in London for 3 years and never saw one decent pub!

maybe you should look into financing for a yeo nazi themed volkisch brewpub in farringdon

blood and soil milk stout, john tyndall ipa, james milner bitter

I walked into one once circa '95(shitty racist pub) in Plumstead and got frogmarched out, after arguments they even refused to sell takeout bottles to me. Fucking worthless arseholes. This is just because I look slightly foreign. When i lived in London, the locals are the most xenophobic, racist arseholes I have ever met.

there are areas with a pronounced white pride sort of ambience around that part of london even now, typically adjacent to places like woolwich and erith with large refugee/immigrant populations

some of the most 'ambitious' dirigiste gentrification projects in london near there

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/regulator-raps-greenwich-council/6512553.article

http://www.berkeleygroup.co.uk/plot?developmentID=132&propertyID=0dbfd727-2d30-4db6-a388-b345fdab1a93

I went through Erith on Saturday! The underpasses were possibly even sketchier than I'd dared hope. It was fabulous

Kidbrooke Village is tbf not very near Woolwich; it's more an extension of Blackheath's opulence nowadays

Even Plumstead now is mostly composed of a huge new slightly-upmarket estate where all the streets are named after species of bird and a particularly delightful stretch of Thames walk (leading to Thamesmead) begins. I strode it with my best not two weeks ago. We saw a tern.

West Yorkshire, though!

When I was working in North London I used to enjoy walking under the tunnel from the Woolwich side to cut out all the London bridge and arduous journey up the Northern line crap. I don't quite believe that Plumstead has been gentrified though! West Yorkshire is very unfashionable but that may change as London embraces it's destiny under the swelling North Sea over the next few decades!

Ross Raisin's "God's Own Country" (book) is very good - well, the first two thirds of it anyway.

When this book came out I was actually working on the Guardhouse estate in Keighley and we used to travel through desolate Bronte Country every morning on the way. I can't remember whose review it was that put me off it at the time, but I found it quite annoying for some reason. Well it was probably just my pathetic chip on shoulder Huh! posh boy schtick, that has obviously served me so well thus far!

It was on the Guardhouse estate where I first witnessed what was genuine Dickensian squalor to the point where it was the first and only time I contacted a child protection agency about a particular house I worked in.

I am rambling here, it is probably a decent book - ignore me.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-47999394

Ilkley Moor is burning .. erm babe!

Bit of a broad question but where's good to stop off between Oxford-ish and Leeds-ish? Sometimes go for a mooch around Yorkshire Sculpture Park but anywhere else good?