I RECENTLY overheard one side of a mobile phone conversation in a shop in York. The youth on the phone I took to be a student.

The conversation went as follows: “Oh yes, it’s nice up here in York – the only problem is it’s full of northerners.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Born and lived all my life within four miles of the city centre and now classed as a problem – that really got up my nose.

Are we locals becoming aliens in our own town? Perhaps there is an opportunity for someone to come up with a slogan on the line of “I am not an inconvenience. I live here.”

D M Deamer, Penleys Grove Street, Monkgate, York.