English

by Ben Fogle

‘What does Englishness mean?’ I asked, getting down to the issue at hand.

  ‘It is strange that you ask someone from Gremloids about Englishness. Tea, queuing, roses, binge drinking, vomiting on the high street, louts …’

  I asked him about his manifesto, which included free bicycles for all and the nationalization of Adele. ‘I’d also like to nationalize Chris Rea,’ he replied. ‘He knows a thing or two about our transport problems.’

  ‘Road to hell?’ I replied.

  He nodded gently.

  I placed my ball on the putting tee and clipped it with my club while Lord Buckethead looked on.

  Also included in his manifesto was the right to hunt fox hunters. ‘Would you consider a coalition?’ I asked.

  ‘With John Craven, yes,’ he answered.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘What would be in your manifesto?’

  ‘Free umbrellas.’

  ‘Brilliant idea.’

  The whole scenario was superbly English, as Buckethead and I worked our way around the putting green while east London hipsters did their hipsterish thing.

  Here was a man who, through all his outer space/earthling chat, is the true manifestation of Englishness. Whether he is from Gremloids or just a very clever political satirist, he is the embodiment of English quirkiness and eccentricity. Like all great examples of Englishness he is a living paradox, a box of contradictions. Someone who is deadly serious but is happy to laugh at himself. He confuses and confounds.

  For someone with impaired vision, his putting was pretty good. We finished the eight holes tied – a good English compromise.

  ‘I want to bring back Ceefax, Mr Fogle,’ he explained as he returned his golf club to a member of staff, who again acted as if men of six foot five in giant black masks are an everyday occurrence in east London. Maybe they are. ‘Fist bump,’ he said as he clenched his leather-gloved fist and tapped mine before dropping the metaphorical bomb.

  And so ended my extraordinary audience with the legendary Lord Buckethead. ‘You must make Englishness great again,’ he said as we parted company.

  Of course Lord Buckethead isn’t the first unusual political candidate. Even in 2017 we had the wonderful Mr Fishfinger, who stood in the constituency of former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, mocking Farron throughout the campaign. When the result was announced, Mr Fishfinger relieved the gravity of the moment by making faces behind Mr Farron’s back and then declared that his own tally of 400 votes was a devastating blow. He said, ‘I’m absolutely shattered walking back to hotel for a few hours in the freezer then off to London in the afternoon thanks everyone.’

  Lord Buckethead and Mr Fishfinger are part of a long tradition. As a child, I have vivid memories of a man wearing a top hat, leopard print coat and huge rosettes and badges screaming into a loud hailer. The legendary Screaming Lord Sutch.

  In 1963, he stood for the National Teenage Party – advocating the right to vote for eighteen-year-olds – in the by-election in Stratford-upon-Avon brought about by John Profumo’s resignation. He only won 209 votes and lost the first of many deposits, but a pattern was set for the next thirty-five years as Screaming Lord Sutch and the Monster Raving Loony Party became a feature of every British election.

  The party’s policies and slogans were mostly fanciful – ‘Vote for insanity, you know it makes sense’ – but the impact on real politicians was far from it. By getting up on the platform with Harold Wilson or Denis Healey, or offering to merge with the Social Democrats in 1980, Lord Sutch and colleagues made sure no one could take things too seriously, at least in front of the cameras.

  He stood for Parliament thirty-nine times, garnered 15,000 votes over the course of his political life, lost more than £10,000 in deposits and incurred £85,000 in campaign expenses. His best result was in Rotherham in May 1994 when he gained 1,114 votes, only 200 short of the number required to save his deposit. Perhaps the most politically significant result was when he got 418 votes in Bootle in May 1990. The struggling Social Democrat candidate polled 155. The result convinced the party’s then leader David Owen that the breakaway party couldn’t carry on. To add salt to the wound, it was then that Sutch offered to merge the Monster Raving Loony Party with the Social Democrats.

  There were so many aspects of Screaming Lord Sutch that define him as English. Not only was he clearly eccentric but he drank up to twenty cups of tea a day, and he held victory parties and concerts on the night before polling day to avoid disappointment at inevitably losing yet another deposit. Like I say, the English love to celebrate failure.

