Just what is The North? Writing from here, in Orkney, I have a valid claim to be In The North. Awaiting next week though is Shetland. Seems North to me. Orkney? Southern softies.
We passed through Yorkshire a few days ago on the way up. Yorkshire people think they’re in The North, but when we came through York we weren’t even halfway. So Rugby League Country is barely even The Midlands.
We passed through Robertsbridge and Etchingham in East Sussex on the way up, 20 minutes from my house. They are not Northern. Roger Daltrey, who sang that he hoped he’d die before he got old and didn’t, lives here. Rudyard Kipling, who hoped his son would live to get old, lived here too. This is a marshy yet hilly land, firmly of the south, where the wind doth blow but it’s usually a warm South-Westerly: people take photos of the rare snow.
This is more like it: this is the North-East coast, past the nearly-north of Newcastle, coasting towards Berwick:
