Watching the English

by Kate Fox

  •shirking of responsibility

  •failure to ‘pull one’s weight’ or do one’s ‘fair share’

  •excessive ‘borrowing’ and/or failure to return items or favours

  •moaning and whining about one’s lot or about perceived injustices (‘personal’ moaning, that is – collective moaning is not only permitted but part of the culture)

  •and, worst of all, ‘grassing’.

  While breaches of other unwritten rules incur disapproval in the form of scorn, ridicule, ostracism or rejection, breaches of the fair-play code are even more serious, and persistent flouting can result in the offender receiving a severe beating. Physical violence is not exactly uncommon among soldiers, of course, but it mostly consists of heat-of-the-moment scuffles and brawls. By contrast, punishment-beatings for repeated breaches of the fair-play code tend to be carried out ‘in cold blood’. The prohibition on ‘grassing’ then becomes even more important, as the battered victim’s future will depend on whether or not he complains to the corporal or sergeant about the beating.

  If he accepts his punishment, keeps his mouth shut and lies when asked how he got the bruises/broken nose/split lip (the correct response is ‘Walked into a door, sir’), he gains respect and stands a strong chance of being fully reintegrated into the group, providing he does not repeat the fair-play breaches that got him into trouble in the first place. If he runs whining and squealing to the authorities and ‘betrays’ the ‘mates’ who beat him up, he is effectively ‘finished’, as he will lose the respect not only of his peers but also of the authorities to whom he complains. Contempt for ‘grasses’ is universal. Sergeants and officers expect the ‘Walked into a door, sir’ response when they question a soldier about such injuries. They will then say, as if reciting from a script, ‘That’s your story and you’re sticking to it?’ (This is invariably phrased more as a statement than as a question, and accompanied by a weary sigh.)The beaten-up squaddie, reading from the same unwritten script, simply replies, ‘Yes, sir,’ and that is the end of it.

  THE RULES OF RIDER-TALK

  In this section, I will focus exclusively on the ‘greeting-talk’ used by two English subcultures, rather than other aspects of their conversations, as it is their handling of initial encounters between strangers that might shed some light on Englishness.

  In ‘rider-talk’, I am lumping together two English subcultures, bikers57 and horse-riders, which most people, including the two groups themselves, would regard as having little or nothing in common. ‘Don’t be silly, Kate,’ said one friend. ‘Even you can’t convince me that there’s any of your precious “commonalities” between motorbike gangs and the Pony Club. I mean, Hell’s Angels and the horsey set? Seriously? Apart from the trivial fact that they both ride things, these are opposite poles!’

  So, I’d better explain what led me to make this unlikely connection. I was already very familiar, from personal involvement over many years, with the horsey subculture, when my sister suddenly developed an interest in motorbikes, and started hanging out with a group of bikers, going to rallies, biker pubs and so on. Intrigued, I pestered her for information and contacts, interviewed her biker friends, went to their meetings, and read their magazines, newsletters, blogs, online forums and anything else I could lay my hands on.58 As soon as I had mastered a few words of biker-jargon, I also began seeking out and talking to bikers in the course of my rambling street-corner fieldwork in other parts of the country.

  Despite my lack of familiarity with this subculture, there was something about it that felt remarkably, uncannily familiar. The terminology was new, but the patterns, structure and tone of the bikers’ conversations, and the unspoken rules and tacit understandings I was starting to detect, kept reminding me of something; I had the strange sense of somehow having ‘been here before’. It took me a while to realise what it was because I was suffering from ‘ethnographic dazzle’ – blinded by trivial surface differences – but eventually I twigged: bike-talk was exactly like horse-talk.

  I also found that both bike-talk and horse-talk have much in common with the conversation patterns of other English ‘hobby subcultures’ or ‘enthusiast subcultures’, but I have deliberately chosen these two apparent opposites as representative examples.