  Another serial offbeat by-election candidate was Commander Bill Boaks, a retired hero of the Second World War. Boaks stood for election for over thirty years on the single issue of road safety. Ironically, and tragically, he died from head injuries while getting off a bus.

  The Official Monster Raving Loony Party might be the most famous of eccentric parties, but there have been plenty more. In fact, over 700 different parties have been represented on the ballot paper in British elections since the 1950s.

  I once had a friend, now a prominent writer, who ran for MP under the campaign banner, ‘No fruit out of context’. He was trying to ban the use of fruit in savoury food, expressing particular disgust at the Hawaiian pizza with its pineapple. At the time we thought he was as batty as his campaign, but you simply need to look at the recent election of Iceland’s Pirate Party, who have only gone and banned pineapple on pizza, to realize his manifesto wasn’t so crazy after all.

  In 2015 the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party suffered a setback after objections were made to their use of the word ‘crumpet’ (here referring to women, rather than baked goods). After some consideration they rebranded themselves as as Beer, Baccy and Scratchings Party. A Mr Blobby ran as an independent in the 1995 Littleborough & Saddleworth by-election. His policies? A four-day week, fixing wobbly tables in restaurants, and bricking up the Channel Tunnel. Only in England.

  Americans describe our humour as very dry, and politics has always been the perfect platform for deadpan, often subtle humour. There is no need in the political arena for great theatrics. The humour is in the man dressed as a fish finger standing next to the leader of a major political party.

  How to describe it? Monty Python is considered quintessential English comedy, with its range of deadpan one-liners, absurd physical gags, macabre subject matter and twisted style of comedy that never goes for the obvious, easy jokes. The Office is also considered classic English comedy with its ‘cringe-comedy’ style, based on embarrassment, its humour stemming from inappropriate actions or words. We English tend to feel quite superior about our comedy – it’s a mindset that not everyone gets.

  Take Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), directed by Terry Jones, and starring Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, John Cleese and Terry Gilliam as well as Jones himself. It is regularly voted No. 1 British comic film of all time. And yet the internet is full of forums, threads and message boards entitled ‘Can somebody explain to me the appeal of Monty Python?’ People really struggle to articulate what makes it so funny …

  Moving beyond Monty Python, there are rich traditions in other areas: slapstick, gallows humour, the slightly smutty style of Benny Hill. Carry On films combine so many of the absurd, irreverent and slightly naughty aspects of English comedy that they could well be the archetype. Ooo-err, missus!

  Benny Hill and the Carry Ons were following in the tradition of Donald McGill’s infamous and Englishness-defining saucy seaside postcards. The nudge-nudge-wink-wink humour of the cards caught on in the early 1930s and, until a concerned Conservative government cracked down on them in the early 1950s, were as important a part as a trip to the seaside as candy floss and a stick of rock. At the height of their fame, they were selling 16 million a year.

  We love a good sing-song, and there’s none better than a song that’s funny or bizarre.

  As a child, my abiding memory of English humour was borne out in the rather bizarre trend for co
medy songs. I can still remember the excitement of waiting for the countdown of the Top of the Pops charts and the appearance of a bizarre, often surreally ridiculous song. Neil from The Young Ones singing ‘Hole in My Shoe’ on Top of the Pops remains a personal favourite; but we mustn’t forget ‘Star Trekkin’’, which actually made number one. Then there was Kenny Everett’s ‘Snot Rap’; and, not to be outdone, Roland Rat Superstar, presenter of ITV morning television, who released ‘Rat Rapping’.

  Meanwhile, Monty Python’s ‘Every Sperm is Sacred’ remains a seminal song about semen:

  Every sperm is sacred.

  Every sperm is great.

  If a sperm is wasted,

  God gets quite irate.

  But my favourite, and one in which the lyrics encapsulate the ridiculous of the English, is the ‘The Chicken Song’, originating in the satirical 1980s puppet show Spitting Image, and which remained at number one in the charts for three long weeks. Here’s just an extract:

  Skin yourself alive;

  Learn to speak Arapahoe;

  Climb inside a dog

  And behead an Eskimo!

