Northerners are lucky. We get to live in some of the most exciting, beautiful, culturally rich Victorian cities – Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bradford, Liverpool and obviously Leeds – and we are never more than a few miles away from the most stunning countryside in the country. We’ve got it good up North.
We can get a bit complacent though. And a bit dismissive about the South. Especially London. Whenever anyone travels to the capital my Twitter timeline bristles with the hashtag #thatLondon, and you can almost see the raised eyebrows and sense the wounded Northern pride: what’s London got that we haven’t got up North!
Well, last weekend I had a chance to find out as Virgin Trains offered us First Class travel and an overnight stay at Artist Residence Hotel in Pimlico in return for a write up of our experience in London, what we loved, what we didn’t like so much, and then say which side of the country we’re going to vote for in the Twitter Race. The Twitter race will see a virtual train powered by Twitter users who tweet their love for the North or South of the UK! By tweeting, users will automatically be placed into a competition to win a year’s worth of first class train travel anywhere within the UK. Once you’ve read this get tweeting!
So last Saturday morning, bright and early (well, 11am, so that’s still the morning at least) I met my co-Culture Vulture travelling companion Nancy at the station and got a train to Manchester … which was the first surprise and a bit of an adventure as it’s the only time I’ve gone South via the Pennines. It’s an interesting journey, going down the West of the country through towns and cities I’d never been to before – Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke-on-Trent – and we sat back enjoying the scenery, having our fill of complimentary coffee, nibbling our way through the snack box, and wondering where exactly the North ended and the South began.
“I think it’s the Trent,” suggested Nancy, “I’m sure that’s what I got taught at school.”
“Stoke then?” I said, “I may need something to toast leaving the North when we reach Stoke.”
“Don’t worry, I thought ahead,” she said, rummaging in the voluminous bag she’d brought for an overnight stay, “Ta da! … gin in a tin.” She placed a pair of cold silver cans on the table. “I assumed you wouldn’t want sugar free …”
As Stoke slipped by we celebrated our crossing into the South with a clink of tins and a sip of sharp, refreshing G&T.
“We’re here,” she said as the train rolled to a stop in what looked like a big dark dusty shed. “Euston isn’t very …”
“Euston is being redeveloped. For HS2. Leeds is at the other end” I interrupted. “Do you need a hand with the bag?”
Her bag – I would have called it a sack but didn’t want to risk offence – was large enough to contain a pit pony and half a tonne of coal (note to any Southerners reading this, we haven’t employed pit ponies since the General Strike and you are more likely to meet a call centre consultant than a collier anywhere north of Nottingham these days.) Nancy wrestled the oversized accessory to the table and was bracing herself for the snatch to the shoulder.
“I’m fine,” she said. “what’s the plan?”
A look of blind panic may have temporarily clouded my composure.
“Let’s take the bags to the hotel,” I suggested, “and then … we’ll see.”
I didn’t want to admit that I’d brought Nancy 200 miles to visit the South without the slightest thought of what we’d do there. Or what there was there to do. I was a man without a plan. I didn’t even have a map.
We joined the Saturday afternoon throng drifting to the tube station and Nancy presented me with an Oyster card, probably the greatest achievement of Western Civilisation since the emergency rain poncho.
“Good job one of us knows what she’s doing,” she said cheerfully … at least I think that was cheerfulness I heard in her voice. It was very noisy down there.
It took us about an hour to find the hotel owing to my geographical fuzziness – which I explained was simply a passion for the derive as the best way to explore a city – and her limitless tolerance; not a viable arrangement, soon to be replaced by an A to Z, a foldable street map and an iPhone navigation app. Still it was an enjoyable hour, tramping down grandly unfamiliar streets, walking up blind but very beautiful alleys. After checking in, dropping our bags, and a taking five minute breather, the question of “The Plan” was broached again.
“I was thinking we’d just do what we’d normally do up North,” I boldly suggested. “A bit of a walk, drop into the odd pub, grab something to eat, mooch around … that sort of thing?”
“Museums!”
“Museums?”
