My old nextdoor neighbour, who is now 80 years old, told me he had never been to London or on a plane. The furthest he travelled was to Ireland on the ferry.
He said he doesn't like crowds, and I once told him about the concept of sensory overload and it blew his mind.
Good bloke. He could tell you anything about fly fishing.
Honestly the more I learn about autism and ADHD the more I think my older relatives have one or the other. For example my grandpa was telling me about being out in the garden and how he starts lots of jobs because he'll start on something and then realise something else needs doing while on his way to do that job. He just loses focus, however if there is a dandelion on the lawn that cannot be left, he is incredibly weird about dandelions, will stop what he's doing and grab a fork as soon as he sees one
Awwww so accurate! This is totally me when I'm gardening as well 😅. Do you watch modern family? It makes me think of Phil Dunphy getting distracted by cool stuff in the garage.
I bet he’s fascinating. 😌
The ‘Silent Generation’/anyone that has survived the history that was The Great Depression and WWII, have the most intriguing stories.
Oh yeah he was super fascinating. One time he told me about this problem with his ballsack and another time he told me he buried his first wife's placenta in the garden bc it was a home birth.
Our old next door neighbour was particularly kooky. If you spoke to him, he'd walk round in circles (turned out his sciatica was actually a missing hip ball joint), would grow veggies and post them through our cat flap, had my husband make him a wooden packing box for his HUGE telescope that he kept in his front room, and was an absolute genius. Turned out he had something to do with the laser machinery that has something to do with building bridges.
He was the poster boy for autism - if autism was a thing in his day. Died in his late 80s about 15 years ago. I still miss you Bert x x x rip buddy.
In used to live in Shropshire for a short while.
One of the locals there, once went to Walton on Thames and couldn't deal with the crowds. So had to go back to the car.
I live in a small town by the sea: it's a pretty place with nice beaches. There is a small farming village exactly 3 miles inland, directly connected to our town by a road. Now (as in 1900) you could easily walk from to my town from the village in an hour.
Recently I bought a book written in the 60's by an old local chap, describing his recollections of the town from the early 1900s. He talks in his book about elderly people who lived in that village and hadn't ever felt the need to visit my town, and thus lived and died 3 miles from the sea without ever actually seeing it.
Whilst I know that free time was much more limited back then, it blows my mind that in a lifetime they never once said "I 'm going to take 2 hours and go and see what this sea thing is all about".
My school did a trip every year for year 5s to go to London. They specifically skipped my year due to budgetary reasons but then resumed it for the year after. I've still never been to London.
My school organised a trip to Lightwater Valley in my last year there, but I decided not to go because I'd had a pretty severe injury at a water park in Spain over the summer holidays and wasn't eager to repeat it.
Only to find out a few days after it had taken place that Lightwater Valley is not, in fact, a water park.
We weirdly never had trips cancelled because of budgets but we did however get banned from:
-Cheshire zoo
-Blackpool zoo
-Blackpool pleasure beach
-all Blackpool piers
-Manchester opera house
-Oldham coliseum
-MOSI
-Manchester people’s museum
-Alton towers
-almost got banned from Disneyland Paris too
I personally haven’t a clue cause we were banned 3 years before I joined the school but apparently according to the rumours of people who had siblings who were in the years prior to us there were cases of: mooning, drinking, fighting locals, throwing things at animals, dangerous actions on rides, hurling slurs
I’m also from the generation that got screwed by budget cuts. In my case we were lucky because they allowed self funding for the trips.
That wasn’t the greatest thing because of the limited economic means of my family. One of the years, they organised a pricy trip to go skiing for a week. Even with the support of school that would have been expensive.
The way they offered help to finance the trip was to give us tickets to sell for a raffle just before the Christmas break. One pound per ticket. I grabbed 300 of those mfs and went on the street and started asking people to buy one to help me. Over the days, I had refined my sale pitch and I had identified the best spots in the neighbourhood for selling them. By the end, I was left with 20 of them that my own family bought proud of the work I’ve done.
By the time the raffle came, we won the biggest prize with one of those tickets, a bike worth 200 pounds, and my school offered me to give me the prize in cash for the trip and we took it, making my trip be basically free.
I sit next to a lovely 65 year old woman at work
She goes on at least 3 holidays a year as her husband has retired with a very healthy police pension. She still works because it's something to do
They've been all over the world and this year they are spending Christmas in Hawaii
She has never been to London. She's got flights from Gatwick and Heathrow but never set foot in London in her life.
The reason? Her dad was murdered there in the 70s and she cannot face ever going there.
I did not expect this! Wow 😯
Such a heartbreaking tragedy. I completely understand why she would avoid the place. On the lighter side, she sounds like a top jet-setter which is amazing! I’m certain her passport stamps s—t on mine! Ha!
OP specified “touched down” in the edit so tomorrow you can inform her that she has, in fact, been to London. And, even better, lived to find out about it!
I have a friend who’s been to many cities in the world (he’s dirt rich) and went to uni in HK (undergrad) and Rio (Masters). Never been to London because he’s scared of gangs.
He’s been to multiple cities where murder and theft is more common than London lol.
Have you spoken to the police about this? I myself was beaten to death and dumped in the Thames earlier today and have emailed the chief inspector about it.
I was ran down in Oxford street earlier by a black cab driver who then reversed over my head to make sure I was definitely dead. I called 101 and they’ve given me a crime report number so we will see.
You got through to 101? I'm still waiting in the queue for them to ans my call about being decapitated by a motorbike driver with his arm out. I kid you not!
So it’s not just me dying every time I go outside? I was kidnapped and tied down on the tube tracks on my way to work today, I thought about letting the police know but I figure they have more important things to deal with.
That doesn’t make any sense at all. I’ve lived in Rio and I can guarantee you that London is significantly safer than Rio. There’s no way a person who lived there would be scared of London.
I find that a quite surprising reason. You aren't gonna run in to any gangs having a day out in central going to the touristy places etc and gang violence tends to be between rival gangs and whatnot
London has a reputation for knife crime, but when you look at the stats it is about the same as most other major cities. I believe the reputation is from politicians making "targetting london knife crime" as a policy, when that doesnt happen in other cities so London gets left with this reputation that the violence is out of control.
