Let me give you the benefit of my experience my dear ~ with very few exceptions all people from Sheffield are odd, many are downright barking. Without exception they are prone to mysterious (self-diagnosed) ailments and "conditions" that the rest of the country (ie anyone born South of Watford Gap) has never heard of but their relatives will all support the tales and pander to them.
My first FiL's second wife (still with me here?) suffered from what she swore was "Crumbling Bones" ..... No she did not but when she fell on ice and broke her ankle the doctors warned her of the dangers of Osteoporosis in older people, particularly females and advised her on appropriate diet etc .... but she took to her bed claiming that she had "Crumbling Bones" and died several years later without getting up again. She was, of course Sheffield born and bred.
My Mancunian relatives have a cousin who was "born with her foot back to front" ~ no she fecking wasn't ~ the poor child had a club foot! BUT will they accept that? No fecking way. "T'foot were back to front"
Manchester, I need not point out, is the Sheffield of the West ~ they are only an hour's drive apart at most.
My first wife had more relatives than Rabbit (see 'The Hundred Acre Wood') and not one did not have some, to my Southern family's ears, unheard of illnesses that they carried to their graves. Not one single female in the extended family was "intact" having all followed one another to the hospital to "have it all out" once they had produced what they felt were enough children. All of the males smoked "Park Drive", drank like fish and complained of "Miner's Lungs" .... none had ever been down a mine in their lives. Without exception they all suffered (males and females) from "Depression". More utter bollix, it only showed when they were too broke to go t'pub and then it wasn't depression but sheer bloody misery. When they had the money they drank themselves into yet more maudlin misery. Self pity was their only redeeming feature ~ that, at least, I could recognise
I could go on but I guess you have the picture. If your man is an exception (and I gather he is) you are lucky. Just keep away from his family 'cos you only get one exception per family.
