London ex pats living in Sheff

[Chop 10]

Parents moved my sister and I down to North London ( Harrow / Kingsbury area ) from Sheff in 77 when I was six, we then moved to Sarfff Landaaaaaan ( Ewell / Epsom ) in 82 and they moved back here in 92, I stayed a few more years and came back in 94 and wouldnt think twice about going back. Friends from school used to come up here when we returned for the school holidays durations and later when we were older we'd travel up for various football matchs ( Palace / Wednesday games ) , even cutting our teeth at the tender ages of 17 in the Roxy ( those cockney accents went down great with the girls but not the lads !!! ).

 

Still go back every couple of years to catch up and a few make it up for football and a night out every now and then but London has seriously changed in my eyes and unfortunately not for the better.

[pt cru 10]

I used to work at the Homerton in the 80's too, just after the Hackney one closed, around same time as her from Mel and Kim died there, and I also used to go to the bagel bakery, was it the one by Ridley Road market by any chance? Police always in there, obviously buying you lot your stuff, bless 'em! always felt safe, the place never ever closed, even on xmas. Sure you don't wanna start a Dalston fan club? Only kiddin... Ta for remanisce...

 

I remember when she died - my friend was nursing her on G.H.F. ward at the Homerton. Always very sad when a young person dies. I was on Priestley(urology at that time). Anyway, back to the serious bagel debate - I never went to the shop so I don't know its name, I just placed my order with the policemen! I do know that on a couple of occaisions my bagel arrived at A&E by blue light thanks to the boys in blue wanting to get back to us for a coffee!!

One thing I miss about London is "My Old Dutch" in Holborn. (I'm a bit food oriented). Pancakes the size of a circular rug - DELICIOUS!

[fabulous_girl 10]

My mum and dad were both born in london and they moved out to kent a few years after getting married. the rest of mums side still live there, although they are all of polish descent. i grew up nr ashford, then moved to birmingham for uni, london (lewisham and norbury) for a placement year, back to brum, then upto sheffield when my boyfriend got a great new job up here(he's from ashford too). i miss my friends who are all back home/in and around london, but i dont particularly wanna move back - property wise it would be pretty stupid, its so much cheaper here. the london family are all baffled as to why i would want to live so far away, they dont think theres life or industry outside of london- i think they think i work down t'pit. my nan says "when you get rrreal job in lon-don you are always well-com to come and stay wiz me". i HAVE a real job thanks nan!

[littleblue 10]

I remember when she died - my friend was nursing her on G.H.F. ward at the Homerton. Always very sad when a young person dies. I was on Priestley(urology at that time). Anyway, back to the serious bagel debate - I never went to the shop so I don't know its name, I just placed my order with the policemen! I do know that on a couple of occaisions my bagel arrived at A&E by blue light thanks to the boys in blue wanting to get back to us for a coffee!!

One thing I miss about London is "My Old Dutch" in Holborn. (I'm a bit food oriented). Pancakes the size of a circular rug - DELICIOUS!

 

 

Ahh ¨My Old Dutch¨

 

I miss it so much the closest one to me was the Kings Road.

 

You can't compare Sheffield to London at all. I like it here and being able to get into the country quickly, but I miss the 24 hr lifestyle of London and being so close to places such as the Natural History. Every evening (well most evenings) I used to walk along the river, across Albert Bridge and back along to Chelsea bridge - so pretty.

 

I love going back to visit but dont miss the black snot you get from the tube!!

 

Totally different life....

[coltsevers 10]

you can keep london for me. I am not a huge fan. they dont understand me if i say "nahthenthee, weers neerest spice shop ? isit ooeer rooard?"

[JoanCrawford 10]

Well I am a born-again Northerner and love living in Sheffield. Moved here in 1992 after spending 12 years in London from when I was 18 til when I was 30. I was totally tired of running up and down escalators, fighting for a seat on the tube, travelling an hour to work. Sheffield is so lovely, the people are fab, I love being called 'love' and isn't it great that we all say 'thank you' to the bus driver. When I first came here I went into a supermarket and asked "Have you got any croissants?" and the assistant gave me a puzzled look then replied "We've got buns". Recently in the same store a woman asked for croissants and I heard the assistant say "over here madam and we've some lovely compote in the next aisle" ... fantastic! Of course now I love buns. And love going out for 'tea' instead of dinner

[TeaFan 10]

Landan is great for shoppin', cultcha, eatin' aht, and goin' aht generally, and it 'as loads of 'istory and is great for just walking abaht in. But it's way fackin expensive, takes you ages to get anywhere, a lot of the people couldn't give a toss abaht anyone else they're rushing arahnd all the time, it all seems to be abaht money these days so if you ain't got much you feel left aht, and when you get a bit older, you're too knackered to do anyfing and take advantage of all the good stuff there is to do, so why stay?

 

I moved up 'ere from Waaalfamstow 4 years ago - don't regret it at all. 15 minutes to get to work (free), home by quarter past five, Peak District, house an' garden what could never of afforded in the Smoke, friendly people, not stuck up like, not pretentious. Ok, can't get a bagel at 4 in the fackin morning, BUT I AIN'T UP AT 4 IN THE FACKIN MORNIN!!

[puddinburner 10]

We've got one who lives across road, he's an ace bloke but typical Cockney! Took a while to fathom what he was saying half the time.

