What Does 'England' Mean To You?

[Blanche Fury]

I’ve got little or no interest in football, but the twin flags that flap like spaniels’ ears on every other car at the moment mean that even I can’t ignore the fact that the football World Cup is fast approaching. (I hope England do well, and if they make it through to the later rounds I might even watch the games.) All these extravagant displays of patriotism make me wonder exactly what the fliers of the flags are supporting – what does ‘England’ mean to them? Is their ‘Eng-er-land’ the same as my ‘England’? Probably my idea of England is just as mythical as theirs.



I consider myself very English, but also very European. (Oddly enough, I’ve never thought of myself as especially British.) I think it’s obviously good to be happy about, and proud of, one’s identity. Patriotism (which I take to mean loving one’s country just because it is one’s country, as one loves one’s parents just because they’re one’s parents) is a very basic, fundamental human feeling and essentially a good thing, but can very easily turn into nationalism (thinking that one’s country is somehow naturally superior to others), a very bad thing. (I’ve just reread this paragraph and it is very pompous – sorry.)



Here’s a fairly random list of some of the things I think of when I think of England. I realise that it’s likely to be from a middle-class, middle-aged southerner’s perspective, and as such wildly incomplete, or even plain incorrect. Anyone have any comments/additions/corrections?





Hundreds of varieties of differently delicious beer, all outsold by bland ‘foreign’ (ie brewed in Britain) lagers.



The genteel, unexciting, but green and quietly beautiful Hertfordshire countryside.



The class system, still going strong.



Political apathy – large numbers of people not even bothering to vote, eg.



Laziness combined with an inability to enjoy leisure time inoffensively.



Pantomime.



A Macdonalds and Starbucks on every corner.



Late middle-aged couples picnicking at airshows.



The gently melancholy music of Gerald Finzi.



Well tended gardens.



Church spires in the Midlands, superb towers in Somerset.



Locked churches.



Suspicion of authority.



Out of town supermarkets.



Being not very good at sport.



Village cricket greens next to village pubs.



Cities, especially London, dirty and crowded and seemingly on the verge of ceasing to function.



Theme parks.



Regional accents.



Insularity and parochialism.



Willingness to help strangers.



Obsession with ‘celebrities’.



National Trust country houses.



The first industrialised country, and that ever since has in many ways been the first country to experience very many social trends.



Crowded roads.



Nostalgia.



60s pop.



Closed mines turned into tourist attractions.



Keeping oneself to oneself.



Samuel Palmer, John Piper, John Sell Cotman, Samuel Prout.



Indifference to music.



Ugly 20th cen buildings.



Dickens and Shakespeare.



Endlessly interesting weather.



The Sun selling ten times as many copies as the Guardian.



The belief that there’s something admirable and deliciously daring about drinking too much.



The death of Christianity.



Political dissent – Levellers, Chartists, etc.



Immigrants from all over the world happily absorbed and contributing to ‘Englishness’.



Theme pubs.



John Surman (like Finzi, often has a tinge of pastoral melancholy).



Reading this list through, I’m struck that I seem to have come up with more negative points than positive, which wasn’t my aim, or how I thought it would go. But there you are. Over to you…

[frame69]

I dont live in England but was born there. There are not many supporters down here.

Frame.

[HUGHJAMPTON]

It means I can post this again.



[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LVjDUeb2_U[/media]

[Moor Larkin]

These programmes were quite interesting, broadcast a year or two ago.....



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ncHJ...eature=related



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0090b8b#synopsis



It was a fairly individual point of view, but made some sense, about how being English was all about having no *fixed* identity, but constantly being changed by trade and immigration.



Insofar as flags go, in 1966 it was all Union Jacks.

We've been influenced by the influx from Eastern Europe since............

[caferacer63]

