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ESSEX Survey.

AfroBarber

11:54 / 20.10.03

Who lives in Essex? Anyone living in Essex, especially near Loughton?tell me where.

illmatic

12:13 / 20.10.03

My mum lives in Ilford which I tend to think of as London as it's, y'know, Zone 4. I have been to Loughton though, I got nicked in Loughton tube layup back in my graffiti days. If yer after meeting up, you're best of coming into London.

Goodness Gracious Meme

13:30 / 20.10.03

answering the abstract: not any more, thank god.

Spent 3 years in Colchester, which likes to pretend it isn't in Essex.

yeahhhhh riiiiighht.

Therefore nodding acquaintance with Chelmsford
/Romford/Southend.

ugh.

knickers

20:52 / 22.10.03

I lived in Brentwood for 6 months in 2001.
When I left I was just beginning to understand the accent...

Pemulis / Dee Vapr / Hungrygho

20:03 / 23.10.03

I grew up in Chelmsford - and 18 years was far too long - and as far as I am concerned the whole county can rot in hell. A bigger pit of mediocrity, bigotry, snobbery and overt racism I have not found anywhere.

I could expand but frankly thinking about the place actively makes me depressed and the sooner my parents cut the ties and move away the better

Goodness Gracious Meme

20:10 / 23.10.03

Bah, Dee, you poor thing. Some friends went to uni/grew up in chelmsford and so i spent a fair bit of time there. It's rank, and they all loathe it.

Olulabelle

20:38 / 23.10.03

I used to live in Billericay.

It was godawful.

w1rebaby

21:39 / 23.10.03

I worked in Harlow for three years, commuting out of London every day.

A friend of mine said that if he lived there, he'd drive his car into a wall. I put that quote on the Idler's "crap towns" page. And Harlow is apparently one of the more interesting places in the area.

What I particularly liked was the fact that the piss-stained nothing-works concrete block station is a listed building. Pour encourager les autres I assume.

Char Aina

02:05 / 24.10.03

so none of you lithers are essex girls...

shame, i remember going to work with hair on my teeth last time i tangled with one of them...

oh god, i am drunk, arent i? shit.

spidermonkey

06:48 / 24.10.03

I seem to end up in Essex a lot entertaining small children and I have to say I find it fairly depressing.
I agree with you about Billericay Olulabelle, although the pain was relived by singing "Billericay Dickie" to myself!

illmatic

09:43 / 24.10.03

I've got a theory about that Essex Girls thing - apparently all those jokes originated in the City, from Yuppies. A lot of girls commute in from Essex, and if you're from round there you have a bit more of a "working class" accent. Now we all know that, in the mind of hideous Cityboys, "working class" = contemptible, therefore "Essex Girls" = working class = slags. It's some sort of class thing anyway.

Anyhow, is Essex significantly worse than the other areas heading out of London? Is Billericay necessarily worse than say, Beckenham, Orpington or Slough? Is it just a suburban thing?

Olulabelle

09:56 / 24.10.03

Actually, a lot of the city boys are Essex boys too, in particular the 'buy, buy',sell, sell' ones who do er...things on the stockmarket, so I'm not sure your theory follows through. I used to commute in and out of Liverpool Street with them all and it was hideous, especially the last train home on a Friday night.

At least in Orpington or Beckenham or somewhere like that they haven't all got more money than they know what to do with, in Billericay there was a scary amount of 20 year old lads driving about in flash convertible cars.

Ariadne

10:02 / 24.10.03

Essex is gorgeous! If you go cycling in the countryside, it's just great. Fabulous little villages and pubs and rolling hills - I'm an Essex fan.

sleazenation

10:15 / 24.10.03

I spent rather too much of my youth in Essex...

on Billericay...

Its basically the posh bit of Basildon (yeah yeah, say what you like about it being a seperate constituency, whatever) - its where all the dodgy business men and criminals go to live when they've made a bit of money -

Cherry Bomb

10:20 / 24.10.03

I'm an Essex fan.
Me too!! Sort of. Well, I think it's pretty. Sort of. BUt I've never really had to live there so it's different for me. Judging from the people who ride the drunk trains to essex, I don't THINK I'd like to live there...

illmatic

10:30 / 24.10.03

I know that about the City boys, I'd class some of my old friends in that bracket, mostly people I haven't seen for years though. I too have ridden those hellish trains. I do think the Essex girls thing is it's a class/accent thing though, I can't imagine the same thing being said about a load of nice, well spoken graduate girls. I have mixed relationship to the place as I have some friends out that way still, and they (and me) tend to valourise certain parts of it, while slagging it off at the same time. I could handle living in Ilford or Barking again, but the thought of going out towards Romford... and beyond.... *shudders*

Goodness Gracious Meme

10:41 / 24.10.03

Ill: agree wit' you...

experienced something similar in my 2nd year at uni, found myself living with three very middle-class girls from various little Surrey villages, and discovered that they'd grown up make 'essex girl'-type jokes about my home town, which is basically the south london overspill town(ie very similar to harlow/romford/etc), ie the working-class blot on lovely middle class home-counties life...

Mind you, there *are* some very beautiful bits, around the cambridgeshire border, for example... but again, places like saffron walden would rather you didn't remember they were actually in Essex.

Olulabelle

11:32 / 24.10.03

I am being mean. It's true, there are lovely parts of Essex, Saffron Walden being one of them. And Newport and Battlesbridge and Great Dunmow etc. I grew up in a village near Saffron Walden (although the village was actually Cambridgeshire) and I really like the area except it's a bit flat for me.

Illmatic, you're right. Essex girls have a bad name in the same way people tell jokes about the Irish. It's just seems to have set in the nations consciousness regardless of the fact that it's unfair. Although I have to say Romford does have it's fair share of proverbials.

sleazenation

11:59 / 24.10.03

the nice bits of Essex tent to be in the north of the county...

Brigade du jour

20:29 / 25.10.03

Thank you Ariadne and Cherry bomb, I thought I was going to be the only person on here sticking up for the county. I won't deny it's got a hideous reputation, and furthermore I won't deny it's sometimes deserved. But jesus, it's no worse than a lot of other place. At least it has nice bits, it's just people who've never been to Essex don't realise these exist. Yes indeed, the nice bits tend to be in the north, but then that's where you also get inbred people and farmers imploring you to 'get orf theyr laand'.

Ah cliche cliche cliche, me love you.

But cliches don't come from nowhere, so I suppose I can understand why people think the whole place should be carpet-bombed.

Hmm, that's what I call sticking up for it.

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