North-South divide

PERSPECTIVE UKNORTH

People and their profiles: dukes, archbishops, actors, writers, monks, oddbods, the garish, the gregarious - here they are in single file, chosen by chance, by inclination, or by necessity ... and all reflecting, one hopes, the essential, but indefinable, spark that makes one human being interesting to many. Geoffrey Mathe

This business of Northern tastes and Southern tastes continues to rear its head

The point is: do we Northerners measure up? Or do we, secretly, still consider that any Southerner approaching our hen pens is a marauder, fair game for the stewpot, or both?

If you have in your pantry courgettes, saffron, chilli powder, olive oil, yogurt, cloves, black peppercorns, sauerkraut or garlic, you are Southern and therefore them.

Pickled red cabbage, Daddies' Sauce, lemon in plastic lemon, English mustard (rather than German or Dijon), ready-ground pepper, potato cakes, cooking fat—us.

Easy chairs in black leather, tiny prints in heavy frames, wooden kitchen utensils, TV either ancient ten-inch or filling half a wall with colour—them.

Matching three-piece, lace curtains, ashtrays labelled 'A present from—', clocks with gilt, get off me foot, lawns with flower borders, daffs in plant pots (rather than rubber plants)—US.

Salami in bundles, strings of onions pinned to kitchen walls, steady on, old chap, French butter, wine for cooking, heavy cast-iron pans from France—THEM. Toilets, closets—us. Lavatories, loos, Johns—them. Books—us. Book reviews and glossies —them.

Leftover duck salad with bottle of Beaune for supper—them. Egg and chips, pokers, bottom drawers, hairnets, red lipstick, union shirts, woollen underwear, pint bottles of pale ale, braces, short back and sides, fine weather for ducks, big letter headings marked 'Estimates free', cars costing £6,000—US.

Dichotomy, pragmatic, soupcon, actually, Ciao!, four-letter words in mixed company—them.

Where's my shirt?, bleached hair, jeans, wrong Tube trains, going for a pint, Talk of the Town—us visiting them.

Bowlers on back of head—us, if we are rent collectors, bookies or taxi proprietors; them if they are drunk.

'Come on me old darling,' 'Look, lovely,' 'Hi, sweetie!', window boxes, plain drinking glasses with heavy bases, Vichy water, old girl THEM (and they refer to the Barnet by-pass as the start of the North). 'Going out tonight'—meaning a farce, Jimmy Tarbuck or Cinderella on Ice followed by a Cornish pasty and a bunch of fives up the hooter—us (as are port and lemon, Babycham, grey flannel trousers, turnups, shoe laces).

'Going out tonight'—meaning a couple of gins, Japanese movie, cannelloni by candle-light with the wrong woman, bistro, chianti from raffia bottles—them.

Brown paint, cream and green, I've supped some ale, flowered bedspreads, thistles, nettles, pit shaft, hen pen, payment in cash, allotment—us.

Creepers, yellow, orange or architect-green paint, books on antiques, four-tone car horn, pub named Barley Mow—them.

Having said all this, if one inspects, carefully, the constituent parts of them, one finds that, ten years ago, they were all us, and have migrated, with dire effects on their characters.

The fact that they have flowered ties, polished insteps, slender briefcases, worry beads, mohair suits and Chihuahuas named Fidel need not confuse you.

(I find, looking back on that summary, that the North has, indeed, adopted many of the Southern preferences. Any one of the foods and condiments I ascribed to them are in my larder.

I rather think they have. I was once convinced that as Northerners went South they hid their origins and felt a deep sense of unease and lack of confidence. When Russell Harty, that Blackburnian abroad, lay dying, he made some reference to Princess Margaret asking about him, 'twice', a sure indication that he was suffering from the insecurity of a lifetime.

But there, is no general rule to be observed and it would be wrong to seek one. Alan Bennett remains unruffled by his Southern adoption. He has not altered his accent or his habits one jot so far as I can see. The same might be said of a fellow Yorkshireman, David Hockney, and of those various pop and rock stars who (like Cilia Black) headed South for a lorra lolly. Maureen Lipman is gloriously Maureen Lipman; and one could add to the list endlessly.

It is the anonymous people who hide their origins most: the minor civil servants, and company men; salesmen, white youths with moustaches driving company cars, fast, and calling themselves middle-management.So I would rather not join in this old argument at this stage of my life because I am easy about drinking in Barnsley or Barnstaple. Any sense of unease long ago left me. Perhaps Dijon mustard has had an effect on me.

Every intelligent person knows, of course, that this North v South thing is a myth, a nonsense of the imagination.Every intelligent person, nevertheless, secretly harbours the thought that whereas his reasoning denies its existence, his instinct tends to confirm it.Peter Thomas, once associate editor of the Daily Express in Manchester, and long dead, had these conflicting emotions, as I do

He visited London and determined not to be beaten by the way of life in that city.He was invited for lunch at a Dickensian place, ordered a large dry martini and was—inevitably, and after a great lapse of time —served a small sweet martini. At which point he went in search of a bar.He found one on the first floor (he was lunching on the second) and ordered a drink.

A woman in her forties, presumably the manageress, told him he could not drink in that bar if he was dining on the second floor. Here, then, is the familiar confrontation between North and South which we all. fear and recognise."In that case," said my friend, most pleasantly, " you see that fellow over there drinking soup—the one with half spectacles and the bow tie? I imagine he could be a barrister." She agreed he might."

Good," said my friend. "I will now stroll over to him and push his little legal head straight into his mock." The lady immediately cried, " Give this gentleman his drink." What is more, she was anxious to know whether he would be back that evening. She WANTED him back. The air of hostile politeness which much of London affects had been breached. It is a question of attitude.

My friend believed that bluntness and dourness— both Northern characteristics—are superior to the sophistication of the aliens.He is right, of course. A Northerner trying to be Southern is an abomination. A Northerner being himself—parodying what the Southerner assumes to be native stupidity — is regarded as a character and can make a fortune.

MY GREATEST success in London was,I suppose, in taking advantage of this assumption of crudity. I had gone for dinner with three or four people, one of whom was a Treasury official. I have only met two of those in my entire life. The conversation was brittle as old sticks. We were totally concerned, apparently, with Which School Jeremy was At, and The State of Affairs in Mombasa until. driven frantic, I observed the word "Vins" on a large sheet of board which had been pushed into my hand and cried, " Away with the vins (rhymed it with wins) - let's have the wine list."This one childish lapse released the Treasury official as if he had been held in check by a tight spring. He became silly, and actually laughed in a loud. reckless and entirely vulgar way. He said he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life. We went back to his home and found he had horses. It figured.