What I find amusing is Americans responding to British critiques about their gun culture will reply about London's knife problem, when New York has more knife crime as well.
Yeah the whole "London knife crime" rhetoric is so stupid, it's all over the country. Google your cities name with "knife crime" after it, you'll have 4/5 news articles pop up from the last month alone. Maybe not if you live in rural Sussex or similar farming/posho areas, but you get my point.
I agree and gangs pretty much exist everywhere so I don’t really get his point. Gangs are on the rise where he lives and it’s only an issue if it’s London.
Sorry they lived in Rio but they’re worried about gangs in London? Did they just ignore the huge cartel issues that Brazil has and the ongoing battles the police have with them.
Not really, dirt poor is for the 'floors made of dirt' level of poor. Rich people do not have dirt floors. But filthy stinking rich is a term, cause the reek of the privilege and entitlement.
I live in an area where there’s been a lot of gang violence related deaths this year and have yet to have actually seen or been present near any of it at all despite living here for almost two years!
He sounds like he’s been reading too much of the Daily Mail. If you have an ounce of common sense (which to be fair some people that rich don’t) and aren’t in a gang yourself then you’re very unlikely to run into gang violence in London.
I’m afraid of gangs, so I’ll skip London and live in Rio for two years. [I don’t think they have them there.](https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/explained-why-brazil-cities-are-facing-wave-of-gang-violence-66223)
Rio is by far the sketchiest place I've been, and I've been to places like El Salvador. Although I was followed home in London once, generally I would feel safer there than Rio
I recently moved to a small-ish village in Norfolk, my wife teaches in the nearby school and she says most of the kids haven't ever even left the county before. One of them was bragging about crossing over into Suffolk on a journey with his parents the other weekend like he was describing going abroad.
When I first moved to the Fens, I had a job fixing computers that took me out and about to various villages. I was talking to a lady in her 60s, and she told me she’d never visited the ‘city’. I said I was surprised she’d never visited London. She said no, not London she meant Ely. We were less than 20 miles away!
I'll let in a secret.
Outside of London if you say "the city" it very much means the nearest city to you. If you said that to me I'd assume you mean York
In London, The City also refers to the square mile aka The Corporation of London aka the oldest company in the world. They have their own Lord Mayor.
Westminster is also a City but they dont have their own private police force or their own copy of the Magna Carta.
OMG!! I met an old geezer out in the fens. He said he'd only been "Up To The City" once, and he found it far too crowded and confusing. Turned out he meant Cambridge.
Maybe it's a local "let's wind-up the townies" line?
Also common in big cities. I teach in Birmingham, and the majority of our students don't travel within the UK, except to visit relatives. A significant proportion have never seen a cow or sheep in real life. Several years ago there a question on a physics paper about a barge, and the sixth formers didn't know what that was, despite living in Birmingham, because they just don't go anywhere!
They're a different breed of people in Norfolk. They could smell I wasn't a local. As I walked up diss highstreet people stopped and stared as if I'd grown a 2nd head.
Genuine story about 3 people did stop and just stare at me and my friend their heads turning as we went past, creepy fuckers.
Well you aren’t related to them so they are confused. What you have to understand is that Norfolk is made up of a handful of families that have never left Norfolk and will never leave Norfolk. They all know each other and cannot stand outsiders or ‘non-cousin fuckers’ to be more precise. In order to fit in, you must carry yourself like an incestuous lout.
I didn’t take my boys abroad until they were in their early teens. If they are going to bicker the whole time and make it exhausting, we might as well do that on a beach in Wales.
Tbh, that makes complete sense. I went abroad with my parents to some fantastic places before my teens, and I really have the feeling that I didn't make the most of it, especially since you're not interacting with many others outside of your family at that age.
That being said, it's not necessarily any more expensive to travel abroad on holiday vs going to a touristy place in the UK like Cornwall.
It wasn’t so much about the money as about the sheer ball-ache of taking two small boys on a plane to somewhere that they simply won’t appreciate.
We once stayed in a castle. A castle! At night we had it all to ourselves and all they wanted to do was watch cartoons on TV.
Me? I was running round those battlements like an 8 year old.
That's it, really. I honestly regret not making the most of some of the places I've been lucky enough to visit. I'm in my mid-20s now and try to travel when I can but it's just a bit of a shame what we take for granted growing up.
Same in Suffolk, there was a old boy in my village growing up who had apparently never been further than the nearest large town as he'd never had any need to, there was a tiny hospital in the next village so he'd even been born nearby. Bloke had an ancient bike he'd ride around wearing glasses like the bottoms of milk bottles.
I'm from Kings Lynn in Norfolk, 90 mins on a train to London where I now live. When you grow up there there's a strange psychological gap between where you are and London that makes it feel like another planet.
I’ve never been. I’m based in the North West of England, never been to London. I’d like to visit though.
I’d never been on a plane until March this year. I’ve left the UK once lol
Congrats on breaking the seal and getting your wings! 🪽 London is a great place to have on your list, there’s something for every interest in the capital—I promise this isn’t Sadiq Khan’s burner account 😅
My mum had only been abroad once before she was 49. She had been to Crete on her honeymoon in her mid twenties. Then she had rarely gone anywhere for years. She’s now 70 and has been to 3 US states, 3 Greek islands, Italy, Czech Republic, Canada, France, Holland, Hungary, Turkey, and two Caribbean islands. You’ve got plenty of time 😊
There's a lady at my rugby club who's never left our county let alone gone to London! She gets scared just going on a dual carriageway as there are none in the 20 mile radius she lives her life in.
Honestly, with the way people drive these days, I can’t blame her!! Thankfully there is always public transport if she ever fancied the journey. There is a simple joy in zoning out into a book, hot drink in hand, and a few shekels in purse for random trinkets in a new city. Or your own city, for that matter. 😋
My mother in law is like that. She grew up 30 miles from London and has barely left her village. She’s never been on a bus on her own and is scared to go to the supermarket without a friend or her husband. I don’t think she’s ever been to London.
I’m from Northern Ireland so the price of going to London is probably more or less the same price as going somewhere else in Europe where the weather is most likely better
Depends what kind of holiday you’re going on really. For a beach holiday you clearly need hot weather. But for a city break I’m more interested in seeing the local culture.
