Northerners: The bestselling history of the North of England

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Northeners are very down to earth people, they try hard and alway give a good days work. Coming from one of the poorest parts of England does not stop them from being lovely and considerate. As well as poking fun at one another for their accents and slang,they quibble about who is the friendliest. According to research carried out by Cambridge University, people from Yorkshire are the most helpful when asked for directions and Scots are the friendliest. It also found Londoners to be the least friendly. I found some northerners and spoke to them to see how we can become one nation, united despite our differences when it comes to what we put on our chips. Why are you talking funny? People always love to tell me how grim the north is. Sorry, have you seen the lakes?" – Rachel, Preston There is no denying that people who live in the North of the UK have very different characteristics from those living in the South, which leads to intense rivalry between the two.

The definitive list of everything to say to a Northerner (if

You’re not wearing a coat? We’re going clubbing though…" – Abbie, Newcastle Why are you so friendly to everyone? Could you pass me a bread roll?' Not sure what that is but you can have a barm cake." – Jess, Manchester I just love pies and southerners don't get it." – Richard, Manchester Why do you love gravy so much? Northerners: A History, from the Ice Age to the Present Day, by Brian Groom, published by HarperCollins (Image: HarperCollins)Many northerners will see their mouth water at even the slightest thought of chips and gravy – up here it’s a classic and is widely regarded a substantial meal. What people eat is also telling. Let’s take fish and chips as an example. In Scotland chips are served with a tangy sauce called “chippie sauce” but in London you’re more likely to have chips with gravy. In the Midlands they have “wet chips” which means they are smothered with baked beans or mushy peas. If it sounds like a different language, it’s probably because it is. Who needs Queen’s English when you’ve got northern English? Tynesiders and other North East folk have played a crucial role in shaping modern Britain, according to a major new book. A work of unrivalled scale and ambition, Northerners is the defining biography of northern England.

Northerners: A History, from the Ice Age to the Present Day

Brian recounts the notorious visit by Bradford’s JB Priestley to Tyneside in autumn 1933 for his book English Journey. Dosed with medicine for a heavy cold and tired of travelling, Priestley described the Geordie accent as a “most barbarous, monotonous and irritating twang”. Gateshead, he added, was a town “carefully planned by an enemy of the human race”.Southerners, on the other hand, sometimes refer to people from the North as “northern monkeys,” which means they think northerners are uncultured. Northerners also shows how the past echoes down the centuries. The devastation of factory and pit closures in the 1980s, for example, recalled the trauma of William the Conqueror’s Harrying of the North. The book charts how the North-South divide has ebbed and flowed and explores the very real divisions between Northerners. It would appear that the notion of a cheap night out isn’t an option in the south, not that we’d spend our weekend down there anyway. This one always baffles me, but some people from the south ask me what Greggs is?! I don't really understand how anyone from the south can have avoided the cultural icon that is Greggs by this point." – Rachel, Preston

and phrases only true northerners will understand 19 words and phrases only true northerners will understand

There's the seasonal annoyance, every autumn and winter, where people ask if the wind and rain 'remind me of home'. Or, if being further south at uni is 'practically a holiday' for me compared to the barren wasteland a huge 70 miles north where I come from." – John, Sunderland Do you know Peter Kay?' Just because I live near Bolton doesn't mean I personally know the guy." – Jess, ManchesterIsn’t dinner what you have in the evening, not at lunch? So boring." – Abbie, Newcastle My cousin is from Manchester, do you know her? Yep, this is the classic, my friends always ask me why I'm putting gravy on my chips. They also have no idea what scraps are." – Abbie, Newcastle How can you be warm? It's freezing! Meaning: The Police (reference to a character from Top Cat). Usage: Hide down’t ginnel, the dibble are on the way. Others saw something different. Novelist William Clark Russell wrote, after visiting the Tyne in the 1880s: “Who says there is no beauty nor poetry in coal and grime and smoke, in huddled tenements, high chimneys, and such things?”

What Northerners hate about the South | London Evening What Northerners hate about the South | London Evening

The book aims to be Northern England’s defining biography, laying out dramatic events that created the North – waves of migration, invasions and battles, and transformative changes affecting European culture and the global economy. Figures such as King Oswald of Northumbria, Saint Cuthbert and Bede, Victorian heroine Grace Darling, reformers Josephine Butler, Mary Astell and Emily Davies, Jarrow MP Ellen Wilkinson, railway pioneers George and Robert Stephenson and engineer William Armstrong feature prominently in Northerners: A History, from the Ice Age to the Present Day by journalist Brian Groom. Bath doesn't have an 'r' in it you know." – Will, Hull Do you want a cup of dinner with your tea lolThis authoritative new history of place and people lays out the dramatic events that created the north – waves of migration, invasions and battles, and transformative changes wrought on European culture and the global economy. In a sweeping narrative that takes us from the earliest times to the present day, the book shows that the people of the north have shaped Britain and the world in unexpected ways.