Why do you see nationalism as bad? It is unfortunate that you, and others, associate English nationalism - or any kind of nationalism - with ideas of the Third Reich, which seems to be the inference. I'm an unashamed English nationalist, yet I have no time for Hitler-loving nutcases. I simply believe we English have a right to be proud of who we are and the country we founded - England, derived from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Englalond, meaning 'land of the Engle'. We have a right to see ourselves as many people of the world do - a distinct people with our own ethnic identity. From what I can tell from your comments, you seem to think that just about any non English person can be English just be living in England or being born here. England was named after the English, not vice versa. Your views are of the civic variety, whereby we are not allowed to have a distinct identity of our own. For example, Chinese people living here are still seen as Chinese from their physical appearance, and you would not dare take issue with them for seeing it has their ethnic identity. What you are prepared to do, however, is give my English identity to all and sundry - the excuse no doubt being is that we are a 'mongrel nation' and therefore cannot claim to have a distinct ethnic identity. Really? So, for example, the Chinese have no connection to other oriental groups?? Yet, no-one would suggest that their Chinese ethnic identity is a myth that cannot go beyond it being mere feeling, as there may be an admixture from other oriental groups - or does the wish to disavow us of our ethnic identity only apply to the English? It would seem so. This civic argument is a rather weak one. By your reckoning I could move to Australia, absorb Aboriginal culture, language and customs and then become an Aboriginal! Ditto if I moved to America and absorbed native American culture - though I doubt no matter how hard I tried, I would not be regarded by them as an ethnic native American. No-one would take offence at their pointing out the obvious that I am not, or ever could be, one of them. It is obvious! Yet, when I want the same uniqueness for my own people, I am called every clichéd and insulting name under the sun - 'racist', 'knuckle dragger', 'white supremacist', 'neo-Nazi', etc. The fact that I'm none of those, but simply an Englishman who wishes for the English to have a unique identity of their own, won't matter to those that wish to paint the English as a 'non people' - a people whose identity (they think) goes beyond no more than a feeling - i.e. if you think you are English then you are. Absolute baloney! Still, I can live with the name-calling from hypocrites who target the English above all in this respect. I'm English. It is my identity, not to be doled out to just anyone for the sake of not being called 'extreme' - or as you seem to think, nationalist. If you and others wish to label me as one thing or another because I want the same right to a unique identity - a thing that is encouraged in others as being a mark of a rich and vibrant culture unique to the people it comes from - then so be it.



ASF

[Steve Crook]

name='Blanche Fury' date='07 June 2010 - 01:55 PM' timestamp='1275915319' post='436729']

The class system, still going strong.

Where? It's nothing like it was in the past and now it's no worse and not much different to the class system in every other country - apart from a few "professional working class" people who make a living by being outrageously working class for the media



Steve

[ShirlGirl]

When I arrived in England for the first time, I immediately felt a distinct sense of belonging. Having never given much thought to my English heritage, this took me by surprise. But there it was… a strange feeling almost as if I had come home.



(The inbred “Mother Country� thing rising to the surface? )



I stayed for nearly six years and have returned briefly only twice, and even if I never get there again, I'm sure I’ll always feel that bond.





But......... My Country







The love of field and coppice, of green and shaded lanes,

Of ordered woods and gardens is running in your veins......

[penfold]

name='caferacer63' date='07 June 2010 - 03:15 PM' timestamp='1275920142' post='436754']From what I can tell from your comments, you seem to think that just about any non English person can be English just be living in England or being born here.

And that is where we differ. Ethnically, we are, and have always been a mongrel people. The Angles are merely one ingredient in a heady soup of peoples contributing to our gene pool.....Beaker, Celts, Britons, Romans (and from the extended Roman Empire), Jutes, Vikings, Norman French, Jews, Gypsies, Huguenots, Dutch, and in the last couple of centuries from our own extended Empire....Africans, Indians, Chinese, and all bringing elements of their culture with them, to add to ours.

But then mongrel dogs are, by and large, healthier, most intelligent dogs....you can only object to the term mongrel if you think it's an aspersion, rather than a badge to be proud of.

And one of the reasons I am so proud to be English....is that it's as much to do with ideals of tolerance, fairness, distrust of religious and political extremism; not any fanciful notions of racial purity. The speech from Theo Kretschmarr-Schuldorff at his Aliens Tribunal in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp puts it better than I. It's great to be English.....but yes, everyone can join. That's our strength.

[SirOllyBolly]

name='Steve Crook' date='07 June 2010 - 03:39 PM' timestamp='1275921561' post='436765']

Where? It's nothing like it was in the past and now it's no worse and not much different to the class system in every other country .....

How about that incident a while back where Boris Johnson chased off some hoodies, calling them 'Oiks!'...?



Cries out 'class system' to me

[DB7]

Eccentricity.

[Moor Larkin]

name='penfold' date='07 June 2010 - 04:55 PM' timestamp='1275926102' post='436795']Ethnically, we are, and have always been a mongrel people.

But so is everyone else. I was just reading that China has over 50 ethnic groups. There is no ethnic purity in any *civilised* nation (only *primitive* tribes). The whole thing is a myth.



However there can perhaps be *cultural* purities and clearly the England of today is not as it was prior to the 1950's. America is England writ large in that it has attempted to replicate the English tradition of giving everybody freedom to express their individuality, within a civic nation............. and we all know how popular America can be in here........

[Fellwanderer]

name='penfold' date='07 June 2010 - 04:55 PM' timestamp='1275926102' post='436795']

And that is where we differ. Ethnically, we are, and have always been a mongrel people. The Angles are merely one ingredient in a heady soup of peoples contributing to our gene pool.....Beaker, Celts, Britons, Romans (and from the extended Roman Empire), Jutes, Vikings, Norman French, Jews, Gypsies, Huguenots, Dutch, and in the last couple of centuries from our own extended Empire....Africans, Indians, Chinese, and all bringing elements of their culture with them, to add to ours.