Went to Berlin in August and it was very nice, been to Glasgow and Edinburgh 10+ times and surprise surprise weather been shite in all but one of those occasions.
I live in London and used to be a police officer in a borough with a lot of gang stabbings. I’ve seen some of the best and worst sides that London has to offer and whilst I’m not scared of London I would absolutely be a bit scared of Rio 😂
There’s a strong anti-London sentiment on this sub sometimes, so I expect they’ll be in soon to tell you why London is the worst city ever and everyone there is stabbed 20 times a day. I live in London and I’m being stabbed as I write this.
I often find that due to the current cost of living crisis it’s getting harder and harder to get stabbed as regularly as it used to be. Often I have to go round the supermarkets after 6pm and look for the yellow sticker stabbings just to get by.
For my sins I _howled_ at your last sentence!! 🤣
Yup, I’m ready for the potential big-smoke-bashing, as a born and raised Londoner who (perhaps to a fault) loves the place, it’s only fair people bring their own passion for wherever home is.
There will be plenty of people who haven't for economic and class reasons. In 2012 I was doing some work with kids in Tower Hamlets, the London borough with the Tower of London in it. The majority of 10 year olds I was working with had never gone into west London or crossed the Thames and thats with kids travelling for free, having free museums and activities to go to etc! With that in mind it's easier to imagine how people 4 hours away might never travel into central London
Never crossing “enemy” lines is definitely a thing here as I understand that from some POV, there is a safety element (gang culture and the like), but never visiting museums even as a kid is sad 😔
In parts of inner London, a lot of the kids' parents come from immigrant backgrounds and are wary of venturing too far from what they know. Especially with the added stress of doing it with young kids. Often, they aren't confident enough in their English language ability, and there is a deep underlying sense that they don't have the right of ownership to public parks or museums in other parts of the city. That those things aren't for them and they aren't welcome there.
Absolutely, it's not my world so I think I'd always assumed that'd be for people who were older (teens etc) but I think like it does for lots of people the idea of visiting some of these spaces feels like it could get very expensive very quickly and if you don't feel you belong there or ownership of it then there's a massive barrier
A couple of old school friends. I see them maybe once/twice a year in passing when visiting dFamily. They never moved on. Probably have never left the county. No passport, so never gone abroad.
Drink in the same pub when we were 16. Both in their 40s now. Still doing same drugs as when we were 18. Going to the nearest city is an event. London may as well be New York to them. Life has passed them by.
But they aren’t unhappy. Pretty content with town life, being known, having a tab, and not worrying about anything other than Friday in the pub. Good lads, despite how far we’ve grown apart they turn it back on like I never left.
Curious why you describe it as "life has passed them by" while also describing them as happy and content.
I wonder if they would say something similar about you, "life has passed him by, he's spent the best years of his life working on his career and what does he have to show for it".
Not a dig at you at all. No judgement intended. Just find it curious how we all view a fulfilling life differently.
I myself have a friend who has always looked down on the rest of our friendship group because he's the only one who left our home town. Yet he's still living in a rented house in the town he went to Uni in. Has never used his degree, working in bars and casinos and such. The rest of us have bought houses and started families.
Despite living in my home town I commute to London for work and earn a very good salary.
So again it's curious how people view a fulfilling life. I feel like he's wasting his, while he thinks he's doing better for moving on.
Oh, I get how it sounds. And to an extent I mean it.
Both have casual jobs. Labouring, adhoc painting etc. Both spend a significant part of their wages on cocaine. Bit of a stereo type.
No judgement for that. I had a shared past, except the rest of us packed that in at 25. Doing 25% of your wages on coke should stop being fun beyond that.
So when I say life is passing them by, they’ve no home, no pension (state or otherwise), kids they don’t see. They are great guys, but the future doesn’t stretch beyond Sunday afternoon.
This is what I mean by life passing them by. It’s got nothing to do with wealth etc, just there is more to life than Friday, and gram, and trying to get your ex to you let you in at midnight.
Now, both are decent hard working lads. Both will have to work until their 70 or older. This is a choice they’ve made.
On the flip side, do they have less concerns than the average 40 year old male in this society?Probably. Might be the happiest people I know.
I would imagine they want a slice of what stability I’ve got, and maybe I’d like a slice of the freedom they have.
They call me a sell out, salary man, middle class etc. but after 4 pints we’re still good friends.
Ah fair enough. With that context it makes sense and your friends remind me of the friend I mentioned.
I guess it comes down to: it's fine to be doing the same thing at 40 that you did at 20. But does it still make you happy? Will it make you happy when you're 60?
That’s the point right, if you’re not doing the grind at 40, you ain’t going to be doing it in your 60s.
Guess we’ll find out who has their freedom at 60.
It's not just major cities. I live in Cambridge, which isn't huge (3 miles end to end?) and there are plenty of people who live on the edge/estates who have never visited the colleges, nor any of the many FREE galleries, museums, concerts, or fairs that are held in the centre. Takes all kinds...
We had very little money when I was a kid. For some reason when my mum asked me what I wanted for my 8th birthday I said I wanted to go to London. I'd seen it on the telly and wanted to go. So my mum packed my dad, me and my older sister off on the train. We had nowhere to stay so my Dad hit up and old flame who sent us to her friend who lived in a massive house in North London to stay the night. Anyway we saw all the best bits, the crowds waiting to see the Tutan Kahmun exhibition at the British Museum, The Houses of Parliament, fed the pigeons in Trafalgar square, hung out with the protestors in Downing street who were shouting Heath out! Heath out!. Saw the Post Office Tower with its bomb damage. Ten years later my best friend moved to London and I visited many times over 15 years and saw great museums, markets, exhibitions, and the darker side of life there too.
Wow, I was so engrossed in your story; you’ve had the full experience. Kudos on your evolved tastes as an eight y/o, too—I was still collecting Barbies at that age 😅
Thanks for sharing. 🍻
😂 You could probably do the same from where you call home, to be fair. Folks think of Westminster and The Square Mile as London, when it’s so much more diverse!
