As a Northerner living down south, I have my tea in the evening and my dinner at about 1pm. This confuses the Southerners because they have lunch (probably cous cous and coconut water) at 1pm and dinner in the evening. Tea to them is only a drink ☕️
Replies
My partner, from the States, has decided the suvverners have it right. "Tea" for the evening meal is verboten 🫤 This is not progress.
nov 29, 2024, 8:49 am • 1 0 • view
Northern lass here with a southern father - we had breakfast,dinner,tea and then supper. Magical
nov 28, 2024, 8:55 pm • 1 0 • view
I’m Welsh - we eat our seaweed & boiled leeks any time we can get it… 😀
nov 28, 2024, 5:03 pm • 3 0 • view
But wait, you’re from Southampton…. Wha happen…? 🤷🏻♂️🤪
nov 29, 2024, 1:25 pm • 0 0 • view
It was always as you say in the East End of London when I was growing up.
nov 29, 2024, 12:51 am • 1 0 • view
I’m in the south and I’ve always called my evening meal tea, I always think lunch or dinner are an afternoon thing, maybe it’s because my granddad was from Newcastle and we learnt it off him 🤷♂️
nov 28, 2024, 3:11 pm • 1 0 • view
They know nothin' (King of the North!!)
nov 29, 2024, 8:05 am • 1 0 • view
Southerner here it's tea in the evening. Dinner at lunch... Maybe because I have northern parents
nov 29, 2024, 8:50 am • 2 0 • view
I can see you still have a lot to learn about Southern living. Dinner is at 1PM, and supper is the evening meal.
nov 28, 2024, 5:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Now I am confused 🤣🤣
nov 28, 2024, 3:36 pm • 0 0 • view
What’s wrong with that Soph
nov 28, 2024, 5:07 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm a south Wales expat living in the west of England and I say dinner & tea, as does my other half and she is English. I think it is a "poshness" thing. Us working class say dinner & tea whilst the posh umongst us say lunch & dinner.
nov 29, 2024, 5:14 am • 1 0 • view
You and me both - as a Nottinghamian living in Bournemouth, having dinner at lunchtime and tea for my dinner really cheeses of my Londoner wife and sarf coast kids!
nov 28, 2024, 8:40 pm • 1 0 • view
As any aficionado of the Sound of Music will tell you, tea is "a drink with jam and bread..."
nov 28, 2024, 8:55 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm just a silly American but I could go for a bit of Crumpet right now:)
nov 28, 2024, 6:07 pm • 0 0 • view
When in Rome!
nov 29, 2024, 3:33 pm • 0 0 • view
I’m an avocado eating chai latte drinking softie living near Southampton. Don’t worry, I can deal with it!
nov 28, 2024, 7:10 pm • 0 0 • view
Nothing says 'North' more than having your 'Tea' between 5 and 6pm.
nov 28, 2024, 3:58 pm • 0 0 • view
I’ve become more sophisticated and southernised and unfortunately have my dinner early evening. Still love chips, mushy peas and gravy though
nov 28, 2024, 4:06 pm • 0 0 • view
nov 28, 2024, 7:46 pm • 1 0 • view
Bloody Northerners, I've worked in many places up North and often felt the need for an interpreter or dictionary anywhere North of the Watford gap! 😜 Also, once worked with a Geordie for a whole summer and never understood a full sentence, just nodded sagely at suitable silences, if they ever came.
nov 28, 2024, 8:53 pm • 0 0 • view
Lol, you clearly don’t live in Southampton 😂😂😂
nov 28, 2024, 9:07 pm • 1 0 • view
I rarely have tea these days because I rarely have a cooked lunch on Sunday.
may 26, 2025, 9:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Never really cropped up in our house, but I've just asked my southern wife and apparently its lunch and dinner, whereas I say dinner and tea. I wouldn't mind but she's lived in Yorkshire for 35 years now and has added the words anall and nowt to her vocabulary, so there's no excuse!
nov 30, 2024, 1:39 pm • 0 0 • view
Always lived down south but agree with you, except lunch was at 1 (dinner was a meal you went out for or had on Christmas day).
nov 28, 2024, 3:26 pm • 0 0 • view
Born and raise southerner here. I've always had breakfast, dinner and tea. Mum was from Doncaster though so I suppose I grew up with it 🤷♂️
nov 28, 2024, 3:03 pm • 5 0 • view
Like you, Northener living down south (longer than I lived at "home"), but breakfast, lunch and dinner. But I wish there was a decent bloody chippy that was open when the pubs shut, or open at all!!
nov 28, 2024, 3:59 pm • 0 0 • view
And you can't find gravy in a chippy down south.