But then mongrel dogs are, by and large, healthier, most intelligent dogs....you can only object to the term mongrel if you think it's an aspersion, rather than a badge to be proud of.

And one of the reasons I am so proud to be English....is that it's as much to do with ideals of tolerance, fairness, distrust of religious and political extremism; not any fanciful notions of racial purity. The speech from Theo Kretschmarr-Schuldorff at his Aliens Tribunal in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp puts it better than I. It's great to be English.....but yes, everyone can join. That's our strength.

What penfold [and Theo] said

[batman]

There is nothing wrong with being proud of one's country and culture. I am. However, we are all citizens of the world and there are many other countries and cultures which can be enjoyed. Over the past couple of years I have met several people from a part of the world that I knew little about and they have become good friends. It has been great fun learning from them about their way of life and hopefully adding a little to their knowledge of ours. Enjoy it all!

[SirOllyBolly]

name='DB7' date='07 June 2010 - 05:52 PM' timestamp='1275929534' post='436818']

Eccentricity.

Thats boll**ks!



He was born, raised and educated well apart from the peasantry - you need that sort of distance from reality to go into politics....



Also, isn't funny how all trade union spokespersons seem to be 'working class' - usually militant scousers, brummies or scots - whereas correspondents to newspapers on royalty or Ascot seem to be well-spoken, upper-class types...?

[grotbags]

name='caferacer63' date='07 June 2010 - 10:15 AM' timestamp='1275920142' post='436754']

Why do you see nationalism as bad?

What you want is a white England. I respect your opinions and wishes, but why pad your argument out with a huge post about nothing.

I am against mass immigration to this country. I also don't like bananas or punk music.

I wasn't brainwashed into disliking any of the three. I didn't choose to dislike them. So there's no way I could ever be talked into changing my views about them.

Regarding a white England...it ain't ever gonna happen mate.

[Mark O]

I agree with many of the points you've listed Blanche, but I wouldn't agree Christianity or any other Religion is 'dead' as such, judging by the amount of people I see entering and leaving Churches and more modern religious buildings on a Sunday morning when I'm doing my rounds, freedom is what wars started by other nations have had to be fought for.......

[GoggleboxUK]

England is History, more so than almost any other country.



Our history is everywhere, home and abroad. We see it in architecture, tradition, ceremony, fashion, literature, sport, art and science. We are world leaders with a chequered past which brought, and still brings, us equal amounts of pride and guilt.



A mighty nation which has gaven birth to inspirational men and women who, for the most varied reasons, are outstanding in their field and immortalised by their deeds. Shakespeare, Newton, Faraday, Wordworth, Byron, Gainsborough and Churchill stand shoulder to shoulder with Sir Roger Banister, Margaret Thatcher, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Christopher Wren, Captain Scott, John Lennon, Richard Branson and Emily Pankhurst.



We are a small nation of large people, figureheads of the planet's desire to push forward the boundaries of knowledge. Not world leaders but an example to the rest of humankind of the pioneering spirit.

[Steve Crook]

name='SirOllyBolly' date='07 June 2010 - 05:15 PM' timestamp='1275927354' post='436802']

How about that incident a while back where Boris Johnson chased off some hoodies, calling them 'Oiks!'...?



Cries out 'class system' to me

I said there are a few "professional working class" people.

There are also professional fools, like Boris



Can you imagine many other people like him in this day and age?



Steve

[Steve Crook]

name='SirOllyBolly' date='07 June 2010 - 06:55 PM' timestamp='1275933329' post='436850']

Thats boll**ks!



He was born, raised and educated well apart from the peasantry - you need that sort of distance from reality to go into politics....

So how do you explain people like John Prescott?

Also, isn't funny how all trade union spokespersons seem to be 'working class' - usually militant scousers, brummies or scots - whereas correspondents to newspapers on royalty or Ascot seem to be well-spoken, upper-class types...?

Again a few "professional working class" people

There are also a few "professional sycophants"



I knew a chap who went by the name of Jeffrey Ashley-Brown who spoke with a very plummy voice.

But then we got to know him better and we also got to know his Mum, Edna Brown who was born in the east end and still liked brown ale and jellied eels.



Anyone can put on an act. Some people put on an act for so long that they come to believe it themselves



Steve

[Steve Crook]

name='Mark O' date='07 June 2010 - 07:49 PM' timestamp='1275936595' post='436879']

I agree with many of the points you've listed Blanche, but I wouldn't agree Christianity or any other Religion is 'dead' as such, judging by the amount of people I see entering and leaving Churches and more modern religious buildings on a Sunday morning when I'm doing my rounds, freedom is what wars started by other nations have had to be fought for.......

That's an American brochure. The Americans have always been a lot more religious than the British.



These churches and other places of worship that you see being very busy on a Sunday (or on other days for some of them), how many are Church of England?



Steve