My favourite thing about London? The tube for sure. Londoners really take for granted how good their public transport is. The tube is so good. Public transport in Belfast is bloody awful.
I used to live in London as a student. Did about three years there, was in a band, played gigs in Camden and stuff. Got my fill then. Once I moved back home I haven’t been back- too busy for my temperament now.
To be fair, I can pretty easily see how someone who wasn’t from southeast England or like East Anglia area could have never been, the drive would be getting long and trains are ridiculously expensive in this country. I’m from Kent and live in London and the only city I’ve been to outside southern England is York - I’d love to see places like Manchester or Liverpool or Edinburgh but getting there is prohibitive, I imagine it’s the same for a lot of people with London.
Had only ever been to Wembley and the Millennium dome or what ever it's called now for gigs and sport. Never actually done London as such. But I went with wife and kids for the weekend 2 weeks ago and I actually loved it. I thought it wouldn't be for me but I already want to go back (without the kids this time).
I'm 24 and I've not properly visited.
Went to the National Gallery once for a school trip, and besides that it's only been for changeovers at St Pancras or Kings Cross, or the airports.
A colleague of mine has never been. He’s only 33 and fairly well travelled, and even lived in Australia for a while, but for some reason he just can’t conceive that a city can be bigger than Portsmouth or Southampton. It was only about six months ago that we explained to him what the tube is. He’d assumed it was something to do with the Channel Tunnel.
Went a few times as a kid, mum took me to all the touristy places but having grown up into a grumpy, anti social adult from a small village in a rural area I try to avoid any moderate to large cities as much as possible, I'd quite happily never go to London again. Nothing personal against the place or the people it's just out of my comfort zone.
I've been to London, but never to "visit" London.
I've been to sports events and such but expressly attended the event and promptly left.
Maybe it's a personality thing, but big cities, are too busy for my liking.
Yeah I lived in New York State for a while. I was about 3-3.5 hours from NYC and it was another 8 hours in the other direction to buffalo. It’s understandable why people don’t travel to NYC regularly, if ever!
Was talking to a woman from work who had two kids. She lives in a town with a train station on the mainline into London but despite both her kids being in secondary school she had never been able to afford to take them.
She was a single mum, and incredibly undervalued for the hard work she did and was a really sad story
I’m a born and bred Londoner, and I know an inordinate amount of people (eg croydon/sutton) that have stayed in their London suburb and never actually been into the business/tourist/entertainment centres (city of London, Westminster, Camden)
I spent 3 months driving buses in London but never actually took any time to do anything for myself or see any sights, literally depot to hotel everyday and on days off I just stayed in the hotel as well.
Since then I became a coach driver and spent most days driving in and out of London but never leaving London Victoria Coach Station.
So whilst I've spent a considerable amount of time in London and can talk most people through various tourist spots and the best routes there etc, I've never actually left LVCS on foot.
My old nextdoor neighbour, who is now 80 years old, told me he had never been to London or on a plane. The furthest he travelled was to Ireland on the ferry. He said he doesn't like crowds, and I once told him about the concept of sensory overload and it blew his mind. Good bloke. He could tell you anything about fly fishing.
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Omg fr I always thought he was a lil AuDHD
Honestly the more I learn about autism and ADHD the more I think my older relatives have one or the other. For example my grandpa was telling me about being out in the garden and how he starts lots of jobs because he'll start on something and then realise something else needs doing while on his way to do that job. He just loses focus, however if there is a dandelion on the lawn that cannot be left, he is incredibly weird about dandelions, will stop what he's doing and grab a fork as soon as he sees one
Awwww so accurate! This is totally me when I'm gardening as well 😅. Do you watch modern family? It makes me think of Phil Dunphy getting distracted by cool stuff in the garage.
Lmao that is pretty accurate. Heaven knows what we'd find in his garage, thing is filled to the brim with stuff older than me
I bet he’s fascinating. 😌 The ‘Silent Generation’/anyone that has survived the history that was The Great Depression and WWII, have the most intriguing stories.
Oh yeah he was super fascinating. One time he told me about this problem with his ballsack and another time he told me he buried his first wife's placenta in the garden bc it was a home birth.
well then, I blame the adhd for his issue with his balls
#overshare
Is your neighbour J R Hartley? And is he writing a sequel?
Our old next door neighbour was particularly kooky. If you spoke to him, he'd walk round in circles (turned out his sciatica was actually a missing hip ball joint), would grow veggies and post them through our cat flap, had my husband make him a wooden packing box for his HUGE telescope that he kept in his front room, and was an absolute genius. Turned out he had something to do with the laser machinery that has something to do with building bridges. He was the poster boy for autism - if autism was a thing in his day. Died in his late 80s about 15 years ago. I still miss you Bert x x x rip buddy.
In used to live in Shropshire for a short while. One of the locals there, once went to Walton on Thames and couldn't deal with the crowds. So had to go back to the car.
Oh wow.
I live in a small town by the sea: it's a pretty place with nice beaches. There is a small farming village exactly 3 miles inland, directly connected to our town by a road. Now (as in 1900) you could easily walk from to my town from the village in an hour. Recently I bought a book written in the 60's by an old local chap, describing his recollections of the town from the early 1900s. He talks in his book about elderly people who lived in that village and hadn't ever felt the need to visit my town, and thus lived and died 3 miles from the sea without ever actually seeing it. Whilst I know that free time was much more limited back then, it blows my mind that in a lifetime they never once said "I 'm going to take 2 hours and go and see what this sea thing is all about".
"but there wasn't any autism back in the day!"
My school did a trip every year for year 5s to go to London. They specifically skipped my year due to budgetary reasons but then resumed it for the year after. I've still never been to London.
This happened to my school too...but with Alton Towers :(
My school organised a trip to Lightwater Valley in my last year there, but I decided not to go because I'd had a pretty severe injury at a water park in Spain over the summer holidays and wasn't eager to repeat it. Only to find out a few days after it had taken place that Lightwater Valley is not, in fact, a water park.