“Museums,” she repeated, stabbing at the map that lay unfolded on the table. “There’s a couple close by, here look. Garden history, and … pharmaceuticals.”
“I always been curious about the history of the herbacious border!” I said.
“I find it interesting,” said Nancy, with all the appearance of authenticity.
I decided that now was not the time for Northern humour.
“Shall we be off then?” I said, folding the map and tucking it into my back pocket.
Nancy had earlier mentioned that she’d like to have a picture taken at a particular spot in Westminster Abbey – there was a convoluted tale about an episode of Friends that I pretended to understand – so I said let’s walk.
“You know the way?” she asked.
“I certainly do.”
“Certain as in certain you knew where the hotel was? Or certain as the rest of humanity understand the word?”
“I know the way to Westminster,” I said, with all the conviction I could muster, “it’s a nice walk … and we can do a museum or two after.“
The walk took just over half an hour at the rate of one “are you sure this is the way?” every three minutes, which was bearable and less than I probably deserved. It took us a few more minutes to find the spot made famous by a ‘90s American sitcom. Nancy handed me her camera, stood on the unfolded map and directed me to crouch as low as possible to get as much of the Abbey in the frame as possible – a big ask on an iPhone at 30 feet. I was probably one of several dozen doing likewise. Just then I felt what it must be like to be a proper tourist. I gave it my best shot.
After that we crossed Westminster bridge and headed toward Lambeth Bridge (designed by the chap who designed The Headrow in Leeds btw), stopping every 20 yards or so to offer random couples the chance to be photographed together. Apparently this is a thing; “if you ever see a couple taking photos of each other always ask if they’d like you to take one together, it’s the nice thing to do,” said Nancy, encouraging me to accost a couple, romantically entwined and speaking a language I had never encountered before, who were trying to snap themselves against the backdrop of The Houses of Parliament.
“How come you get to photograph Americans and I get Bhutan?” I asked.
“It’s a mystery,” she said.
We finally got to the Garden History museum around 5.30. It closed at 4. Same for the pharmaceutical museum. There seemed to be a wedding reception in the Garden Museum so we stayed and watched for a while. It’s a perfect spot.
“Pub?”
“Pub!”
We weren’t far from Elephant and Castle and my instincts told me that anywhere with a name that outrageous had to have a decent pub (though we have even more bonkers places in the North with names like Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate in York and the Land of Green Ginger in Hull.) We were not disappointed. There was a great local, nothing fancy, on a crossroads with a warm welcome, a lot of animated conversation and an empty table outside. There was also a well used cycle rack and a cycle pump that was used three times in the forty minutes we stayed. Cycling seems a lot more normal in London. I didn’t see that many lycra lads on the roads compared to Leeds.
“I fancy Holborn next,” I said.
“Ho-Born!”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s pronounced Ho Born … sorry to have to point that out … I feel bad for correcting you.”
“That’s what I said … Ho-Born. Let’s go for a drink in Ho-Born.”
“Sigh … so, you have an idea where you want to go next?”
“The Princess Louise … or should we pronounce that Ou-ease?”
“You are just being facetious now. Shall I find out what tube we need?”
“That may save us some shoe leather. Thanks.”
The Princess Louise is a popular pub. So popular there was no place to sit.
“I know a pub around the corner,” I said, “the London version of Whitelocks … if that doesn’t sound too provincial?”
“As long as we can sit down I don’t care … I need the loo not a lecture in social history.”
Now The White Hart is a wonderful place and genuinely interesting (and let’s face it was selling beer 500 years before the oldest pub in Leeds, so you can’t really argue with that) but it has the haughtiest, most disdainful bar staff I have ever encountered! I am not complaining, I thought her performance was magisterial in it’s sheer unadulterated pomposity and it made me laugh out loud … but she would not last two minutes in any pub in Yorkshire with such an attitude. And I would love to see her try to work her bad magic in Gateshead, Hulme, Burngreave or Toxteth… I’d pay to see that.
