by Ben Fogle
Billy Bragg has been discussing questions about England since the early 1980s in both his writing and his songs. In 2002, he released England, Half English, an album that stole its title from George Orwell, and was adorned with a St George’s flag. Its title track found him tentatively exploring what his home country was:
My mother was half English and I’m half English too
I’m a great big bundle of culture tied up in the red white and blue
I’m a fine example of your Essex man
And I’m well familiar with the Hindustan
’Cos my neighbours are half-English, and I’m half-English too.
In many ways, the only time we are ever allowed to proudly celebrate our Englishness is during national sporting events. The European Championships and the World Cup are two of the world events in which Britain is allowed to break up into its nation states. Suddenly the community of millions becomes a real team of eleven. Sport is that rare opportunity for the nation to cohere around a single cultural event, however basic and, traditionally, masculine.
Other nation states within the United Kingdom proudly proclaim their borders and their identities. Since devolution the differences between us have perhaps been accentuated. Now the Scots and Welsh have parliaments to give their identities shape, form and fact. But what about England?
The English regularly confuse Englishness and Britishness, as though the semantics mark a distinction without a difference – but the Welsh and the Scots rarely see it that way. According to the British Attitudes Survey, only 14 per cent of Scots chose ‘British’ as the best or only way to describe themselves, compared to 44 per cent of English people asked.
Peter Mandler, a professor of modern cultural history at the University of Cambridge, says: ‘For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when people described British values, they said “English” instead of “British”. People weren’t sensitive, they didn’t care. But since the mid-twentieth century they became more sensitive. Being British and English should not be a confusion. They are not mutually exclusive categories.’
George Orwell shared with the rest of us an acute difficulty about what to call ourselves. ‘We call our islands by no fewer than six different names, England, Britain, Great Britain, the British Isles, the United Kingdom and, in very exalted moments, Albion.’ But he preferred the first: England. The English, he found, shared ‘an unconscious patriotism and an inability to think logically’. We were ‘inefficient but with sound instincts’, chief among which were ‘gentleness’ and ‘respect for constitutionalism and legality’. We had an intense sensitivity to class (‘I was born into what you might call the lower-upper-middle class’). Our patriotism was thick-headed – the bulldog is ‘an animal noted for its obstinacy, ugliness and stupidity’ – and proudly insular: ‘nearly every Englishman of working-class origin considers it effeminate to pronounce a foreign word correctly’. Yet we have given so much to the world through our inventiveness, creativity and willingness to take on challenges few others would attempt.
Daniel Defoe’s poem, ‘The True-Born Englishman’, in contrast reflects how many see England – as a ‘mongrel’ nation forged from Celts, Angles, Saxons, Danes and Normans. Successive waves of immigration since the twentieth century have given rise to the notion that England is unique in its composition, a mixture of all things good from all countries. However, this is simply wrong, according to Professor Mandler: ‘The English are no more mongrel than any other European country – it’s a story that people tell themselves, but it doesn’t describe the country.’
So where and when did our identity go?
Football during the 1980s and 90s arguably has a lot to answer for. It was the football fan of that time who confirmed all the reasons why unionists of both the left and the right preferred to keep questions of English identity unanswered.
The huge rise in numbers of travelling football fans during the 1980s projected Englishness onto the map. There were outbreaks of fighting at both the 1980 European Championships and the 1982 World Cup. After the Heysel disaster in 1985, in which thirty-nine people died in a stadium crush before the Liverpool–Juventus European Cup final, UEFA banned English clubs from European football. Without the option of following their club abroad, the hard core switched their travel arrangements: there was a perceptible growth in the numbers and volatility of the England team’s away fans.
The ‘English disease’ of hooliganism was born and has arguably tarnished the St George’s cross and the very sense of Englishness ever since. It was during this period, too, that England’s support became a recruiting ground for right-wing organizations such as the BNP.
In some ways, Englishness has never been able to sever its links to hooliganism. Nor lose the sense of shame that we felt about it as a nation. To a child of the 1980s, Englishness and hooliganism were inextricably linked and something to be ashamed of. The St George’s cross became a symbol of violent radicalism. During international football, it springs up everywhere. Sold in supermarkets, flown on family cars, we enjoy seeing it flutter, for a fortnight or two, uniting the country in hope if not expectation – since we all know about what happens in the penalty shoot-out. But when the tournament ends, the banners are put away, to be replaced by a curious and unhealthy unease about the flag of St George.
Englishness needs to be more than a football match. We are more than the hooligans of the 1980s. We are not the BNP or Nigel Farage.
We are a nation built on a unique set of principles based on a muddled sense of belonging.
We are the sum of our regions, but our identity has been collectively moulded by a number of traits.
Instantly definable and yet confusingly mysterious, we are a nation of individuals who keep their cards close to their chest. A stiff-upper-lipped people who will say sorry for apologizing.