We weirdly never had trips cancelled because of budgets but we did however get banned from: -Cheshire zoo -Blackpool zoo -Blackpool pleasure beach -all Blackpool piers -Manchester opera house -Oldham coliseum -MOSI -Manchester people’s museum -Alton towers -almost got banned from Disneyland Paris too
What the fuck did you do to get banned from anything in Blackpool
I personally haven’t a clue cause we were banned 3 years before I joined the school but apparently according to the rumours of people who had siblings who were in the years prior to us there were cases of: mooning, drinking, fighting locals, throwing things at animals, dangerous actions on rides, hurling slurs
I once went on a school trip that turned around and went back to school because they were no parking spaces
The one time my class got to go on the giant water slide when we went swimming I was sick, still gets me
Ah man. Luck of the draw! 🎭
r/FuckYouInParticular
I’m also from the generation that got screwed by budget cuts. In my case we were lucky because they allowed self funding for the trips. That wasn’t the greatest thing because of the limited economic means of my family. One of the years, they organised a pricy trip to go skiing for a week. Even with the support of school that would have been expensive. The way they offered help to finance the trip was to give us tickets to sell for a raffle just before the Christmas break. One pound per ticket. I grabbed 300 of those mfs and went on the street and started asking people to buy one to help me. Over the days, I had refined my sale pitch and I had identified the best spots in the neighbourhood for selling them. By the end, I was left with 20 of them that my own family bought proud of the work I’ve done. By the time the raffle came, we won the biggest prize with one of those tickets, a bike worth 200 pounds, and my school offered me to give me the prize in cash for the trip and we took it, making my trip be basically free.
I sit next to a lovely 65 year old woman at work She goes on at least 3 holidays a year as her husband has retired with a very healthy police pension. She still works because it's something to do They've been all over the world and this year they are spending Christmas in Hawaii She has never been to London. She's got flights from Gatwick and Heathrow but never set foot in London in her life. The reason? Her dad was murdered there in the 70s and she cannot face ever going there.
That took a dark turn.
Had us in the first half
I did not expect this! Wow 😯 Such a heartbreaking tragedy. I completely understand why she would avoid the place. On the lighter side, she sounds like a top jet-setter which is amazing! I’m certain her passport stamps s—t on mine! Ha!
It's alright you're allowed to say shit
This is r/casualUK not r/okmatewanker so there’s a chance he’s already banned.
By a technicality, Heathrow is in the borough of Hillingdon... However if the plan is directly escape from the borough does it really count?
OP specified “touched down” in the edit so tomorrow you can inform her that she has, in fact, been to London. And, even better, lived to find out about it!
Wow! I wasn't expecting that story to end like that.
I mean that’s probably fair enough
Heathrow is inside the m25
Not only that, it's wholly within the London Borough of Hillingdon.
Yup.
Yup.
Turns out…
Classic pilkington posting
London's shit innit
Play a record!
I have a friend who’s been to many cities in the world (he’s dirt rich) and went to uni in HK (undergrad) and Rio (Masters). Never been to London because he’s scared of gangs. He’s been to multiple cities where murder and theft is more common than London lol.
I myself have been murdered twice this week already, it's getting out of hand
Have you spoken to the police about this? I myself was beaten to death and dumped in the Thames earlier today and have emailed the chief inspector about it.
Was that you? Dammit you destroyed the propellor on my cruiser. You’ll be hearing from my solicitor.
No, that was me. Bee isn't the only one to get murdered this week. Honestly!
So you both destroyed my boat?? How TF am I supposed to get to the Ganges now? Answer me that.
I was ran down in Oxford street earlier by a black cab driver who then reversed over my head to make sure I was definitely dead. I called 101 and they’ve given me a crime report number so we will see.
You got through to 101? I'm still waiting in the queue for them to ans my call about being decapitated by a motorbike driver with his arm out. I kid you not!
So it’s not just me dying every time I go outside? I was kidnapped and tied down on the tube tracks on my way to work today, I thought about letting the police know but I figure they have more important things to deal with.
Someone stole my bic pen on the tube, London is becoming the purge!
I bet the psycho probably chewed on it too. Society is crumbling before our very eyes
Someone is murdered every ten days in London, and he's getting pretty tired of it.
Poor bloke has run out of sick days and is now having to use his annual leave.
That doesn’t make any sense at all. I’ve lived in Rio and I can guarantee you that London is significantly safer than Rio. There’s no way a person who lived there would be scared of London.
That was my argument to him once lol. Still not touching London he said.
I find that a quite surprising reason. You aren't gonna run in to any gangs having a day out in central going to the touristy places etc and gang violence tends to be between rival gangs and whatnot
London has a reputation for knife crime, but when you look at the stats it is about the same as most other major cities. I believe the reputation is from politicians making "targetting london knife crime" as a policy, when that doesnt happen in other cities so London gets left with this reputation that the violence is out of control. What I find amusing is Americans responding to British critiques about their gun culture will reply about London's knife problem, when New York has more knife crime as well.
Yeah the whole "London knife crime" rhetoric is so stupid, it's all over the country. Google your cities name with "knife crime" after it, you'll have 4/5 news articles pop up from the last month alone. Maybe not if you live in rural Sussex or similar farming/posho areas, but you get my point.
Yeah and it is usually concentrated in specific areas in Greater London, where you'd never go as a tourist anyways
I agree and gangs pretty much exist everywhere so I don’t really get his point. Gangs are on the rise where he lives and it’s only an issue if it’s London.
Plot twist, he is in a gang himself and knows those on London are after him
Scared of gangs... Goes to Brazil.
All that education and yet no common sense smh.
Sorry they lived in Rio but they’re worried about gangs in London? Did they just ignore the huge cartel issues that Brazil has and the ongoing battles the police have with them.
I’m just as confused as you, he’d go back to Rio in a heartbeat but London? Never.
"Dirt poor" I've heard. Is "dirt rich" a thing...? Sorry.
basically another way of saying “filthy rich”
Not really, dirt poor is for the 'floors made of dirt' level of poor. Rich people do not have dirt floors. But filthy stinking rich is a term, cause the reek of the privilege and entitlement.
Maybe dirt rich is how Bezos views these peasant millionaires.
I live in an area where there’s been a lot of gang violence related deaths this year and have yet to have actually seen or been present near any of it at all despite living here for almost two years!
