READING Mr Wardell’s letter “Blame Southerners”, The Press, November 27, made me smile as I and my husband who worked on the railway, came to York 48 years ago but from Co Durham.

I have to say that for a time I felt an alien in York as, where I was brought up, people smiled and acknowledged you even if they did not know you when passing you in the street. Eventually I made friends who I still have mostly through chapel and the bowling club.

People move for all kinds of reasons from county to county and although I still say I am going up home when I travel to Chester-le-Street, I am glad it was York we moved to all those years ago.

Maureen Robinson, Broadway, York.