"Yorkshire is a place. Yorkshire is a state of mind."I have recently been re-watching episodes of The Mighty Boosh and the quote above is something that Howard Moon says to the Spirit of Jazz. I miss Yorkshire. I lived there for three years whilst studying at the University of Huddersfield. Earlier this year I woke up early one morning just to see Huddersfield being passed in the Tour de France. I went to university there and so spent three years of my life surrounded by the rolling hills of Huddersfield. I was a stone's throw away from Leeds, a train ride away from Manchester and a hop, skip and a jump from York itself. I managed to gain a great wealth of experience from living in Yorkshire so here's what I learned:
- Everything is cheaper up North. Down South you'll pay £8 for a watered down cocktail in a plastic cup in some shitty night club in Bexleyheath. For £8 in Huddersfield you could probably get totally pissed. Hell, you might even come home with change in your pockets.
- Before living in Yorkshire I didn't even know that pies can come in cans. They can. Excuse the pun, but they can... and they'e good.
- Yorkshire has slang. Oh yeah.
- People are surprisingly proud of being Northern. People will create a hierarchy from who is most Northern. It didn't matter that I was Scottish, which is as far North as you can get here, because I had a 'posh' Southern accent.
- Everyone is so much more friendly. In London people act as if you can catch germs through eye contact and so they turn their gaze to the floor. In Yorkshire, the fellow train passengers are your new but temporary best friends.
- People are friendly but they're also honest. Brutally honest.
- If your accent sounds even remotely Southern you will be asked 'Are you from London?' at least once.
- Gravy. Gravy goes on everything.
- Everyone there has a favourite tea. It's usually Yorkshire tea. Sometimes PG Tips, but these are usually people with southern roots.
- Also people are almost violent in their love for Sunday dinner. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT get between a Yorkshireman and his Sunday dinner.
- The weather is worse in winter. I mean, it's generally colder all year round but when I lived in Yorkshire I was practically snowed into my apartment three winters in a row. That's pretty normal in Huddersfield.
- People will try to prove their strength by going out on winter in the shortest, tightest little cocktail dresses and still scrambling to the nearest Student Bar. Grown men will walk the streets in onesies and battle against the cold for fear of losing their 'man cred' in front of their mates. It's all about endurance. They win. They just win.
