You know you’re an exiled Geordie when…or as Northern Soul’s Stephanie Alderson prefers to call it, Geordies on tour.

  1. You have cravings for pease pudding and stottie but can’t buy them anywhere.
  2. You are mortally terrified of losing your accent and subsequently your friends and family back in the toon tease you by telling you have lost it.
  3. Your family asks you if you’ve become a soft Southerner on a regular basis.
  4. You have to listen to real Southerners complain unnecessarily about the weather, saying things like ‘ooh it’s really cold today, it’s only 14C,’ while you are standing there in a vest and shorts (this really happened to me).
  5. You’re not able to buy a Mother’s Day card with the word ‘Mam’ on it, and have to resort to buying one with ‘Mum’ and changing the ‘u’ to an ‘a’ with a felt tip pen.
  6. You realise that the rest of the country does not use the word ‘spelk’ (I genuinely thought ‘splinter’ was an American word until I moved South).
  7. You have to stop yourself from having friendly conversations with strangers on the bus lest they think you a weirdo.
  8. People are fascinated by your accent and ask you to repeat words and say phrases for their amusement…like a parrot.
  9. You realise that no department store will ever be as good as Fenwicks.
  10. You realise that no Xmas light display will ever be as good as the Fenwicks window.
  11. You have to tone down your accent for interviews and strongly resist the urge to say ‘me’ instead of ‘my’.
  12. People mistake your ‘a’s for ‘e’s when you have to spell something out to them.
  13. You are exasperated when other websites do a ‘Can you understand Geordie?’ quiz that include words that clearly aren’t Geordie.
  14. You cringe when Southerners pronounce Newcastle as NewCARSEL rather than NewCASSEL.
  15. You are incredulous when Southerners say that they think Birmingham is in the North (my two friends from London received a right telling off for this).
  16. You get annoyed when non-Geordies think that people from Sunderland/Durham/Middlesborough/Hartlepool are Geordies (take heed Geordie Shore).
  17. Someone tells you that you sound like Cheryl/Ant and Dec/one of the Geordie Shore cast and you die a little inside.
  18. You realise that no one, NO ONE, cares about their football team as much as NUFC fans do.
  19. You miss the seaside (it’s always so close and easy to get to in the North East).
  20. You never meet many others Geordies in your new city (it seems we prefer to stay at home).
  21. But then you form an instant friendship with any other Geordie you do meet.
  22. You have a long commute back home to the toon (seriously, it’s so far away from everywhere else).
  23. You get a lump in your throat when you’re on the train home and finally see the Tyne and all her bridges (it gets me everytime).

By Stephanie Alderson (born in Newcastle, grew up in Newcastle, went to university in Cambridge, lives in Manchester)

 

If you’re an exiled Geordie who can think of more to say then please let us know in the comments and on Twitter

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