  The English, as we have already seen, have all sorts of difficulties with initiating social interaction: we tend to be awkward, inhibited and embarrassed. This social ineptitude can appear as shyness, reserve and dithering over-politeness, or as surliness, rowdiness and aggression – but the roots are the same.

  The first thing you notice about bikers and horse-riders, however, is that they don’t seem to have these problems. Bikers exchange friendly nods or raise a hand in acknowledgement and solidarity when they pass each other on the road, as do horse-riders. And when two English bikers or two English horse-people meet for the first time, they have an instant ‘passport’ to friendly conversation. They simply bypass the usual awkward greetings and preliminaries, sidestep the class, age or other social barriers that might otherwise separate them, and immediately start talking about motorcycles or horses.

  In this context I should point out that, contrary to popular perceptions, both bikers and horse-riders come from all types of social background – and both groups insist that their passion, for bikes and horses respectively, is ‘a great leveller’. This is not to say that either class divisions or class-consciousness miraculously vanish in these encounters (we are talking about the English here, after all): I specifically used the term ‘sidestep’, rather than ‘ignore’ or ‘forget’, to indicate that a mutual interest in bikes or horses allows circumvention of such barriers, without actually breaking them down.

  The important point is that the bike and the horse serve as ‘props’, facilitators of social interaction – their function is a bit like that of the race-card, described in Racing-talk (page 152), but even more effective. If you watch an encounter between two bikers or two horse-riders – either at a bike rally/horse show or just at the roadside – you will notice that their bikes or horses are not only the focus of their conversation, but also of their gaze. Bikes and horses give the inhibited English something to talk about and, even better, an excuse to avoid making eye contact while we do so. We talk ‘through’ the bikes or horses, facing them, not each other: looking at them, standing back and admiring them, touching them, asking questions about them.

  Meeting-talk customarily begins with a compliment of some sort, often immediately followed by a question: a first encounter between two horse people might start, for example, ‘Lovely mover – how’s he bred?’ To which a typical response might be ‘Thoroughbred with a dash of Welsh Cob, where he gets the knee action; bit green still, though – [to horse] Stop it! Stand still! No manners, as you can see . . .’ Then, gesturing towards the other person’s horse: ‘Nice sort – very typey. Quite a decent size for an Arab, isn’t he?’ One must always find something complimentary to say about the other person’s horse, even if the horse is unprepossessing or downright ugly. If one really can find nothing to admire, there are some stock lines one can trot out, such as ‘lovely colour’ or ‘got a very kind eye’.

  The equivalent greeting-conversation in biker-talk might be ‘Nice bike, mate – what does it go like?’ Which one of my motorcyclist informants admitted is a ‘Daft question, really, as you’ll have seen in countless mags opinions of how good a bike is, and by and large they go like the proverbial off a shovel.’ Following which, ‘It normally descends all too quickly into swapping technical specifications (for want of a better description) of your machines . . . more specific things like what tyres you use, do you like them, have you had the engine/suspension tuned, what do you think of the brakes? The list is endless.’

  In both cases, the content of the endless questions and answers is not really important. Yes, there is often genuine interest, but these initial exchanges of technical information are more about conveying that one is a bona fide member of the biker or horse
y ‘tribe’, by demonstrating knowledge and correct use of biker or horsey ‘dialect’.

  Suzanne McDonald-Walker, a social scientist who is also a biker, observes that there is an instant affinity or bond between bikers – which all the bikers I spoke to confirmed – and quotes a fellow biker who expresses the point rather well:

  ‘The catalyst is that you’re sitting there on two wheels, you’re out in the open, you go past another biker and nine times out of ten they wave. And so there’s that. And when you pull up, I mean, motorcyclists are interested in what they and other motorcyclists ride. Even if they would never ride it, they will still go across and look, and ask questions about it and that sort of thing. And, I mean that binds . . . We do not have much in common other than the machines we ride, but that is a significant bond.’

