Yorkshiremen: readers reply

Lancastrian Chris Maume set flat caps a-flutter with his views of those on t'other side of Pennines

As the last of a long line of Yorkshire women, I was tempted to agree with Chris Maume about my male compatriots. They are bone-headed, dogmatic and always right, as you say - but weren't they brought up that way by their mothers?

On second thoughts, maybe we need them to bounce off, to clear the air of hypocrisy and to compare and contrast with the sitters on the fence.

K O'Rourke

Fowey, Cornwall

Professional Yorkshiremen, those who make a career out of trading on their roots, are only meeting demand for regional caricatures by the media culture, which is London-centred. Hence the professional Yorkshireman fulfils the stereotype, and becomes a thing to be mocked, while at the same time the individual in question mocks those that have allowed him to wax lyrical and make a living out of it.

The Yorkshireness they portray has little to do with the diverse and rich multicultural society we have this side of the Pennines - as the envious Lancastrian Chris Maume will know.

Karl Spracklen

Faculty of Cultural and Education Studies

Leeds Metropolitan University

We don't need the arrogant Yorkshireman - or the stupid Irishman or parsimonious Scot. Such labels assume certain generic traits, implying that characteristics possess the person, not the other way round.

We need friendly, tolerant people regardless of birthplace and should reject that particular use of words like "Yorkshireman", which obscures individuals with fatuous, parochial assumptions. We do not need stereotypes.

A R Travis

Doncaster

As a Yorkshireman, I have, during the past four years, attempted to instil into the Lancashire psyche many of the attributes I have acquired through association, but with little success. As a missionary in a backward land, my beliefs are not dissipated by this constant derision. Remember, if not for a goalkeeper from Leeds, we'd all have been watching Wimbledon last week, and the petty social meanderings associated with it, instead of the football.

Martin Hines

Preston, Lancashire

What a cheeky young chappie that Chris Maume is; did he include "thick- skinned" in his list of Tyke attributes? However, when he said "as if they were somehow a nation state", he clearly showed he had missed the point. Like any nation state, we have our fair share of eccentrics, most of whom end up commentating on cricket for the BBC; and I must apologise for the severe public distress this particular Care in the Community project has caused.

PS. I wouldn't have thought even Geoffrey Boycott would have been daft enough to go on an expedition with Ranulph Fiennes, although it would have shut him up for a while.

A Pembleton

Sheffield, South Yorkshire

Maybe Chris Maume also believes all Americans are brash, all Swedish girls are sexy and Germans attend evening classes relating to sunbeds and towels.

For him to select a few well-known boors and misguided patriots is a poor way to sustain this museum-piece of an argument.

I could just as easily bang on about his home county of Lancashire, and its less than illustrious relatives ... Gracie Fields, George Formby, Cyril Smith, Terry Christian, etc, but I won't, because some of us Tykes are rational as well as proud.

G Pearson

London E3