Rick Rawes

Imagine this with me, if you will: Sean Bean wrapped in thick wolf furs, trudging up a cobbled street blanketed with fresh snow. The sky above is grey, like forgotten dishwater. In one hand, he holds a chipped mug bearing Victoria Wood’s likeness, filled with steaming Yorkshire tea. In the other, a Wigan kebab, with fresh HP sauce dripping between gravy-soaked fingers. Somewhere in the distance, a mill chugs out black smog, and an ageing colliery brass band plays the Hovis tune in slow, weeping breaths. You can picture that band, can’t you? Overweight, red-faced men, most probably remembering their days down pits.

That’s the North of England, right? Well, I’m sorry, but what a load of b******s.

The North in Fiction

The North (and yes, here the capitalisation is very much needed) is a strange and mysterious place in fiction. Some of the truth of it is well represented in film and books. Even in this very London-centric storytelling landscape, there are some absolutely excellent representations. Whether we visit Sheffield in The Full Monty and get a heart-warming tale of resilience in the face of economic oppression, or look at the complex layers of multicultural domesticity in East is East.

Many of us likely remember Victoria Wood singing about the chippy, or struggle to get Jane Horrock’s Lancashire accent out of our heads at its heaviest (I must admit I still never understand Bubbles). Sometimes, we see resilience through big brass bands, a la Brassed Off or… wait… There is the brass band. Yes, and there’s the red brick terraced back-to-backs. And there’s the grim black sense of humour deep beneath the grim reality of closed pits and job centres. And domestic violence. And casual homophobia.

And dear God, why would anyone want to take a trip up North? It seems, to the world at large, a dark and unforgiving place.

Heck, let’s go back to thinking about Sean Bean in wolf furs. The North are rebellious and proud. Poor. Bleak moors. Cold winters. Bound by honour and duty, yes, but forgotten by the Southern Kings. And over that wall, let’s not even get started on the crazy redheads who live in huts and treat incest as a family tradition. Granted, that’s Westeros, but Mr Martin isn’t exactly painting with crayons that don’t already exist in one stereotype or another.

So, I bring you back to this – it’s grim up north, isn’t it?

The North in My Life

I’ve lived in the North my entire life. Born in Merseyside, raised in Warrington. Child of parents from the red rose and white rose (which makes me, in turn, a pink rose, I believe). Was married to a man from Rotherham for a while. Educated in Manchester. Lived in Rawtenstall, Leeds and even inside the M60 at different times. Worked in Oldham, Todmorden, Bradford… in valleys and in mill towns. I’ve lived my life, for good and for ill, in the same streets used by so many storytellers to tell a story about the grim lives of Northerners.

And truth be told, I do have some memories that fit with their image of the North. It does piss it down rather a lot – and I have nearly cracked an ankle on a few cobbled streets. I once helped to sell books from an old disused mill, and definitely overheard more than my fair share of thick Yorkshire (and Lancashire) accents from old men drinking a pint of Carling at 9 am in Wetherspoons discussing ‘the scabs’. You can’t help but see poverty, from the tower blocks of council flats on the horizon to the crumbling former facades, now gentrified by bougie new street-food vendor businesses.

But, thankfully, it is not the whole truth. It’s a representation that comes from two main sources: the stereotypes that exist because people are too lazy to really find out about the place they’re writing about, or the well-meaning but still narrow-focused gaze of people trying to make a point about the neglect of the north by a southern-centric mindset.

I’ll tell you what the North is now. It’s a community, even when you wish Aunt Sheila would mind her own business and go back to trying to cheat at Bingo. It’s nattering to someone in a pub beer garden on a bright sunny day, on the bus, on a bench, in the park – anywhere – just because you happen to share the same space for a few minutes. It’s calling your mate a bellend rather than saying you love him, because the language you both speak is one of emotional metaphor rather than explicit acknowledgement. It’s buying fancy Belgian chocolate cookies at the farmer’s market and dunking them into your tea, which works out to around 3.4p a teabag after you buy a pack of 500 at Costco. And you’re damn proud of it. It’s nosy neighbours and posh knobs. It’s scallies and academics. It’s yesterday, and it’s tomorrow.

That is the North I write.

The North in My Fiction

The North isn’t entirely neglected in fiction, but I often found in my genre that it barely ever features. Maybe in grim (there’s that word again) crime dramas, or heart-warming tragic dramedies, sure. But in fantasy? Science fiction? Horror? Not so much.

When I write, I try to correct that. Manchester is the heart and home of many novels of different genres (Avalon, Insomniac, Proud Marys) and with the release of Echo in October, we’ll be venturing to Sheffield. York has popped up, although I apologise for what I did to the minster (Hope & Fury) and I will extend a similar apology to Liverpool (Fire & Water). We’ll even spend a lot of time in the town of Calendar in Lancashire (‘til the End of the World) which, although fictional, is very much based on a small town in Lancashire – and those who know, know.

If you jump into these novels and give them a go, you’ll see something different about the North. You’ll see a North filled with all kinds of people. Some of them smart, some of them dumb, some of them rich, some of them poor. You’ll see how real people react to myths and monsters in their world – and it’s not always the way you’d expect. But more than that, you’ll feel it.

When you step into the fantasy genre of Avalon, you won’t just see geography in action. You’ll take a ride through Rusholme’s curry mile and pop into a bar on Canal Street. You’ll see a showdown at the Bridgewater Hall and a sunset sword fight at the Manchester Cathedral. You’ll see these places, sure, but you’ll feel beyond them. The warmth. The humour. The love. And perhaps most importantly of all, the diversity. The tapestry that is the North, rather than the static picture of a rain-slicked cobbled street.

That’s the North you’ll see in my books, and I think honestly, a North we need to see more of beyond.

The North in the Future

I’ll finish up by telling you a little about what inspired this post. I don’t honestly have a massive chip on my shoulder about the southern-centric literary landscape (and very real political landscape). I also genuinely believe some of the greatest works of British fiction have come from the very portrayals of the North shown through some of the movies mentioned above. But I also think it’s time to move beyond – because the mindset seems stuck.

I was reading a book. On UFOs, of all things. The author had been collecting first hand accounts of UFO sightings and alien visitations from witnesses in the UK. He quite proudly stated that he had been all around the country. From Surrey to the West Midlands. It was a small statement, but incredibly telling.

The entire UK – England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland – from Surrey to the West Midlands. A distance of about 100 miles give or take.

Sigh. *dunks ginger nut disappointedly*

This country is a beautiful one – when at its best. The North is a part of it, a big part. It is as beautiful, and ugly, and varied as the stories which should be coming out of it. The stories which should stand toe-to-toe with others from all over this country, and all over this world. Not in opposition, but alongside, representing this land in it’s entirety.

It’s grim up north? Yeah, sometimes it is. But in one indie writer’s humble opinion, it’s a truckload more. So why not give us a chance to show you?

In the meantime, I have a soggy bit of biscuit to fish out of my mug.

‘til the End
Rick Rawes
Leeds, West Yorkshire
7^th August 2026