Former residents of Birmingham have rejected a report that describes the city as the rudest in Britain.
The UAE-based Britons who once lived in the one million-strong city say the local people are as friendly as elsewhere in the country.
A survey of eight United Kingdom cities by Reader's Digest looked at whether checkout staff said "please" and "thank you", whether people held doors open and whether passers-by picked up items dropped from shopping bags.
Just 43 per cent of people in Birmingham were found to be courteous, compared to 77 per cent in Newcastle, which took top spot.
Other cities deemed to be more polite than Birmingham were Liverpool, Exeter, Cardiff, London, Southampton and Edinburgh.
However, Jane Skelcey, 29, a Dubai media worker who was born in the city and spent many years living there, took issue with the findings.
"I find them hard to believe. I find London, where I used to work, far worse. In the capital it's a case of: 'Move out of my way or I'm going to trample you.' London should win in the rudeness stakes hands down," she said.
Skelcey said people from Birmingham or Brummies as they are known are very proud of their roots but not hostile to outsiders.
She added that the city, which has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past decade, was a good place to live for those who like big cities but are put off by London's size and pace.
She added: "In some ways Birmingham reminds me of Dubai in that there are always new developments popping up."
Birmingham itself is home to about one million people, although the wider West Midlands conurbation has more than two million residents.
Ben Moore, 31, who lived just outside Birmingham and now works for a publishing company in Dubai, agreed with Skelcey that the city should not be branded the rudest in Britain.
"I think it's a fantastic place with plenty of nightlife and a population that's very diverse ethnically. The people there are fine they are perfectly friendly," he said.
David Stoot, 35, who went to university in Birmingham in the late 1980s and early 1990s but who comes from the south of England, painted a slightly less positive picture of Brummies.
"They seem to keep themselves to themselves and because their accent is so distinctive, it is very obvious there whether someone is a local or not.
"They did not seem to mix much with those from outside they didn't seem to have time for them but perhaps as students we didn't make much effort to get to know them," he said.
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