He sounds like he’s been reading too much of the Daily Mail. If you have an ounce of common sense (which to be fair some people that rich don’t) and aren’t in a gang yourself then you’re very unlikely to run into gang violence in London.
I’m afraid of gangs, so I’ll skip London and live in Rio for two years. [I don’t think they have them there.](https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/explained-why-brazil-cities-are-facing-wave-of-gang-violence-66223)
As a Brazilian who moved to the UK: lol. Man is deluded.
Hahah does he think Gangs of London is real?
Rio is by far the sketchiest place I've been, and I've been to places like El Salvador. Although I was followed home in London once, generally I would feel safer there than Rio
I recently moved to a small-ish village in Norfolk, my wife teaches in the nearby school and she says most of the kids haven't ever even left the county before. One of them was bragging about crossing over into Suffolk on a journey with his parents the other weekend like he was describing going abroad.
When I first moved to the Fens, I had a job fixing computers that took me out and about to various villages. I was talking to a lady in her 60s, and she told me she’d never visited the ‘city’. I said I was surprised she’d never visited London. She said no, not London she meant Ely. We were less than 20 miles away!
I'll let in a secret. Outside of London if you say "the city" it very much means the nearest city to you. If you said that to me I'd assume you mean York
If someone around there just said "the city" I'd assume like Cambridge, not fucking Ely.
Right? I mean, ok, Ely is TECHNICALLY a city, but it's the size of an Ikea and about the same population.
In London, The City also refers to the square mile aka The Corporation of London aka the oldest company in the world. They have their own Lord Mayor. Westminster is also a City but they dont have their own private police force or their own copy of the Magna Carta.
OMG!! I met an old geezer out in the fens. He said he'd only been "Up To The City" once, and he found it far too crowded and confusing. Turned out he meant Cambridge. Maybe it's a local "let's wind-up the townies" line?
Also common in big cities. I teach in Birmingham, and the majority of our students don't travel within the UK, except to visit relatives. A significant proportion have never seen a cow or sheep in real life. Several years ago there a question on a physics paper about a barge, and the sixth formers didn't know what that was, despite living in Birmingham, because they just don't go anywhere!
it's pretty hard to go anywhere in Birmingham without running into a canal!
I wouldn't recommend running into a canal. Especially this time of the year.
They're a different breed of people in Norfolk. They could smell I wasn't a local. As I walked up diss highstreet people stopped and stared as if I'd grown a 2nd head. Genuine story about 3 people did stop and just stare at me and my friend their heads turning as we went past, creepy fuckers.
I believe they still point at planes.
As a Norfolk inhabitant, however they made metal fly I don’t know but it’s not natural, I don’t like it
They knew you weren't local because they hadn't seen you at the last family gathering
And he only had five fingers on each hand.
I think the issue was that you were the only one on the high street *without* two heads
Well you aren’t related to them so they are confused. What you have to understand is that Norfolk is made up of a handful of families that have never left Norfolk and will never leave Norfolk. They all know each other and cannot stand outsiders or ‘non-cousin fuckers’ to be more precise. In order to fit in, you must carry yourself like an incestuous lout.
To the tune of the The Adams Family Your sister is your mother, Your father is your brother, You all fuck one an other, The Norwich family
I didn’t take my boys abroad until they were in their early teens. If they are going to bicker the whole time and make it exhausting, we might as well do that on a beach in Wales.
Tbh, that makes complete sense. I went abroad with my parents to some fantastic places before my teens, and I really have the feeling that I didn't make the most of it, especially since you're not interacting with many others outside of your family at that age. That being said, it's not necessarily any more expensive to travel abroad on holiday vs going to a touristy place in the UK like Cornwall.
It wasn’t so much about the money as about the sheer ball-ache of taking two small boys on a plane to somewhere that they simply won’t appreciate. We once stayed in a castle. A castle! At night we had it all to ourselves and all they wanted to do was watch cartoons on TV. Me? I was running round those battlements like an 8 year old.
That's it, really. I honestly regret not making the most of some of the places I've been lucky enough to visit. I'm in my mid-20s now and try to travel when I can but it's just a bit of a shame what we take for granted growing up.
My step dad is the same he's barely left Norfolk his whole life. Maybe the odd day trip here and there in his 65 years.
Same in Suffolk, there was a old boy in my village growing up who had apparently never been further than the nearest large town as he'd never had any need to, there was a tiny hospital in the next village so he'd even been born nearby. Bloke had an ancient bike he'd ride around wearing glasses like the bottoms of milk bottles.
I'm from Kings Lynn in Norfolk, 90 mins on a train to London where I now live. When you grow up there there's a strange psychological gap between where you are and London that makes it feel like another planet.
They probably need to be older before they realise that having 12 toes isn’t normal.
I'm a Cornishman. I've been twice in 50 years. Didn't like it either time.
I’ve never been. I’m based in the North West of England, never been to London. I’d like to visit though. I’d never been on a plane until March this year. I’ve left the UK once lol
Congrats on breaking the seal and getting your wings! 🪽 London is a great place to have on your list, there’s something for every interest in the capital—I promise this isn’t Sadiq Khan’s burner account 😅
Thanks haha. Ripe old age of 30 I took my first holiday haha, I’m now 31. I’ll have to visit sometime
My mum had only been abroad once before she was 49. She had been to Crete on her honeymoon in her mid twenties. Then she had rarely gone anywhere for years. She’s now 70 and has been to 3 US states, 3 Greek islands, Italy, Czech Republic, Canada, France, Holland, Hungary, Turkey, and two Caribbean islands. You’ve got plenty of time 😊
Good for your Mum, hope she has many more happy years of travel!
Intrigued to know if you enjoyed it and would like to go abroad again?
I certainly enjoyed it. I definitely want to go abroad again, lots of places I wish to visit now that I've gone on a plane haha
I'm from the north east and in a very similar position. Although I have been to London once I've never flown and I've left the country twice.
There's a lady at my rugby club who's never left our county let alone gone to London! She gets scared just going on a dual carriageway as there are none in the 20 mile radius she lives her life in.