nov 28, 2024, 5:16 pm • 1 0 • view
North of the border northerner here 👋 🏴 . Edinburgh/Lothians area lunch is lunch and tea is the same as dinner but more folk I know call it their tea 😁
nov 29, 2024, 2:30 pm • 2 0 • view
You’re posh clearly.
nov 29, 2024, 4:14 pm • 1 0 • view
Whoa whoa whoa…there born and raised southerner here…always called it lunchtime (no cous cous) obvs at lunchtime and tea at teatime. Bloomin’ northerners coming down here being racist and 💩…🤣…tarring us all with the same brush. And I drink Yorkshire tea strong, no sugar and a splash of milk.
nov 28, 2024, 3:00 pm • 1 0 • view
Sorry Paula, must be the people I mix with! Next thing you'll be telling me you don't drink shandy? 😂
nov 28, 2024, 3:15 pm • 2 0 • view
I will tell you I don’t drink shandy as I not had a drink for over 2 years now…for no reason other than I choose not too…but one has many other vices 🤣
nov 28, 2024, 3:33 pm • 1 0 • view
Lunch at lunchtime Tea at Teatime thats us in Midlands
nov 28, 2024, 2:52 pm • 1 0 • view
Not in Nottingham - dinner at lunchtime and tea at dinner time 😀
nov 28, 2024, 8:41 pm • 0 0 • view
Yeah, East Mids originally, but I've taken my preference for "breakfast, lunch, tea" up north with me.
nov 28, 2024, 10:25 pm • 1 0 • view
They speak funny too!
nov 28, 2024, 2:53 pm • 0 0 • view
As a GenX northerner… tea coincided with the children’s programmes… then we could bin off the news and play out more (when there was only 3 channels) 😂😂🥴
nov 28, 2024, 5:45 pm • 0 0 • view
It’s true. That’s quite literally blown my mind 🤯
nov 29, 2024, 12:36 pm • 2 0 • view
This causes confusion in our house. Southerner here & OH E.Mids. Lunch & dinner for me, reverse for him. I think of tea as about 4pm cuppa, sandwiches & cake or what kids have after school (having had school lunch). So long as the right meal gets cooked it’s all good 😊
nov 29, 2024, 1:41 pm • 2 0 • view
As a Southerner living up north I agree with them wholeheartedly
nov 28, 2024, 6:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Just had some chianti in my chai latte
nov 29, 2024, 9:47 pm • 0 0 • view
Ponce 😜
nov 30, 2024, 12:04 pm • 1 0 • view
Rude
nov 30, 2024, 6:00 pm • 0 0 • view
'appen.
nov 28, 2024, 3:49 pm • 0 0 • view
As a lifelong Southerner, I’ve always had breakfast, dinner and tea. Maybe that’s a Bristolian thing though? We are different from a lot of the South
nov 29, 2024, 12:55 am • 1 0 • view
Try explaining a barm cake to a southerner 😄
nov 28, 2024, 5:47 pm • 0 0 • view
As a northerner who has lived down south from early teens, I’m still being pulled up on it by my well meaning ‘southern’ family! Ok, so I might do it to wind them up occasionally but hey, that’s northern humour!
nov 28, 2024, 11:58 pm • 3 0 • view
How far South are we talking here? I'm in East Anglia and it's always been teatime, what's for tea etc.
nov 28, 2024, 4:00 pm • 0 0 • view
Yep. Breakfast, lunch and tea. Dinner doesn't exist. I mean maybe "Sunday dinner" is acceptable, but that's time-agnostic anyway.
nov 28, 2024, 10:30 pm • 0 0 • view
They have supper in the south as well, and they don’t mean cocoa and a digestive biscuit (Stuart Maconie writes about this).
nov 28, 2024, 2:51 pm • 1 0 • view
What do they have for supper? I’ve lived my whole life in the south and have never heard anyone talk about supper.
nov 29, 2024, 1:23 pm • 0 0 • view
Tea was light refreshment in the afternoon for upper & middle class women in the South of England in days of yore. It involved tea & probably cake(s). We do have lunch at midday & dinner in the evening. Although when Sunday dinner was in the middle of the day tea was sandwiches or salad in evening.
may 26, 2025, 9:09 pm • 0 0 • view
This is also my world, and she can't get her head around a spot of supper when I roll in from the pub, I'm considering introducing High tea into the equation to completely fry her head.
nov 28, 2024, 6:36 pm • 0 0 • view
Absolutely!
nov 28, 2024, 2:51 pm • 0 0 • view
I could swear I paid for my school dinners with my dinner money though....
nov 29, 2024, 2:41 pm • 0 0 • view