February 12, 2020
by olli
I have oft argued that our sense of identity is determined through an Englishness, divided by place. The Human Geographer within me knows that space establishes all of our cultural norms but are the communities we grow up in, so unique, that culture out-powers nature?
Post Brexit; within the United Kingdom Brits search for another sense of identity. For the Scots a re-emergence of devolution is strong. The Northern Irish are searching for their Boris moment through Sinn Fein but the Welsh, despite re- emergence and talk of split are strengthening the cultural.
Wales as a nation with a unique language and national dress has always promoted its identity. The MPs daughter who accompanied me in bi-lingual lectures would not speak to the English boy but that feared dilution in Aberystwyth was only half-baked twix the sub- classification of the dialects of the language. We gave each arm nicknames, (gog and de) further identifying a quiet contempt.
The Scottish also identify their specific culture through dress, music and place name. The Irish through surname, accent and possibly political troubles.
My time Marathon running around the streets of HMS Caledonia forced me to identify those differences that created a unique culture; the silhouette of the forth bridges, deep fried mars bars or even 30 shillings.
The peripheral cycle expedition of the coast of Ireland was different in the north. (Northern) Irish whisky was as unique, as the road markings had a Britishness and even Derry had two forms. This was rammed home in my home town when the Corridor was bombed; a physical manifestation of maintaining difference.
Growing up near an estate with black faces was special. I felt different. My end of terrace house was better as we had the small triangular slab of grass at the side. The ‘live in’ boxes of Myrtle House in Snow Hill and acrid corridors were not to be desired and my first encounter with death was at a young age.
But where did the Bathonians culture actually lie? Was it as Somersetonian, Englander or as a British teenager? And then punk landed.
Somerset morphed to Avon and the bands and gigs established a pseudo identity half rockabilly, quarter Christian. And how did the Englishness within differ from the United Britishness without.
That question was answered through the Royal Navy and on joining I immediately understood my childhood cycle ride to the Somerset hamlet of Mark and need to explore.
Situated deep within the Somerset levels I regained the identity Bath had lost through tourism and a gradual shift to BaNEs and beyond.
People struggled to understand me; my students still do, and the quick-talking slow-thinking dialect of the levels had been established south of the river I transited daily.
As Jock and Paddy and Taff were pulled together; forced into the HMS Fisgard machine, the common language bound us into the teams – a division, the ship, a fleet.
Even NATO amalgamations of ships had a logo, an official photograph. We swapped between ships, mine was FGS Karlsruhe, trying in vain to establish our own brand of micro-culture.
It was at this juncture that language became the key bind. Parts of the ship shared similar names: the galley, heads or ‘forward’. Activities and meals were described in a similar way, the Dhobi, n#gg*rs in the snow was a meal, as were babies heads.
I then started to notice both the idiosyncrasies of the English but also the commonalities of regional groups, primarily through dialect. Without a national dress – the pin stripe suit? – or anthem, or flower we were a-cultural. Yes we have our conquest anthem ‘Jerusalem’ or our national rose but should it be white or red? Conversations after 15 years in Cumbria were often as divided as the pronoun citation of the word scone and division of cream and jam ‘down south’.
Returning South relatively recently – my heart is still as a northerner – I could really see the difference language and accent made. The cavers in the Skipton club from Colne and Nelson sounded so different that they were no longer English or Yorkshire. The divide across the border was marked through accent. One now runs a language school in Italy.
We all know the ‘Two Ronnies’ divisions into Scouse and Janner, Geordie and Brummy and whilst the European visitor was unable to understand and often differentiate this became, for me, the ultimate marque of Englishness.
The English Rose, Jane Seymour was identified recently as a favourite Bond Girl. She landed with a polished accent and set up home in ‘court’ on the outskirts of Bath but never sounded Bathonian.
Was her Middle English – revealing a true identity – far removed from the Bathonian drawl that the homogenised locals had declared as their English?
NEXT; does travel nurture or nature your soul?
Alicemark 