Gareth Young
What knows he of England who only England knows? asked Kipling. The retort Perhaps, after all, we know most of England ‘who only England know’ came several years later from Enoch Powell. Having lived three times outside England I can attest to the truth behind Kipling’s rhetorical question. Living abroad forces you to look at yourself and England as others might see you and your country: What is it that I love about England; what is it that makes me English, and; are their stereotypes justified? Comparisons are made, parallels are drawn, and a more self-conscious and self-aware Englishman emerges.
The England of the mind’s eye, that England that exists in our imaginations, is a schizophrenic construction drawn from often conflicting ideas of England. There is the Romantic’s England, that of the bucolic shire, the pastoral idyll of stone cottages, winding lanes, parish churches, hedgerows and patchwork fields; there is the Nationalist’s England of Imperial institutions like Monarchy, Parliament, Civil Service, Military, and then; there is the Idealist’s England, the idea of England itself, Habeas Corpus, Freedom of thought and expression, Individualism, Tolerance, Democracy. All too often these imaginings contrast with the reality of England, a place in which we not only fail to build a new Jerusalem but seem to move ever farther from the England of our mind’s eye.
All of you reading this will have your own evocative idea of England and the extent to which it marries with mine is less a measure of your Englishness and more a measure of the fact that England means different things to each of us. If Englishness exists, if England exists in any meaningful sense, then it is the product of our collective psyche, a sum of parts, the national consciousness and self-awareness of the nation of England. The England of today is ephemeral because England is ever changing, transmitted like DNA through the generations and related to, but subtlety different from, the England before.
When I fly home after a long absence and look down upon England’s system of enclosed fields my heart quickens. The quickening is tempered by Gatwick or Heathrow - undeniably the most depressing places in England, and national disgraces both - but as I proceed at haste into England’s green and pleasant land I experience the closest that I will ever come to a religious experience. It is not pride. It is not relief. It can only be faithfully described as love. This is my country, my land. Evidently it is the romantic pastoral idea of England that resonates most strongly in me. It’s difficult for me to describe because my love for England seems to me to be innate, almost genetic, but of course it is not, it is familiarity and nurture, and a lifetime of imbibing English culture that has instilled this in me.
But despite this feeling of love for England I don’t yet feel that I am home. For there is something I’ve missed more than the English countryside, it is the defining English institution. It is The Pub. I never feel that I am truly home until I have sunk a pint of English ale in an English pub, preferably with friends and family, but if needs must without. Frenchman turned English poet Hilaire Belloc wrote, When you have lost your inns drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England. It is a quote that that adorns a thousand beams, usually in gold italics, in pubs the length and breadth of England, and its marketing appeal lies in its simple truth. To sit in a traditional English pub is to connect with generations that have gone before. The pub is redolent of Englishness; from its architecture; to its furnishings; to the peculiar etiquette of the inhabitants, the games they play, the way they interact and the language they speak. To understand the importance of the English pub you need only to watch our three main soap operas (Queen Vic, Rovers Return, Woolpack), the pub is the main set in each and the heartbeat of the community.
It would be fair to say that my Canadian wife grew weary - bloody furious actually - over my complaints about Canadian beer, my yearning for “proper sausages” and my frustration at not being able to buy pickled onion flavour crisps or English cheeses. But though I hankered after these creature comforts it was the pub whose absence in my life I most bemoaned. We now live in Lewes, a town and locale renowned for Harvey’s Brewery and traditional real ale pubs. I’m in seventh heaven and the wife likes it too, and not just because I’ve stopped my belly-aching. She also appreciates the aesthetic and cultural appeal of the English pub and enjoys seeking out new country pubs, or popping down the local, to sample their wares every bit as much as me. Sitting with friends outside a country pub on a summers’ day, supping a pint of ale and picking over a ploughman’s: That’s What England Means to Me.
Gareth Young is a member of the Campaign for an English Parliament, his further thoughts on Englishness can be read here.
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Cheers, Gareth. Hope you enjoy downing one (or several) as England beat Russia (Euro qualifier) tonight! (Who will Nick Clegg be supporting, though?! Sorry to be so topical.)
Seriously, the pub and the pint are indeed truly defining institutions, and I missed them like mad when I lived in France. But what proportion of English men and women still cherish the traditional pint?
David (aka Britologywatch)
17 Oct 07 at 8:20 am
Alas. England were beaten by Russia. Oh well. I just cherished a pint myself… the last one in the fridge. Oh well.