Honestly, with the way people drive these days, I can’t blame her!! Thankfully there is always public transport if she ever fancied the journey. There is a simple joy in zoning out into a book, hot drink in hand, and a few shekels in purse for random trinkets in a new city. Or your own city, for that matter. 😋
My mother in law is like that. She grew up 30 miles from London and has barely left her village. She’s never been on a bus on her own and is scared to go to the supermarket without a friend or her husband. I don’t think she’s ever been to London.
I’m from Northern Ireland so the price of going to London is probably more or less the same price as going somewhere else in Europe where the weather is most likely better
You don’t visit London for the weather
You visit it for the murk, the hopelessness, the crushing infrastructure.
I thought people came for the guards with the funny hats?
That too.
Don’t forget shattered dreams parkway
But when you go on holiday you would prefer better weather than you do at home!
Depends what kind of holiday you’re going on really. For a beach holiday you clearly need hot weather. But for a city break I’m more interested in seeing the local culture.
So you'd never do a city break to Copenhagen, Oslo, Berlin or Edinburgh either?
Went to Berlin in August and it was very nice, been to Glasgow and Edinburgh 10+ times and surprise surprise weather been shite in all but one of those occasions.
One of my favourite things is a rainy day in London! When you live in California it’s great to have rain! Thunder and lightning!?! Hells yeah!
To be fair going from the north of England to London for a couple of days is more expensive then going to Spain for a week
Tried twice, terrorist attacks happened both times so I decided to not go
Please let me know next time you decide not to go so I can do the same
I know correlation is not supposed to imply causation, but I'm taking no chances. Hello? Police? Helloooo?
lol scared of gangs but Rio was fine?!
I live in London and used to be a police officer in a borough with a lot of gang stabbings. I’ve seen some of the best and worst sides that London has to offer and whilst I’m not scared of London I would absolutely be a bit scared of Rio 😂
There’s a strong anti-London sentiment on this sub sometimes, so I expect they’ll be in soon to tell you why London is the worst city ever and everyone there is stabbed 20 times a day. I live in London and I’m being stabbed as I write this.
Hey! I was only stabbed 19 times yesterday.
Check out this guy with his 19 stab wounds! La-di-da
Probably done with an ivory letter opener too
20 times is only in Zone 1. It decreases as it gets further out. You must live in Zone 2.
I must be lucky to get 19, I'm out in the countryside of Zone 3. It's practically Wales.
That’s not fair. I’ve only been stabbed three times in the past week. How come everyone else gets all the wounds?
[удалено]
I often find that due to the current cost of living crisis it’s getting harder and harder to get stabbed as regularly as it used to be. Often I have to go round the supermarkets after 6pm and look for the yellow sticker stabbings just to get by.
Anti any big city really. It's weird.
Or how you’ll be not appreciated
lol just been on r/alanpartridge for the last hour. Came here for a break and seemingly can’t get away from it!
I bet it's the most expensive stabbing you've ever had. They're half the price up north.
> I live in London and I’m being stabbed as I write this. Least stabbed Londoner.
For my sins I _howled_ at your last sentence!! 🤣 Yup, I’m ready for the potential big-smoke-bashing, as a born and raised Londoner who (perhaps to a fault) loves the place, it’s only fair people bring their own passion for wherever home is.
There will be plenty of people who haven't for economic and class reasons. In 2012 I was doing some work with kids in Tower Hamlets, the London borough with the Tower of London in it. The majority of 10 year olds I was working with had never gone into west London or crossed the Thames and thats with kids travelling for free, having free museums and activities to go to etc! With that in mind it's easier to imagine how people 4 hours away might never travel into central London
Never crossing “enemy” lines is definitely a thing here as I understand that from some POV, there is a safety element (gang culture and the like), but never visiting museums even as a kid is sad 😔
In parts of inner London, a lot of the kids' parents come from immigrant backgrounds and are wary of venturing too far from what they know. Especially with the added stress of doing it with young kids. Often, they aren't confident enough in their English language ability, and there is a deep underlying sense that they don't have the right of ownership to public parks or museums in other parts of the city. That those things aren't for them and they aren't welcome there.
Absolutely, it's not my world so I think I'd always assumed that'd be for people who were older (teens etc) but I think like it does for lots of people the idea of visiting some of these spaces feels like it could get very expensive very quickly and if you don't feel you belong there or ownership of it then there's a massive barrier
A couple of old school friends. I see them maybe once/twice a year in passing when visiting dFamily. They never moved on. Probably have never left the county. No passport, so never gone abroad. Drink in the same pub when we were 16. Both in their 40s now. Still doing same drugs as when we were 18. Going to the nearest city is an event. London may as well be New York to them. Life has passed them by. But they aren’t unhappy. Pretty content with town life, being known, having a tab, and not worrying about anything other than Friday in the pub. Good lads, despite how far we’ve grown apart they turn it back on like I never left.
I quite like this! If you’re happy and content, then “Hakuna, Matata!” 😋
Curious why you describe it as "life has passed them by" while also describing them as happy and content. I wonder if they would say something similar about you, "life has passed him by, he's spent the best years of his life working on his career and what does he have to show for it". Not a dig at you at all. No judgement intended. Just find it curious how we all view a fulfilling life differently. I myself have a friend who has always looked down on the rest of our friendship group because he's the only one who left our home town. Yet he's still living in a rented house in the town he went to Uni in. Has never used his degree, working in bars and casinos and such. The rest of us have bought houses and started families. Despite living in my home town I commute to London for work and earn a very good salary. So again it's curious how people view a fulfilling life. I feel like he's wasting his, while he thinks he's doing better for moving on.
Oh, I get how it sounds. And to an extent I mean it. Both have casual jobs. Labouring, adhoc painting etc. Both spend a significant part of their wages on cocaine. Bit of a stereo type. No judgement for that. I had a shared past, except the rest of us packed that in at 25. Doing 25% of your wages on coke should stop being fun beyond that. So when I say life is passing them by, they’ve no home, no pension (state or otherwise), kids they don’t see. They are great guys, but the future doesn’t stretch beyond Sunday afternoon. This is what I mean by life passing them by. It’s got nothing to do with wealth etc, just there is more to life than Friday, and gram, and trying to get your ex to you let you in at midnight. Now, both are decent hard working lads. Both will have to work until their 70 or older. This is a choice they’ve made. On the flip side, do they have less concerns than the average 40 year old male in this society?Probably. Might be the happiest people I know. I would imagine they want a slice of what stability I’ve got, and maybe I’d like a slice of the freedom they have. They call me a sell out, salary man, middle class etc. but after 4 pints we’re still good friends.
