I have a lovely cousin who lives in Essex, Loughton. She grew up in Leytonstone. It's really nice where she lives but I have to say, when I was a child, I loved it when my parents took me to visit her and her mum and dad in Leyton. Sometimes we went to Walthamstow Market where people talked proper cockney and I used to wish I was one of them! Donkeys years ago of course.
Where my husband lives (when he is at work), Wymondham, Norfolk, people speak in the morning. Probably less so now as he has a flat in a block with a car park but when we had a cottage in Hingham with car parked outside, it was so.
Down here I only know neighbours on either side but every little town has some community to be tapped into if you want it. I get local newsletters about such things and often think, one of these days I'll go down there.
I must admit I like to be private and fairly anonymous unless I choose to be otherwise. Doesn't mean I don't care about others or would not do something if I could but it would be anonymous, at least nowadays.
I've been to Manchester and thought it was great! Don't know why anyone would think otherwise.
My wifes sister lives in Loughton, right next to Epping forrest, we're going there for our Newton's day dinner, the 25th.
Loughton is a bit cut off from the North eastern parts of London by the enormous reservoirs that limit the space needed for roads, this makes it a bit, quiter than it's London side neighbours.
My dad was a cockney, the genuine article, I'm not and my accent is not cockney just an ordinary Londonish one, we've lived here in Essex for nearly 47 years and I have become a bit of a sweed basher, a carrot cruncher, spent most of my working life in and around Saffron Walden and Cambridge, the Cambridge accent isn't that dissimilar to the lovely Norfolk one, (When I think about it Londoners don't really have an accent, it's all of the others).
Most days I walk out on our river walk for at the least four miles with the dog and it's such a friendly walk with so many that share this slightly in this wild none too tonsured area, just how I like it, my wife and I have a pact that one of us will assaniate anyone that dares to plant out a formal flower bed, on this relaxing nature walk of ours, no jury would convict either of us.
Essex is a bit of Jeckle and Hyde county south has two main roads thr A 13 and the A 127 that run somewhere near parallel from london to Southend, most places in and around the area taken by these two roads are the parts of Essex that have fed this maline description of Essex we keep hearing.
North Essex is similar to suffolk, not exactly similar but very nearly as rural as Suffolk, try getting yourself a picture of Finchingfield Essex on google for a good example.
I spent three days in Manchester about three years back with the Thomas Paine society a seminar about his life and works, yes a quaker and one of my heroes too, I was seriously impressed with Manchester lovely place, it felt more like an ordinary persons place to me more than I have ever felt about London, just a feeling, not that easy to rationalise.
Regards ippy