We are also a nation of eccentrics. We have an underlying quirkiness that is hampered by our desire to fit in and to sit on the fence. We are terrified to be different, and yet we celebrate and encourage eccentricity. Perhaps we lost our ability to celebrate Englishness when we started to examine the ills of our empire and what it inflicted on other countries, taking part in self-flagellation to apologize for our previous military and entrepreneurial success and as a way of erasing the character trait of superiority.
Over and above everything else, though, the weather has helped shape who we are. We are the climate: unpredictable, changeable and mild. You see, Englishness is based on polite hopefulness. For an Englishman the grass is always greener. We are all eccentrics clinging to a wind-swept, rain-lashed isle hoping for better weather, but rather reluctantly rather enchanted with what we’ve got.
We are of course far more than the sum of a flag. Englishness is both glaringly simple and infuriatingly contradictory. We are a nation that supports the underdog and celebrates failure. I wonder if it is a deep-rooted socialist core that makes us suspicious of success. We are largely unshowy. We don’t like to show off expensive cars or diamonds. We are the masters of understatement. The tweed jacket with holes and the clapped-out Land Rover Defender are as likely to be worn and driven by a Yorkshire farmer as a Suffolk banker.
I’d argue we are largely a tolerant nation. A little like the proliferation of green parakeets, we are a nation built on multiculturalism and immigrants. Englishness is not the white face and buzz cut of the BNP but every colour and hue of those who have settled on this sceptred isle and called it their home.
We consider the curry one of our national dishes even though it has been plagiarized from India. We consider the cup of tea quintessentially English, though I can assure you we have no tea plantations.
We really are a nation defined by our weather. It consumes our daily routine and our conversations. It is like a mirror to us. We are the weather.
As the world becomes smaller we may have been diluted by the allure of teeth whitening, the exoticism of Vegemite and the Americanization of our language, my bad, but deep down we hav
e retained the traits of Englishness that have defined our nation in history. We are a collective drizzle. Deeply judgemental, we are quick to make social assumptions. The accent, haircut, clothes, job, car, house: all of these can be used to define social status. In many ways we have become a nation of tribes. The Essex Girls. The Newcastle Lads. The Scousers. The Cornish Fishermen. The ‘Normal for Norfolk’. The Chelsea Toff. Geographically, as a nation, we can sweepingly divide England between the North and the South.
The South may be climatically warmer but it tends to be harder, busier, colder. The North, while chillier, tends to be happier, warmer. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is the underdog of the nation. It is no surprise that Yorkshire as a county consistently wins more Gold medals in the Olympic Games than Australia.
The English weather has made us a hopeful nation. We cling to our weather reports in the hope of good news. We are slaves to the rarity of the sun. The elusive sun and the bountiful rain have a lot to answer for, but just think how different we would be if we had the climate of California. To paraphrase that Monty Python quote: What did the Romans ever do for us? What did the weather ever do for us?
What would we talk about? We would become even more socially inept than we already are. We would never have invented the wax jacket or the Wellington boot. We would never have built the Land Rover or invented badminton to escape the rain. We wouldn’t have pioneered the drainage of football pitches. A cup of tea wouldn’t be half as satisfying. We wouldn’t have green lawns and I doubt we would have strawberries and cream half as good as we do. Our produce would be different. Our landscape would be different and our personality would be different. We would stop being a nation of apologists and become a smug nation. Safe and secure in its weather. We would become softer, and I don’t mean that in a good way. We would no longer be walking rain clouds with bursts of thunder and lightning but the eternal sunshine of California ‘homogeny’, the boob-implanted, lip-plumped, teeth-whitened perfection of guaranteed weather.
So why is it that we still find it so hard to celebrate our Englishness? I wonder if it is a hangover and self-flagellation from the shame of our colonial past? I can’t help but feel there is more to it.
As a child I was brought up and educated in the importance of the collective union. The troubles of Northern Ireland focused on the value of the United Kingdom and the promise of the European Union had the exoticism of the unknown. England sort of fell by the wayside. It was forgotten.
Let us forget her no more. Like the runt of the litter or a shower on a sunny day we should nurture her and celebrate her. We should collectively lift our cups of tea and raise them to England, my England, our England. A nation shaped by its weather: unpredictable, changeable and mild. You see, Englishness is based on polite hopefulness. For an Englishman the grass is always greener on our neighbour’s lawn.
In the end, though, we are all eccentrics clinging to a rain-lashed isle hoping for better weather but reluctantly rather charmed with what we have.
God save the Queen.
PICTURE SECTION
My attempt to become a weather man. I’m not really that orange.
With Chris Aldridge, reading the Shipping Forecast at the BBC.
The ‘World in Action’ team making a programme about the pirate radio ship Caroline in 1967, filmed by Paddy Searle and produced by Mike Hodges. (© James Jackson/Evening Standard/Getty Images)
Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards in action during the Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Canada in 1988. He achieved celebrity by finishing last in both individual ski jumping events. (© Leo Mason/Popperfoto/Getty Images)
In 1912, Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition party reached the South Pole, but all died on the return journey. (© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
With Sir Steve Redgrave at Henley Royal Regatta.