  My horsey informants also repeatedly emphasised this instant-bonding factor, the usefulness of horses as facilitators of social interaction:

  HORSEY INFORMANT (young, female, trainee hairdresser): ‘The thing about horses is it’s like a magic word. I mean, you get that instant-friend thing even when you’re not actually riding – even when the horses aren’t there. Like, I was on a train and I mean you never talk to people on the train, but this girl was reading Your Horse [a magazine] and I just said, “Oh, is that the November one?” and she’s, like, “Oh, yes, do you ride as well?” and I said yes and two seconds later we’re chatting away like best friends . . . You know, you say the magic word “horse” and it’s like a Masonic handshake or something.’

  ME: ‘Was she – did she look like the kind of person you might want to talk to, be friends with, apart from the magazine?’

  HORSEY INFORMANT: ‘To be honest, no. She looked quite posh, and quite a bit older than me, um, wearing a smart business suit – you know, like knee-length skirt, tights, smart shoes, and a posh briefcase and all. No, now I think about it, I’d have thought she was probably a bit snobby and, um, boring. But she wasn’t, she was a good laugh, really nice – even though she’s into poncy dressage and I like jumping. It’s all horses, isn’t it?’

  It seems that being a member of the biker or horsey tribe allows circumvention not only of ‘mainstream’ class and other social barriers, but also of the many clannish sub-divisions within these subcultures. At an initial encounter, you are more likely to be judged and classified by the make of bike or the breed/type of horse you ride than by any indicators of your class or status in wider English society. Whether you are a doctor or a hairdresser is beside the point – the point being that you ride a Harley or a Honda, a hunter or a Hanoverian. Subculture conversation codes are not just about what is actually said, but also about the priorities implicit in what is said, and in what is not said. The clan or sub-group indicated by your choice of bike or horse is, at the moment of introduction, the second most important thing about you, the first being your membership of the bike or horse tribe. Another of McDonald-Walker’s bikers and another of my horsey informants make this point in remarkably similar terms:

  ‘And you’ve gone through that initial contact barrier so much more easily, you know, because you’ve already got something you can talk about. It’s obvious . . . there’s never a barrier in there by the different sort of criteria of bike you’re riding. The fact that you ride one, and you’re out there enjoying yourself on it, is enough to make you all right to sit down and talk to.’

  ‘It’s always a bit awkward when you meet new people, breaking the ice, but with horsey people it’s so much easier to get over that initial hump – because you speak the same language, don’t you? I mean obviously it’s best if they’re eventers, then it’s practically like family, but anyone who rides or is into horses is all right, in my book. I’ll talk with anyone about horses.’

  As such conversations progress, both bikers and horse people may well move on to talk about matters unrelated to bikes or horses, and if they find they have enough other common views or interests, they may even end up exchanging more personal information, eventually becoming, as one of my informants put it, ‘really proper friends, not just horse-friends’.

  ‘We do have ordinary conversations as well, you know, just like everyone else,’ said a horsey informant.

  And a biker told me, ‘I talk to my motorcycle friends about work, holidays, news, the weekend, families, friends and associates and bikes. Totally normal!’

  In these ‘normal’ biker and horsey conversations on other subjects, the normal English conversation codes apply, and generally, apart from the effortless ease of their greeting-talk, the same goes for their bike-talk and horse-talk. In talk about bikes and horses, however, one is allowed to praise one’s own bike or horse, often in glowing terms. This might appear to contravene the ‘normal’ prohibition on boasting, but if you listen carefully, you’ll notice that most horse people and bikers avoid taking any credit themselves for the admirable qualities of their horses or bikes. As with the Mine’s Better Than Yours game described earlier, the merits of one’s chosen horse or bike can be extolled at great length, but one’s own good taste or judgement in having chosen that horse or bike should be subtly implied (if possible through humorous self-deprecation) rather than directly stated – and one should also avoid boasting about one’s skills as a rider, trainer or mechanic.