After a couple of pints we wandered to Covent Garden, bought a CD from a bare footed street performer, ate a generic burger at a generic burger restaurant, then found ourselves in St James’ Park at midnight, with a bottle of wine, a couple of plastic glasses, and a clear view of the fountain. It was then that I realised one clear difference between the North and The South; I couldn’t imagine walking through a park so late at night and feeling safe, even in the local park. This of course may have been completely delusory. Still, it felt very safe.
Buckingham Palace was minutes away, and what’s a trip to London without taking in the home of the royal family – even though it was getting on for one o’ clock and the only people around were straggling hen party attendees and the odd Polish guy with a half empty bottle of vodka (or at least some clear liquid in an old vodka bottle) hanging out of his jacket pocket.
I can’t remember how we got back to the hotel – except for Nancy trying to hire a Boris bike and failing to understand the instructions. They are quite arcane to be fair. We wasted our £2.
The following morning we decided to have breakfast in the city centre before going out to Ealing to say hello to some friends on the way back North. Northerners tend to have a pretty low opinion of the neighbourliness of Londoners, which is nonsense in my experience. Londoners are very friendly and helpful. My favourite example was Saturday afternoon outside Victoria train station when Nancy was intent on questioning my sense of direction and had opened the folding street map in the middle of a fast stream of travellers; a young woman came over to us and asked “are you alright?” Not, “are you lost?” more, “you appear to be in mental distress, is there anyone I can call for you?” But still, it was meant with the best intentions.
One thing which does differentiate North and South is irritating loud egotism. Over Sunday breakfast we were unlucky enough to be sat a few tables away from the loudest man in Christendom, and the one with the fewest inhibitions or personal boundaries. I know the names of his mum, dad and brother (hello Sandra, Bob and Simon), his job description (I could not believe a university had employed him to lecture about silent film!) this year’s holidays (Cyprus, Germany, and next Barcelona), the faults, foibles and deficiencies of his previous three partners (he is single owing to them talking too much, not talking enough, and not telling him exactly what he wanted to hear, bless him) and his ambitions (please, if any publishers are reading this, beware …) All that information was related over a round of toast. No jam was involved. Would not happen in Yorkshire.
We spent the rest of the day tramping around the city.
“Want me to carry your bag?” I offered.
“Would you?” said Nancy , throwing my half empty rucksack over her shoulder, “I’ll carry yours.”
I don’t remember much else – we passed the British Museum with barely a nod – until we reached Euston again and collapsed in the First Class Lounge much later that evening.
“Shall I get something for the journey?” said Nancy.
“ifnyuwntwouldbegrtok.” I said, before slumping into the chair with the heavy bag still around my neck.
“And get some peanuts too.”
On the train we talked about what we loved and hated about the weekend.
“The buildings, the people, the walks … just the general atmosphere,” said Nancy. “If we’d managed to see a show it would have been perfect.”
“I never understood why we are meant to hate the South, London especially,” I said, “why is it such a competition? I love the North, wouldn’t live anywhere else, but don’t see why I shouldn’t enjoy London. It’s only a couple of hours away …”
“I don’t think the North’s any better either … it’s just home.”
“I think Northerners are actually more cosmopolitan. We understand the difference between Walthamstow and Westminster, we’ve been there. How many Londoners know the difference between Leeds and Manchester? They just don’t care, they don’t travel North. I know more Canadians up North than people from Camden.”
“So Phil, what are you voting? That’s the point of the trip … #TheNorth or #TheSouth, where’s the best?”
“#TheNorth! We get the best of both worlds. Great place to live. And #TheSouth is just a hop away … I’m voting #TheNorth because we get #TheSouth as part of the deal … vote #TheNorth!”
Thinking about it now a few days after the trip I think voting #TheNorth is the way to go. It’s not about people or pubs or places of interest. They are all great in both places. It’s just that in #TheNorth you get to have the best of everything … though perhaps we shouldn’t mention that to #TheSouth.
Vote here and tweet for a chance to win a pair of first class tickets to London (or #TheSouth in general) and find out for yourself.
Missed it!