[Tyranna 10]

born and bred in south london (lewisham, brockley) moved to Eltham (pants) then out to kent for a couple of years (so-so) moved here in 2005and I ain't never going back!! Love it here - people friendly, good arts scene, equally near to city centre and gorgeous countryside. Why would I want to go back? I miss my friends and family, but I'm working on them - my daughter's just moved here, hoping my son will come too - then I'll have the set!

 

Last time I went back to london, i thought it smelled...

 

I was born in the West Country, but then used to live in Sydenham for about 6 years, and then in the similarly named Sidcup (next door to Eltham) for nearly 22 years; then I went to University in Southampton and finally did my MA in Sheffield, because this is where the biggest (and best) Archaeology Department outside London is:

Personally, I couldn't wait to get out of London, mainly because I lived in the then unexciting S.E. part, and recall having to trek the 13 miles up to all the 'happening' things like clubs, gigs and festivals in the centre or in Hackney which was then the really exciting scene...

Other smaller cities such as Southampton and Sheffield are great, because you can often find cheap housing in or right next to the city centre, something you could NEVER do in London.

I was also hoping to actually be able to buy a place of my own in somewhere like Sheffield because house prices here were a fraction of what they were in London, but thanks to the rampant inflation in house prices (Shouldn't the overall inflation rate include this?), even Sheffield property seem beyond most peoples reach!

[Tyranna 10]

OH is from Bexley 'eef. And he doesn't want to go back because he likes the green and pleasant environment that Sheffield has to offer. He's developed an accent which is a strange mix of cockney wide boy and broad Yorkshire and refuses to pay more than £2.30 for a pint of beer.

 

OMG! This is really weird; following on from my last post a few minutes ago, when I lived in Sidcup, Bexleyheath was the local Borough town centre. When I first moved to Sidcup, Bexleyheath Broadway (its high street) resembled a 'wild West frontier town' with nothing except for very tatty two and three storey shops on both sides, a tiny derelict 'market-house', a 'Civic Centre' consisting of Portakabins, and a dilapidated one-storey 'department-store', at a time when other nearby borough centres such as Greenwich/Woolwich, Lewisham and Bromley had 'proper' town halls, were building new shopping precincts and pedestrianising their main streets.

 

By the 1980's new developments were starting to take place, such as a new Library, Council Offices, and the 'Broadway Shopping Centre', which made it look like a 'proper' town: Now, however, when I last visited it a couple of years ago, you wouldn't even recognise it from the 1980's: it has become a small metropolis in its own right, with so I have heard, office floor space greater than that in the whole of Brighton, several iconic new buildings by top world architects (including a further rebuild of the Civic Centre, the 4th largest Sports Centre in the country at 'Crook Log'), numerous top nightclubs, gig venues and gourmet restaurants which continually feature in the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph Colour Supplements, and it is set to become the largest of the 'new London Gateway Towns' (Presumably that means population-wise, the whole borough of Bexley). Property pages are filled with pictures of luxurious apartments and gleaming high-rise towers now being planned and built at locations such as Bexleyheath itself and other locations in the Borough such as Gallions Reach, Erith, as big property companies have staked their claim on the last remaining part of London which could boast house prices for below £100,000, now that it is so well located between Docklands and the routes out of London towards the Channel Tunnel and Ashford. Even the London Underground are in on the act, with a link to the Tube and Crossrail planned in the coming decade or so.

For those who have not been to Bexleyheath since the 1970's, be prepared to find something like a collision between those iconic scenes of downtown Tokyo sans the Japanese signage, gleaming apartments a-la-West One, and a frisson of Blade Runner...

 

Does anyone know of any other existing town in South East England which has seen such extreme development in the last 30 years as Bexley? Places like Ashford spring to mind, as well as Docklands, but in the case of the latter, Docklands wasn't a town, rather a derelict industrial site redeveloped from scratch.

[happyhippy 11]

I was born in the West Country, but then used to live in Sydenham for about 6 years, and then in the similarly named Sidcup (next door to Eltham) for nearly 22 years; then I went to University in Southampton and finally did my MA in Sheffield, because this is where the biggest (and best) Archaeology Department outside London is:

Personally, I couldn't wait to get out of London, mainly because I lived in the then unexciting S.E. part, and recall having to trek the 13 miles up to all the 'happening' things like clubs, gigs and festivals in the centre or in Hackney which was then the really exciting scene...

Other smaller cities such as Southampton and Sheffield are great, because you can often find cheap housing in or right next to the city centre, something you could NEVER do in London.

I was also hoping to actually be able to buy a place of my own in somewhere like Sheffield because house prices here were a fraction of what they were in London, but thanks to the rampant inflation in house prices (Shouldn't the overall inflation rate include this?), even Sheffield property seem beyond most peoples reach!

 

Did you?

 

I lived there for years as well.

[4-4-2 10]

born and bred in south london (lewisham, brockley) moved to Eltham (pants) then out to kent for a couple of years (so-so) moved here in 2005and I ain't never going back!! Love it here - people friendly, good arts scene, equally near to city centre and gorgeous countryside. Why would I want to go back? I miss my friends and family, but I'm working on them - my daughter's just moved here, hoping my son will come too - then I'll have the set!

 

Last time I went back to london, i thought it smelled...

 

Me too from same area (Ladywell, Forest Hill etc). Love Sheffield and surrounding area. Only thing I really miss about London is being able to get a decent pint of beer. Gassy, creamy rubbish served anywhere north of Luton is undrinkable. If only a Youngs or Fullers type brewery in Yorkshire and it would be perfect. Thornbridge is close (but it's not in Sheffield).