The crowds watching the 2014 Wimbledon championship from Murray Mound, previously known as Henman Hill. (© Imagedoc/Alamy)
‘Saint George and the Dragon’. Fresco in the main arch of the Church of San Giorgio, in Montalto Ligure, Italy. (© Seat Archive/Alinari Archives/Mary Evans)
Screaming Lord Sutch was an English musician who started his own political party (the ‘Official Monster Raving Loony Party’). He holds the record for losing the most elections. (© Express Newspapers/Getty Images)
Patrick Macnee, the actor who famously wore a bowler hat in his role as John Steed in The Avengers in the 1960s. (© Everett Collection Inc/Alamy)
Inside the South Shields Barbour factory.
With chief designer Gary Janes. Part of the archive can be seen in the background.
Princess Diana wearing a waterproof Barbour-style jacket in the rain during a visit to the Western Isles of Scotland. (© Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Alexa Chung sporting a pair of Wellington boots and a wax jacket at Glastonbury in 2016. (© David M. Benett/Getty Images)
At one of the most famous eccentric sporting events in the world, the annual Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling. Seen here racing down the vertiginous Cooper’s Hill. (© PA Images)
My ‘lucky’ blue Pooh stick at the World Pooh Stick Championships. It came last.
The annual worm charming festival in Blackhawton, Devon. (© David Pearson/Alamy)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the 1975 EMI film. (© Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy)
With Lord Buckethead, playing miniature golf on the roof of an East London car park.
On Holkham Beach with the Royal Household Cavalry on their summer camp. (© James Davidson)
Shepherd penning sheep with a sheep dog border collie at a traditional sheep dog trial competition at Bamford in Derbyshire. (© David Lyons/Getty Images)
With Cedric Robinson and my labrador Storm on the Sands at Morecombe Bay.
Rowing with the Vintners.
With Swan Marker David Barber during Swan Upping on the banks of the Thames.
The Wimbledon Queue is not just a queue but The Queue: a curiously beautiful and annually growing tradition. (© David Ramos/Getty Images)
At the Marmite factory with Mr Marmite St John Skelton, holding my Marmite-tasting pass certificate. I scored 100 per cent.
Our local fish-and-chip shop, combining British humour, cultural reference and a simple love of fish and chips.
Cooke’s traditional London pie, mash & eel restaurant. (© Tony Watson/Alamy)
Outside Betty’s Tea Room in Harrogate with waiters Jemma and Jack.
Twinings tea shop on the Strand, London. (© John Woodworth/Alamy)
At the WI meeting in Harrogate.
INDEX
The page numbers in this index relate to the printed version of this book; they do not match the pages of your ebook. You can use your ebook reader’s search tool to find a specific word or passage.
BF indicates Ben Fogle.
accents 10–11, 244, 254, 282
Adams, Gladstone 37
Adamson, George 157
alcohol 270–3
Aldridge, Chris 40–1, 53
‘Amazing Grace’ (Newton/Cowper) 3
Amundsen, Roald 63, 103
animals 153–73; BF’s home and 156–7; charities 158–9; children’s books and 164; dogs 161–4; eccentrics and 65, 92, 94, 156–8; exotic animals/pets 156–8, 160–1, 165–9; ‘Hartlepool Monkey’ 171–3; hound trailing 161–2; Household Cavalry summer holiday 153–6; pet owning 159–61; ring-necked parakeets 170–1; safari tourism 164–5; sheep dog trials 162–4; Victorian era, English obsession with exotic animals in 165–8; welfare of 158–9, 167–8; working horses in London 169–70; zoos 168–9
Antarctica 28, 63, 103, 179–80
apologizing viii, 56, 142, 197–200, 280, 283
aristocracy: eccentricity and 9, 10, 86–97, 240–1; English Summer Season and 67–81; houses/estates of 236–42 see also under individual estate name
Arundel Castle, West Sussex 238
Atlantic Ocean 19, 22, 27, 30, 36, 46, 52, 53, 62–3, 70, 218
/>
Bacon, Francis 223–4, 225
bandy 136
Barber, David 185, 186, 187–8
Barbour 99–100, 101–2, 104–8, 110, 276
Barbour, Dame Margaret 105, 106
Barbour, Helen 105–6, 107
Barbour, John 105
Barker, Ernest 194
Bates, Joan 229
Bates, Michael (King of Sealand) 228–9, 230
Bates, Major Paddy Roy (King of Sealand) 228, 229, 230–1
Bath, Alexander George Thynn, 7th Marquess of 9, 86–90
Bath, Henry Thynn, 6th Marquess of 86, 89
BBC 19, 64, 113, 127–8, 163, 254; iPlayer 49; Radio 4 39–51, 53, 276; Sport Relief 200 see also under individual programme name
Beagle, HMS 45
Beatles, the: Abbey Road 37
Beaufort Scale 32, 41, 44–5, 46, 48
Bedford, Anna, 7th Duchess of 260
beer 270–3
Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party 149
Belloc, Hilaire 270
Belmont, Frederick 259
Belstaff 110–11
Bennet, Jon 26
Benson the carp 82