[sabrina]

We have had English people come and go in our neighbourhood , I don't bad mouth them but do fine that they complain a lot. I could give you a list but no point. Scottish people do not forget their history nor should we.  Talking behind someone's back is not nice I was brought up with the saying if you can't say any nice do not saying anything at all and stand by that as much as possible. When you have had the experience of an English neighbour making your life hell then its hard to be nice. Lucky for us they moved but the few years we did have them was a nightmare. My neighbour now is English and we get on great, I could not ask for a better friend. Not all of us have a problem and try to be fair.

[shygirl]

iv been told to floot off back to england many a time by my neighbours around here but im hardened to it now but i still think its racists.
a friends son was arrested, charged,  in court and fined for calling someone "black barsteward" whilst queueing up outside a pub. but i bet if he had said english barsteward that would have been acceptable.

[Bodger]

But you're doing it right now.
 You're not just talking about a neighbour, you're talking about an English neighbour. In this context, why make any reference to their country of origin.? It simply shouldn't matter where they come from. If I was living in England and was referring to one of my neighbours, I simply wouldn't think about whether they came from Scotland, England, Ireland or anywhere else. They'd be Fred or Joan who just happened to come from a particular place.

[Herdygirl]

I sympathise with you Shygirl, when i used to visit my ex partners family in Glasgow, I got so I would expect nasty comments about me being English, not just from some of his large family but from people who didn't even know me, I have been ignored in pubs and shops because of my accent, so I stopped going. Some german people I was chatting to once in Kinlochleven also mentioned the rudeness shown to them.  However, I must say that I always found the Highlanders and people living in the borders to be lovely.  Maybe it's the city mentality?

[mojocafa]

So to interupt folks but shygirl i have sent you pm, i need advice please

[lachlanandmarcus]

I'm glad to say that when we bought our place our Scottish farming neighbours were (like I would be ) much less concerned about where we came from but more about whether we were nice people, good neighbours and not a nightmare, and also would we just come for holidays as they preferred to see someone living here and contributing all year round. Thankfully I think we passed as we spend Xmas and Hogmanay partying with all of them and their families.


Feel very lucky.

[shygirl]

So to interupt folks but shygirl i have sent you pm, i need advice please

i have pm-ed you 

[Lesley Silvester]

I have to join in here. As I have often mentioned, I lived for 11 years on Isle of Arran and a big consideration when my ex and I decided to move back down south was the anti-English insults that had been thrown at us over the years. I had the local shopkeeper moaning at me about "you Southerners" and about "your government".  That was in the Maggie Thatcher era and I have never voted Tory but I still used to get blamed. To be fair, it wasn't the Arran folk but the Scottish incomers.


Most of the time we got on very well and one of the worst was actually a good friend of ours, but it does get you down when it happens so often.


I feel ashamed of what the English did to the Scots in times gone by, the same as I feel guilt about what white people did to black people, and I have said so many times, but I can't be held responsible for what happened in the past and I can't change it, any more than I could stop Maggie Thatcher from all the damage she did.


The thing is that if people don't let the past rest, there will always be problem like this. A friend who moved from Berwick, just south of the border, to just north of the border told me her son was beaten up at school for being English. As it happened, he was Scottish born and bred but they had lived in England while my friend was at college. Children get it from their parents.


I remember my youngest,then aged about 7 or 8, talking with venom about "the enemy". He was referring to Germans. I don't know where he picked it up but I stopped it. I pointed out that his best friend was half German and that the friend's grandfather had probably fought in the war. If I had let it go, he would have grown up thinking of the Germans as "the enemy". We can't continue to dwell on what happened in the past.


Having said all that, I would love to go back and live on Arran, the most beautiful place in the world.

[devonlad]

Found myself humming "imagine" all of a sudden. Feels like a trickier topic than "whens the best time to heptavac" .. I am aware that being English suits me fine when I'mm cheering on the boys to another glorious defeat on penalties but not quite so keen when I'm somehow expectedto feel some degree of responsibility for the aatrocious sins of historical tyrants. I've experienced hatred based on the accident of my birthplace when living in northern Germany many years ago and on holiday in Ireland more recently.  As much as I disliked it and felt an acute sense of injustice, just a brief glance at history (as others have suggested) puts it in perspective.  I prefer to take people as I find them and would love to think john lennon's ideal world was possible- but then again I wasn't born in a  nation with a history of being oppressed ( in fact the total opposite. So as unpleasant as it might be to be thought of as an English ba**ard when I'm actually quite nice I know that that abuse does not  come close to holding the same power or weight that it carries for someone who is black, or irish or gay! Or wait for it.... Scottish

[RUSTYME]

My parents were born in London , mum Acton  and  dad Stonebridge  , i was born in Catterick , dad was in the army .
I lived in London till i was 20 when we moved to Wales in 1977 . So i have lived the majority of my life in Wales and think of Wales as my home . I was born in England and i am English and proud of it , but England was just where i was born and grew up , Wales is my home .
I have experienced anti English racism  , but that was back in the 70's .
A lot of the historic anti English racism dates back to the 12th century round here , i just point out that mainly the English invaders were in fact Norman royalty ! ,  French , not English .
Before i got my land i was thinking of buying a farm in Bulgaria , until my nephew said " blimey , you will be my uncle in Bulgaria !" , that was the end of that idea , i may look like a tramp , but no way am i going to  be a feckin womble !
Underground overground wombling free - the annoying thing is , i do collect lots of old crap ! , bugger , i still get called a womble .

[shygirl]

rusty - you do make me laugh - we had a teacher at school whom everyone called the womble  - how mean - but she really did look like one 

[mcginty]

Here was i thinking it was not cool to be
Northern Irish.(across the Irish sea)
We to have English and Scotch neighbours
and get on great, no one seems to be concerned.

[SallyintNorth]

A bit of me wants to leave this with Rusty's great story.  (Nice one Russ  )

But there is a serious point that I think does need a bit more exploration.

Not that long ago, most of Europe had cause to hate the German regime of the time.  It spilled over into a hatred of German people and all things Germanic.  Alsatian dogs, Dachshunds, other German breeds were euthanased and worse in their thousands.

The atrocities carried out by that regime must never be forgotten and cannot ever be forgiven.

These days, it would be regarded as crass, insensitive and kinda stupid to denigrate a modern German for anything relating to that dark time. 

Not sure I can understand why it's different for a Scot bad-mouthing the English, if it's really all about ancient history?

And sorry Annie, love you lots too  , but to hear comments about "those English"... I can't see how that's not racist.  Substitute black, or Asian, or Muslem, for English and see if it still feels non-racist to you?

[in the hills]

SITN, you have expressed my thoughts so well. The undertones in some of the posts make me feel rather  and a bit  .

Glad I moved from England to Wales and not Scotland. Only heard one anti-English comment since I have been here. That was said to my son. We were at a rural event and he was told when he spoke to one of the organisers that they knew he was a Welsh lad as they always drove quads better than the ********* English, etc etc.  Had to  ...... the childrens accents changed quite quickly and they sound a wee bit Welsh!!!!

Think the Welsh are quite proud of their nation too but our neighbours seemed relieved that we were "country people". That seemed to bother them more than where we came from. If I've sometimes said "but of course we're not Welsh" .... I've been told off and basically told to think of myself as Welsh.

Shygirl  . Not sure how you deal with people that genuinely feel that way.

[SallyintNorth]

Shygirl, I should have said... whilst I do think the comments you overheard are racist, I do also agree with everyone who says that the people expressing those feelings would not be thinking of you as the hated English they were discussing.  So absolutely don't take it personally.