George Orwell on Yorkshire People and the UK’s North-South Divide

Since moving to London I’ve been thinking about Yorkshire a lot. It’s the place where I was born and grew up so naturally many of my memories are tied up there.

I’ve been here for nearly a year now, and while I’m really enjoying what London has to offer, there is a side to the city that can grind me down. The cost of living is significantly more, people seem to rush around everywhere, and there’s not that warmth and friendliness in public spaces that I love about Yorkshire.

It’s in my nature to smile at everyone – loads of Yorkshire folk do this – but Londoners avoid eye contact like the plague. Smiling at strangers feels like a criminal offence it happens so infrequently.

My brother in fact told me that I should probably stop smiling at strangers. He said that people would either think I’m mentally deranged or it might confuse men into thinking that I’m hitting on them. Gosh, who knew an innocent smile can be received with such suspicion in London? Hah!

Reading the Road to Wigan Pier

The move to England’s capital has made me realise what I took for granted when I lived in Yorkshire but this isn’t the only reason why I’ve been thinking about my home more. I recently read George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier and in it are some vivid descriptions of the Northern England.

In the book Orwell describes what it was like leaving his job in Hampstead to travel north. Although he wrote the book in 1937 it still packs the same punch today as it did then. His descriptions of poverty are harrowing and while it may not be as extreme as what Orwell experienced all those years ago, the North-South divide still very much exists in today’s England.

The North-South Divide

The North-South divide in a nutshell is the economic and cultural differences between South and North of England. The ‘divide’ can be felt through numerous ways including: wages, house prices, social class, government spending, education and health – all of which are generally higher in the south.

This divide has existed in the UK since the Romans built a wall separating the North from the South. In addition, institutions like the monarchy, parliament and well-known financial and tech hubs represent the wealth and power of the South. While the North is often associated with post-industrial decline, abandoned buildings, and rows of back-to-back houses – symbols of working-class life.

The South has always represented prosperity against a northern backdrop of economic struggle. There are also more intangible aspects that feed into the North-South divide, such as stereotypes around differences in behaviour, intelligence, taste, hobbies, and the way someone speaks.

With all this, it’s no surprise why many tourists visiting England don’t venture further up north, which is sad because Yorkshire is full of beauty if you know where to look.

What did George Orwell say about Yorkshire folk?

Before arriving in Yorkshire, Orwell didn’t exactly speak about Yorkshiremen in glowing terms in The Road to Wigan Pier:

“When you go to the industrial North you are conscious, quite apart from the unfamiliar scenery, or entering a strange country. This is partly because of the North-South antithesis which has been rubbed into us for such a long time past. There exists in England a curious cult of Northernness, a sort of Northern snobbishness. A Yorkshireman in the South will always take care to let you know that he regards you as an inferior. If you ask him why, he will explain that it is only the North that life is ‘real’ life, that the industrial work done in the North is the only ‘real’ work, that the North is inhabited by ‘real’ people, the South merely by rentiers and their parasites. The Northerner has ‘grit’, he is grim, ‘dour’, plucky, warm-hearted and democratic; the Southerner is snobbish, effeminate and lazy… Hence the Southerner goes north, at any rate for the first time, with the vague inferiority-complex of a civilised man venturing among savages, while the Yorkshireman, like the Scotchman, comes to London in the spirit of a barbarian out for loot.”

However, when he finally visited Yorkshire, he spoke with much more admiration:

“… I expected to meet with a good deal of rudeness. But I met with nothing of the kind, and least of all among the miners. Indeed the Lancashire and Yorkshire miners treated me with a kindness and courtesy that were even embarrassing; for if there is one type of man to whom I do feel myself inferior, it is a coal-miner. Certainly no one showed any sign of despising me for coming from a different part of the country.” 

I found it amusing that Orwell believed he would be met with rudeness upon his arrival in Yorkshire. For when a Northerner travels to the South, they also expect to be met with rudeness. Go figure!

Yorkshire – considered the friendly accent in the UK

“All the Northern accents, for instance, persist strongly, while Southern ones are collapsing before the movies and the BBC” – George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier

Even though Orwell made this observation almost 100 years ago, this definitely still stands. The North has a myriad of really strong accents. Most of the time, you can tell where someone is from just by their accent.

For many people, including myself, there’s something quite comforting in this. Accents reveal bits of information about a person that help you to connect with them better.

In the South it can be much more difficult to hear a distinct accent. Often you can’t. In fact it’s often easier to tell if someone is working, middle or upper class. As a result I think this makes fostering connections a little harder since you have less social cues to work with.

A part of the Yorkshire warmth and friendliness is supposedly wrapped up in the Yorkshire accent, which is recognised as being one of the friendliest accents in the UK. I miss hearing it now that I live in London.

Linguistic studies have shown that people across the UK often describe the Yorkshire accent as trustworthy, friendly, and down-to-earth. Amusingly, that’s one reason you’ll often hear it in adverts for banks or building societies.

Where to visit in Yorkshire

Yorkshire has so much to offer. It’s not only the natural landscape and quaint stone cottages with gardens filled with painted gnomes and pretty flowers that make Yorkshire so appealing. It’s the people who are famously friendly and down to earth.

It always surprises me how little some Southerns and visitors know about Yorkshire and other Northern regions. Lots of people have been to Scotland, but they completely skip the region between the South and Scotland – which is a lot of the country!

So I’m here to say, ignore the stereotypes and make up your own mind with a visit – just as George Orwell did. If it’s the people that make the place, then Yorkshire is the place to be.

And just to prove that Yorkshire isn’t all slag-heaps and slums:

Bolton Abbey is one of my favourite places in Yorkshire, a backdrop to some of my favourite children memories.

Haworth is a picturesque village in West Yorkshire where the Brontë sisters lived. Bring alive the pages of Wuthering Heights with a walk across the brooding moors.

The Ruins of Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Great Scar Limestone at Malham Cove offers unparalleled views of nature.

There’s still so much more to discover. Check out my guide to the best places to visit in North Yorkshire – this region of Yorkshire is the perfect place to start your exploration of this largely misunderstood county.

Have you experienced the North-South Divide in the UK or perhaps in your own country?