  Eat a Renault 4

  With salami in your ears;

  Casserole your Gran;

  Disembowel yourself with spears!

  The English, eh?

  CHAPTER NINE

  RAINING CATS AND DOGS

  ‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse’

  William Shakespeare

  It is early morning and already the field is heaving with activity as a convoy of army Land Rovers escort three large horse boxes into the dusty car park. Dozens of heavily tattooed men in burgundy polo shirts and jodhpurs are busy pulling on their riding boots as horses are led from the boxes.

  The animals ripple with muscles, their coats are brilliantly black: they are as glossy as the soldiers’ highly polished boots. Horses snort and hoof at the ground as an army vet (of the equine, animal variety rather than the retired kind) wanders from horse to horse. Meanwhile an army farrier is busy checking all the hooves, inspecting his shoeing.

  I am in north Norfolk, on Holkham beach, for the first day of the Household Cavalry summer holiday. Only in England would we give the regimental horses their very own seaside holiday. It’s a breathtaking enterprise. For several weeks each July, the entire barracks is packed up from Hyde Park Corner in Central London and relocated to the north coast of Norfolk.

  Word has spread and there are already dozens of people milling around on the beach, awaiting the arrival of the holidaymakers. ‘I’ve come from Somerset,’ explains one woman, accompanied by her husband, ‘it makes me so proud to see these horses and their riders.’ As the 24-horse regiment arrive on the sands I see tears streaming down her face.

  The horses trot in unison and gather in a perfect line along the beach while the regimental sergeant explains what will happen. By now the number of spectators has swelled to nearly a hundred, all glued in English reserved silence. There is a kind of reverence for the occasion. It is like being in a library.

  The cavalry set off on a gentle canter to work the horses in and familiarise them with the conditions. After several turns up and down the beach, the sergeant instructs the regiment to move towards the water’s edge. Legs splash in the shallow surf as they form a perfect line, two abreast, and then break into a gallop.

  The noise is like thunder. The combination of salty air, horses and that thunderous sound is dizzying. It’s primeval, and more than enough to stir the spirit. The crowd watch, open-mouthed, in silent awe as the horses gallop through the sea. Water sprays from their legs as they splash through the calm surf.

  This has just been the warm-up. They return to their little beach base, where the soldiers strip off into their swimming shorts. Saddles and boots are removed before the riders mount their magnificent steeds bareback and race into the waves. It’s time for the holiday swim. But, just like children, the horses have other ideas. As their hooves and legs disappear into the chilly North Sea waters they rear up and turn around, like children racing from the surf.

  It is charming to see the tough, tattooed soldiers trying to reassure their charges and coax them back into the water. Several riders dismount and lead their horses out into the breaking surf. Suddenly there are two dozen horses swimming, their riders whooping with happiness as they cling onto their necks, swimming beside them.

  Can there be a greater bond than that between man (or woman) and horse? And particularly between human and working beast? The soldiers form lifelong friendships with their horses; indeed, some soldiers take the horses on in their retirement.

  The sight of the Queen’s personal bodyguard swimming in the turbid waters perfectly exemplifies the national character. It is glorious and moving and awe-inspiring. It is a scene of pomp and pageantry, with candy floss and a bucket and spade. Here the two great English institutions of pomp and ceremony and the seaside collide.

  There are windbreaks and picnic blankets. Children are digging with buckets and spades, building sand castles, while an assortment of dogs race around in the surf. Seagulls screech and wheel overhead. I can taste that unmistakable mix of salt and seaweed in the air. It’s a heady mix of childhood with the majesty of occasion. I wade out into the waters, drawn uncontrollably towards this magnificent stirring sight.

  Every now and then a horse bucks its rider from its back, a reminder that this is their holiday. The soldiers take it in their stride. ‘Horse loose!’ shouts one of the officers as his steed gallops, riderless, through the surf. He races through the waves and grabs it by the rein.

