Letter: My roots in Yorkshire, Scandinavia

I agree with Blake Morrison, that the North is Scandinavian in character compared to the South ("How the other half lives", Review, 15 June). You can find it in the Yorkshire dialect. As a young lad there I would ask a pal if he was coming out "to lake", a corruption of a Scandinavian word for play. "Nay", Yorkshire for no, is also of Scandinavian origin.

And do we feel inferior to Southerners? Nay lad, not any more. We weren't badly affected by the recession, we don't suffer from negative equity and we don't have horrendous traffic jams. And here in the North-east there are no hosepipe bans either. Many of the ugly scars of industrialisation are gone - we are, in fact, now similar to the South in many respects. But it's still a lot cheaper to live up here.

Jon Laidlaw

Chester-le-Street, Co Durham