My North

Having spent my entire life so far in the rolling green, sheep-frolicking county of Devon, I consider London as 'the North'. Absurd as it may sound to you scoffing 'real' Northerners, this is because London is four hours away from Plymouth. To me, this is a sufficient amount of time to constitute 'a long way'. I am also used to the casual London arrogance that I seem to encounter in so many of my peers at the place of learning I call university. It is not intentional, and I am in no way accusing them of anything, it is just something apparently inherent that just comes out naturally in conversation. Indeed, to illustrate my point, here is a brief conversational encounter I had with a Londoner at a party this summer:
"Where are you from then?"
"Plymouth."
"Ah, great. So you've just come up for the evening then?"
Yes, if it were possible to take a four hour train journey home at three in the morning, I would be up for the evening. With said brief exchange, several observations can be made. Aside from an uncomfortably insular outlook, I'd like to think that this particular gentleman's geographical ignorance was an isolated incident, however alas, no. I had similar responses from several other fellow party-goers over the course of the evening, to the point where I ended up laughing along with appalling 'inbred' Devonian jokes just for a change in facial expression. Dead-pan does not suit anyone. 


It brings back memories of visiting London when I was younger, as we did every year, once or twice. The main highlight for my nine-year-old self usually involved the grandiose surroundings of the hotel more than anything else. My father said I was perhaps one of very few nine year olds to look entirely at home, lolling about on the sofa in the lobby of a five-star establishment. 


Despite the widely held oh-so-hilarious (sigh) belief that Plymouth is rural backwater, the most cosmopolitan Devon can ever hope to get, trips to the capital when I was younger weren't much of a culture shock. Yes, it was big, but the food was just as lousy, the service was just as hopeless and the pavements just as dirty. 
Back in the late 90s (possibly one of the most depressing sentences I have ever written to date), Plymouth was still a (declining) naval town with a busy dockyard and a surprisingly industrial feel for somewhere down south. Of course, Plymouthians earned nowhere near as much as the people who ran banks in Tunbridge Wells, but the difference between slow-paced rural backwater and centre of the universe London-town.


The difference is horribly apparent now. I've spent months of my summer in my home town with enough infrequent visits to London to make an unfortunate observation and that is this: nobody over the age of 40 in Plymouth seemed to have teeth, just the occasional lava-black stump. Worse, those under the age of 15 seemed not to have the faintest idea how to spell 'Plymouth Hoe'. I am aware I am painting an incredibly cynical, one-sided view of my beloved city, but now I unfortunately do begin to see the source and justification of the Londoner's crowing remarks: "You're from Devon! Oh, what's THAT like?" Fabulous.


My cynical side is coming out to play perhaps too much now, but I cannot resist it. If a child from Plymouth were to visit London today, he'd probably start having palpitations. He'd notice that everybody would have their teeth, own sparkling new Range Rovers, untarnished by smears of Dartmoor slime. He'd also notice that people could spell. He'd peer into the low-voltage world of the capital's restaurants and wonder what on earth people were putting in their mouths. And what, pray, would he make of a Marc Jacobs handbag? Heaven forbid. 


And before people murder me for my blatant snobbery, prejudices, brand my writing as the mere rantings of a spoilt southern literature-student poof, I must remind all that I merely exaggerate for effect. At least Plymouth has breathing space in the shape of the sea. London, for all its gleaming sophistication, addictive glamour and panic-inducing pavements, remains to me a vacuous, intimidating hole of humanity in which no one cares about you. I know I'm a home gal at heart: I get visibly agitated if I don't see the sea for a while, and feel that sense of space and openness, of being able to breathe. That probably explains my sporadic writing habits to some degree... or, perhaps not.