North in Lancashire and Cybermoor in Cumbria, to install high-speed internet connections. Mobile broadband coverage is similarly patchy, with 3G and 4G almost universal in cities but unavailable in large parts of Yorkshire, the North East and Cumbria. Culture and identity The individual regions of the North have had their own identities and cultures for centuries, but with industrialisation, mass media and the opening of the North–South divide, a common Northern identity began to develop. This identity was initially a reactionary response to Southern prejudices—the North of the nineteenth century was largely depicted as a dirty, wild and uncultured place, even in sympathetic depictions such as Elizabeth Gaskell's 1855 novel North and South—but became an affirmation of what Northerners saw as their own personal strengths. Traits stereotypically associated with Northern England are straight-talking, grit and warmheartedness, as compared to the supposedly effete Southerners. Northern England—especially Lancashire, but also Yorkshire and the North East—has a tradition of matriarchal families, where the woman of the house runs the home and controls the family's finances. This too has its roots in industrialisation, when mills offered well-paid work for women: during depressions when demand for coal and steel were low, women were often the main breadwinners. Northern women are still stereotyped as strong-willed and independent, or affectionately as battle-axes. "It's grim up north" The phrase it's grim up north is associated with coal mining, industrial mills, weather and the way of life in the north of England during the Victorian and post World War I eras, when mills, coal mining, child labour and slums were common. The phrase is often used by those who are not from the north of England, who paint the north as being different to the south of England. The current Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has quoted the north as being grim, but not a bad thing. The phrase was quoted in 1991 when the band The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu a.k.a. The KLF used it in relation to a lot of places in the north of England including Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and Yorkshire. As well as parts of the East Midlands Region and Cumbria and they use the phrase repeatedly in their song of the same name. Clothing The North of England is often stereotypically represented through the clothing worn by working-class men and women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Working men