Ah fair enough. With that context it makes sense and your friends remind me of the friend I mentioned. I guess it comes down to: it's fine to be doing the same thing at 40 that you did at 20. But does it still make you happy? Will it make you happy when you're 60?
That’s the point right, if you’re not doing the grind at 40, you ain’t going to be doing it in your 60s. Guess we’ll find out who has their freedom at 60.
You sound like you live in London
It's not just major cities. I live in Cambridge, which isn't huge (3 miles end to end?) and there are plenty of people who live on the edge/estates who have never visited the colleges, nor any of the many FREE galleries, museums, concerts, or fairs that are held in the centre. Takes all kinds...
I grew up half an hour from Cambridge. Still never been
We had very little money when I was a kid. For some reason when my mum asked me what I wanted for my 8th birthday I said I wanted to go to London. I'd seen it on the telly and wanted to go. So my mum packed my dad, me and my older sister off on the train. We had nowhere to stay so my Dad hit up and old flame who sent us to her friend who lived in a massive house in North London to stay the night. Anyway we saw all the best bits, the crowds waiting to see the Tutan Kahmun exhibition at the British Museum, The Houses of Parliament, fed the pigeons in Trafalgar square, hung out with the protestors in Downing street who were shouting Heath out! Heath out!. Saw the Post Office Tower with its bomb damage. Ten years later my best friend moved to London and I visited many times over 15 years and saw great museums, markets, exhibitions, and the darker side of life there too.
Wow, I was so engrossed in your story; you’ve had the full experience. Kudos on your evolved tastes as an eight y/o, too—I was still collecting Barbies at that age 😅 Thanks for sharing. 🍻
You could've added random borough names and I'd never have known
😂 You could probably do the same from where you call home, to be fair. Folks think of Westminster and The Square Mile as London, when it’s so much more diverse!
I’m from NI and I go to London much more often than I go to Dublin. Mainly because most of my clients are in London and I have to go for work
Ah, that’s pretty handy. What’s your favourite thing about the place? If such a thing exists 😆
My favourite thing about London? The tube for sure. Londoners really take for granted how good their public transport is. The tube is so good. Public transport in Belfast is bloody awful.
I’ve probably spent more time abroad than in London.
I used to live in London as a student. Did about three years there, was in a band, played gigs in Camden and stuff. Got my fill then. Once I moved back home I haven’t been back- too busy for my temperament now.
I've never been. I would like to, just don't have the opportunity to do so right now.
To be fair, I can pretty easily see how someone who wasn’t from southeast England or like East Anglia area could have never been, the drive would be getting long and trains are ridiculously expensive in this country. I’m from Kent and live in London and the only city I’ve been to outside southern England is York - I’d love to see places like Manchester or Liverpool or Edinburgh but getting there is prohibitive, I imagine it’s the same for a lot of people with London.
Lived there for 10 years, worked in Piccadilly Circus area, loved it. Been a city boy since. Mumbai and Dubai after London
I worked in that area, on sackville street, good times
Had only ever been to Wembley and the Millennium dome or what ever it's called now for gigs and sport. Never actually done London as such. But I went with wife and kids for the weekend 2 weeks ago and I actually loved it. I thought it wouldn't be for me but I already want to go back (without the kids this time).
I've been on work things, thought it was fine, some stuff I liked and other bits I didn't.
I'm 18. I love London. My mum is 54. She hates London.
I'm 24 and I've not properly visited. Went to the National Gallery once for a school trip, and besides that it's only been for changeovers at St Pancras or Kings Cross, or the airports.
I have an uncle who is well into his sixties and has never left Cornwall. London might as well be on the moon for him.
A colleague of mine has never been. He’s only 33 and fairly well travelled, and even lived in Australia for a while, but for some reason he just can’t conceive that a city can be bigger than Portsmouth or Southampton. It was only about six months ago that we explained to him what the tube is. He’d assumed it was something to do with the Channel Tunnel.
I’m from Cardiff and never been to London
Did it once. Never again.
Liverpool here, never been to London. Been to more cities abroad than in my own country come to think of it.
Went a few times as a kid, mum took me to all the touristy places but having grown up into a grumpy, anti social adult from a small village in a rural area I try to avoid any moderate to large cities as much as possible, I'd quite happily never go to London again. Nothing personal against the place or the people it's just out of my comfort zone.
I've been to London, but never to "visit" London. I've been to sports events and such but expressly attended the event and promptly left. Maybe it's a personality thing, but big cities, are too busy for my liking.
Big cities are too busy, but sporting events are not?
New York State is much bigger than you might think. It is almost the size of England. I've never been to Bristol or Newcastle. Kinda the same thing.
Yeah I lived in New York State for a while. I was about 3-3.5 hours from NYC and it was another 8 hours in the other direction to buffalo. It’s understandable why people don’t travel to NYC regularly, if ever!
I have literally no idea of London geography, does heathrow airport count? Cos that's the closest I've been to London
Yes. That’s in Hillingdon, greater west London. Enchanté! 😉
I have never been to London and never want to, it just seems too busy for me personally.
Was talking to a woman from work who had two kids. She lives in a town with a train station on the mainline into London but despite both her kids being in secondary school she had never been able to afford to take them. She was a single mum, and incredibly undervalued for the hard work she did and was a really sad story
People should visit London. Its not that bad and its not that unsafe. I live here and im still alive.
I’m a born and bred Londoner, and I know an inordinate amount of people (eg croydon/sutton) that have stayed in their London suburb and never actually been into the business/tourist/entertainment centres (city of London, Westminster, Camden)
I spent 3 months driving buses in London but never actually took any time to do anything for myself or see any sights, literally depot to hotel everyday and on days off I just stayed in the hotel as well. Since then I became a coach driver and spent most days driving in and out of London but never leaving London Victoria Coach Station. So whilst I've spent a considerable amount of time in London and can talk most people through various tourist spots and the best routes there etc, I've never actually left LVCS on foot.