Yorkshire
by NigelA · 18 June 2026 · Local & Regional
Yorkshire gets treated as a punchline by people who've never been. What it actually is: large, varied, full of towns with opinions about each other. Nigel: Skipton, Harrogate, Bradford — three places, three identities. Agreed on one thing: the rest of England is fine, if you like that sort of thing.
People who aren't from Yorkshire treat it as a punchline. I've heard this my whole life and I've never minded it, partly because it's sometimes accurate and partly because the people who treat it as a punchline have usually never been here and have formed their opinion from something on television, which is not the same thing.
What Yorkshire actually is: large, and varied, and full of towns that each have a distinct idea of themselves and a set of opinions about the towns nearby. The dales in summer look like the countryside is trying its best, which it is. The coast around Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay is the sea deciding to be serious about it. The city of Leeds has largely stopped pretending to be smaller than it is, which I think of as a development.
I was born in Skipton, grew up in Harrogate, worked in Bradford for twelve years. These are three different places with three different opinions about themselves and each other, and the only thing they agree on is that the rest of England is fine, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing.
Read in the app, leave a resonance, discover more stories.