I loved this bit, by the way:
“When I fly home after a long absence and look down upon England’s system of enclosed fields my heart quickens. The quickening is tempered by Gatwick or Heathrow - undeniably the most depressing places in England, and national disgraces both - but as I proceed at haste into Englandâ’s green and pleasant land I experience the closest that I will ever come to a religious experience. It is not pride. It is not relief. It can only be faithfully described as love. This is my country, my land. Evidently it is the romantic pastoral idea of England that resonates most strongly in me.”
With me its usually relief to be back on terra firma… the feeling is more nauseous than religious…
Charlie Marks
17 Oct 07 at 1:17 pm
What a wonderful essay Gareth it was very moving.
Jenny Young
17 Oct 07 at 4:04 pm
Thanks all, shame about the footie - hopefully it will spur on the rugby team.
Gareth Young
18 Oct 07 at 6:46 am
[...] It is the English practice of all others that is characteristically stupid, in that it leads to unnecessary drinking [...]
What England Means to Me | Little Man in a Toque
22 Oct 07 at 6:11 am
As you know, Gareth, it’s not only our culinary delights which characterise our disposition, but also the taxation system imposed by our nation’s occupiers which have tripled the price of a pint within a very short space of time! Scotland don’t have the pub tradition as we do, although they have assimilated ours over the years, and so, meeting and feeling at one with the local community, is different for them. An ever upward spiraling cost of the pint is incredibly destructive of the local spirit, since most can’t afford to sit in their local pub to make friends anymore. When the British have closed all of our pubs, then where does England go?
Adrian Thurston
21 Dec 08 at 12:56 pm
As a record 39 pubs are closing in England every week, Belloc’s words now create a foreboding anxiety about the future of this British institution. Gordon Brown is the son of a Presbyterian minister and obviously doesn’t like the idea of anyone drinking and seems to care not a jot that his policies are helping destroy the British pub. If you really care about the British pub as I do, please visit this link and join this campaign before it is too late.
http://www.axethebeertax.com/
Michael Gutteridge
10 Mar 09 at 10:20 am
I’ve already been there Michael, and I set up the “Alistair Darling Barred Facebook” group to boot.
Great art BTW.
Gareth Young
10 Mar 09 at 10:32 am
quote: …there is the Nationalist’s England of Imperial institutions… /quote
Oh dear, bit confused aren’t we Gareth? Diametric opposites, nationalists and imperialists are. And today’s Monarchy, Parliament, Civil Service, and Military are united in their hostility to English nationalism and their support for the colonisation of England by aliens.
quote: … Frenchman turned English poet Hilaire Belloc… /quote
The magnificent HB was never a Frenchman. He was mixed-race, half-English and half-French, but lived permanently in England from toddler days on.
It’s interesting to speculate on how much the war on pubs is an unconscious attack on a source of English solidarity, so a part of the war on the English.
fillets
23 May 09 at 2:26 am
If you read Private Eye - they have an interesting piece this week ‘in the back’ on the state of Pubs in the UK. In short it lays the blame squarely at the door of the money-men and Thatcher’s Conservative government of 1989 for introducing a ruling that effectively turned pubs into cash-cow real-estate.
It’s funny, but the root cause of many of our present woes seems to be Mrs Thatcher!
The day we sold out to free enterprise - is the day we sold our souls.
Bart Hulley
4 Jun 09 at 3:51 am
Having lived most of my life in Canada and the last 13 years in Asia, I am fascinated on how poeple try to re-create the English pub abroad. Occasionally they get it nearly right but its never quite there. The architecture, the decor, the food, the beer all very close I guess its the customers, even if they are Brits, they are ex-pat Brits, a sub-species.
Irish bars are everywhere, There is one Irish bar opening every day somewhere in the world which is the same as the number of Irish bars closing in Ireland.
The Royal Oak, Bank St in Ottawa–very close.
Robin Hood on Sukhumvit in Bangkok–very close.
Several in HK and S;pore.
Dr Mike
1 Jun 10 at 9:52 am
More thoughts.
Gareth cariad, To leave Canada and go back to the UK- INSANITY. After my first ten years in vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa, I went back to the UK for funerals and reunions only. Now not at all.
I loved the gentle, polite, well behaved country that I left in the 60s but that has been replaced by an angry, discontented loutish drunked country that is a sad echo of its former self.
When i first went to Canada in 1966 i thought it a rather rough and ready ,crud place. now I think it is a mecca of sophistication and good manners compared to the UK.
And to sit on an outdoor terrace of a pub in Toronto, Vancouver or Ottawa on a warm summer evening, or in cottage country north of To or in the Gatineau —thats just as great as an english pub.
Dr Mike
1 Jun 10 at 10:11 am