  It is organized chaos as horses swim and leap and rear and gallop. All around them are human obstacles as spectators and the twelve gathered press photographers move in to get a better view. A Times newspaper photographer is dressed in shorts and wellies, the boots long breached by the waves. His legs look like this is the first time they have ever seen sunlight. ‘How English do I look?’ he asks.

  ‘You just need a hanky tied to your head and you’d have nailed it.’

  Here on the windswept expanse of a north Norfolk beach is a demonstration of our unique and emotional relationship to animals.

  Animals have been a huge part of my life. As a child growing up in the seventies above my father’s veterinary clinic in central London we had an endless menagerie of strange and exotic animals in our house.

  My son, Ludo, perhaps unsurprisingly, is obsessed. ‘Daddy, there’s a kangaroo in the garden,’ he once said as he raced upstairs to grab his Lego. It wasn’t the fact he had told me there was a kangaroo – not a prolific resident of our countryside – in the garden but the fact that he said it so nonchalantly, as if this was an everyday occurrence.

  I should probably try and put this into some perspective. We have a little cottage on the outskirts of Henley in Buckinghamshire. The village itself still has a red phone box and a tiny village green next to a small village hall. It hosts an annual village cricket match. In short, it is quintessentially English.

  Our little farm cottage borders the estate of Fawley House, the home of Sir Bill and Lady McAlpine, who in turn share their home with hundreds of exotic animals. There are meerkats and coati, tapirs and ostrich, llamas and alpacas, lemurs and mara, wallabies and kangaroo, to name just a few. It has always amused me, when we take the dogs out along the public footpaths that wind their way through the McAlpine estate, to walk past this extraordinary private collection of animals in the English countryside. Over the years, a number of escapees have ended up in our garden, including on this occasion not a kangaroo but a wallaby.

  To be fair, though, an escaped kangaroo or wallaby is nothing compared to the lion once owned by another of our neighbours, John Rendell. And this wasn’t any old lion, but Christian the Lion, arguably one of the most famous lions in the world.

  Originally bought from Harrods by Rendall and Bourke in 1969, Christian cost them just 250 guineas (about £3,500 in today’s money). The lion came to live with them in London’s King’s R
oad, where he soon became a celebrity, living in a furniture store and walking in local parks and gardens. The men had permission from a local vicar to exercise Christian in the graveyard of the Moravian church off the King’s Road, and they would take him on summer holidays to West Wittering in Sussex where he would gallop along the beach. It was not an uncommon sight to see Rendall driving through Chelsea in his convertible Rolls Royce with Christian peering out the back.

  Despite the optimism of London in the sixties it soon became apparent that Christian had outgrown the city and Rendall needed to find him a new home. A chance encounter with actors Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, who were shopping in the furniture store, led to an audacious plan to have the renowned naturalist and conservationist George Adamson reintroduce Christian to Africa.

  Adamson agreed to try and reintegrate Christian into the wild at a compound in the Kora National Reserve. He was accepted by the pride, but the group suffered many twists and turns of fate, leaving Christian the only surviving member. Gradually a new pride was established around him. Some years later, a cautious Rendall and Bourke went to see how the lion had reintegrated into the animal kingdom. In what has become one of the most viewed YouTube clips of all time, we see the lion at first cautiously approach and then quickly leap playfully onto the two men, standing on his hind legs and wrapping his front legs around their shoulders, nuzzling their faces.

  It is a peculiarity of the English that we seem to prefer animals to people. You just need to look at the charitable sector, in which the Donkey Sanctuary received almost £21 million last year, over £5 million more than the Royal British Legion. The RSPCA received a massive £64 million and Cats Protection £25 million, beating the NSPCC and Barnardo’s by many millions of pounds. But why is it that we care so deeply about our animals?

  We pride ourselves on being a nation of animal lovers. We were the first country in the world to consider animal welfare legislation and to start a welfare charity to rescue and preserve the dignity of animals – the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, founded in 1824 – which, thanks to Queen Victoria’s support, in 1840 became the Royal Society (RSPCA). Funded by the good will of ordinary people, the charity rescues injured and sick animals in a bid to rehabilitate them.