  SQUADDIE-TALK, RIDER-TALK AND ENGLISHNESS

  What do the conversation rules of these three subcultures tell us about Englishness? Do they help to confirm any of the candidates for ‘defining characteristics’ that we’ve tentatively identified so far – or reveal any additional nuances that might help us to define those characteristics more accurately?

  I think it is safe to say that humour, modesty and fair play emerge as strong candidates, but the squaddie-talk rules, in which all of these characteristics are taken to extremes, add some new dimensions to our understanding of them.

  In particular, the squaddie-talk rules highlight the English use of humour as a vital tool in social interaction and social bonding, both as an antidote to our awkwardness and discomfort in these contexts – our ‘social dis-ease’, one might call it – and as a didactic device, a way of teaching and reinforcing behaviour codes.

  The squaddie-talk modesty rule provides the most dramatic illustration so far of the English taboo on boasting. I could be wrong, but I somehow doubt that an award-winning soldier in any other culture would actually be drummed out of the army just for being too boastful and cocky about his ‘Best Recruit’ status, or for taking this too seriously and failing to laugh at himself. Remember, he broke no official rules – quite the opposite, he was a model soldier – but this breach of the unwritten modesty and humour rules cost him his career.

  The squaddies’ fair-play rules provide more examples of severe penalties for breaches of unwritten codes – in this case, actual physical beatings for fair-play transgressions. An extreme subcultural example, of course, but still perhaps an indication of the importance of fair play in English culture.

  The fair-play rules also add an interesting nuance to another candidate for ‘defining characteristic’ status. Our predilection for Eeyorish moaning seems to be cropping up regularly, but here we see that sub-clauses are involved: collective moaning is prescribed, personal moaning is forbidden – suggesting (as had already been hinted in the racing context) that English moaning is more of a social ritual than a genuine expression of grievance.

  The rider-talk rules, indicate, I hope, that my search for ‘commonalities’ in English behaviour is perhaps not as quixotic as it might seem. Rider-talk was worth including for that reason alone, but the rules of these two subcultures also add to our understanding of English social interaction. Yet again, when we put that ‘English reserve’ stereotype under a sort of anthropological microscope, it is not quite as simple as it looks: we see significant evidence of social inhibition and discomfort, certainly, but very little of the misanthropic or introverted tendencies that one might associate with the term ‘reserve’. Almost every time we peer down this m
icroscope and find those elements – molecules or whatever – of social dis-ease in English ‘cultural DNA’ (and, admittedly, we find a lot of them) they appear to be accompanied by antidotes: props and facilitators of sociability such as weather-talk, pubs, humour, games, alcohol, race-cards, horses, motorcycles, moaning rituals . . .

  My hunch at the moment is that the English are not ‘reserved’ in the sense of unsociable. We may suffer from social dis-ease, but a truly unsociable, reclusive culture would not generate so many varied and ingenious antidotes to this dis-ease.

  I’ll tot all this up later, when I’ve examined enough different aspects of English culture to build up a representative sample of its unspoken rules, from which we can distil our ‘quintessences of Englishness’. In this exploration of the minutiae of conversation codes, we are already starting to see some recurring themes, but I must be ruthless: will these themes appear again in other contexts, such as the way we decorate our homes, our behaviour on trains and buses, the customs and rituals of the workplace, the rules of eating and drinking, sex and shopping?

  54. I am using the term ‘squaddie’ for ‘soldier’, because it is the most common colloquial expression, but as some may regard it as derogatory, I should stress that no disrespect is intended.

  55. I am greatly indebted to my sister, Dr Anne Fox, for much of the information in this section. She has been conducting research on soldiers (including extensive participant-observation fieldwork for her Ph.D. thesis) and working with the British Army for the past 15 years, and generously shares all her data with me.

  56. The Royal Green Jackets have since been amalgamated with other regiments to form the Rifles.

  57. Some of whom prefer to call themselves ‘motorcyclists’, but I’m using ‘bikers’ here as it’s less cumbersome – again, no offence intended.