Arriving in Yorkshire

andy.shiels@archant.co.uk — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:12:00 GMT

When I arrived in Yorkshire over three years ago my original plan was to be back on the other side of the Pennines by now. However I find myself still living in Leeds and still enjoying being in Yorkshire. I originally fled my Stockport roots to study Media at Leeds Metropolitan University and found that I settled in straight away.

Navigating my way around a new city was aided by many other fellow foreign students who had travelled far and wide from places including Kendal, Bath and Sutton Coldfield. Tasks such as decoding the Yorkshire dialect could be tackled together making the process of acclimatising much easier.

Although less than 50 miles down the M62, differences between Cheshire and Leeds were immediately apparent. Take for instance when settling down in front of the telly, something seemed odd, the weather girl was stood on the wrong side of the map, I could no longer see Stockport’s rain cloud. North West Tonight became Look North, Granada became Calendar and I felt obliged to keep up with Emmerdale and Corry.

After a few civilised evenings on the town, it became clear that Yorkshire men were a breed in their own right, banishing my pre-conceived ideas that all men are the same.

Exemplifying the disparities was a proud Loiner who took it upon himself to act as my guide to ‘his’ city. After learning to understand his thick Leeds accent we discovered we got along rather well, I was willing to ignore his innate frugality for the time being as I quite liked his straight talking and down to earth sense of humour. Over three years later and I’m still here, having just about become accustomed to tea like treacle, less rain and daily gale force winds. Question is, will I still be in Yorkshire in another three years?