What is it about being English?

What is about being English that sends people (of wherever), in to such a tailspin? Whether it is mealy-mouthed class traitor Lee “3 parties” Anderson and his warped view of that there London/England. Or it is Suella Braverman & Liz Truss and their even more jaundiced perspective of our country, so infected that they find themselves siding with the likes of right-wing boot-boy Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson (aka Tommy Dick Fingers)). Even the current PM Sunak, talks about our values and inclusivity at the same time as warping non-dom tax regulations to benefit his own family, whilst bemoaning the ‘mob rule’ that he mistakenly believes is spreading all over the country. 

Of course, these rather dim-witted politicians ostensibly talk about Britain, when they are only talking to their English constituents. So much so, that I fully expect Ireland to untie & unite within the next 20 years and Scotland to return a Yes vote for independence (assuming that Keir Starmer’s continued plod towards power remains so relentlessly uninspiring). Leaving slack Ol’England floundering in the wake of its own self-importance.

 

The truth of the matter is: Nobody likes us and we pretend we don’t care, but we bloody well should. The English (and don’t forget I am one – have you seen the blog title?) do have an over-inflated sense of self-importance built on the shifting sands of history. The whole sun never sets on the Empire malarkey has long since evaporated and quite frankly the reparations for crimes committed in the name of the Union Flag have still to be tallied up. 

 

Before launching into one, I should address the British v English thing. I genuinely only know of (or at least recall) a few people who truly identify as British (and they are virtually all arch-royalists or from non-aligned immigrant families), I have never met an Irishman (well maybe a couple of Mega-Oranj Prods), Welshman or Scot (Prods again?!) who declare themselves as British first. Even when corralled together in some hotchpotch sporting allegiance or two (The Lions/Olympics), being a Brit is rarely ever mentioned…

 

But the purpose of this piece is not to rehash the old school leftist view of Britain as being a washed-up colonial construct (even though it is #smileywhiteface). It is more about trying to embrace the reality of being a 21^st Century Englishman and coming to terms with what that actually means.

 

I’m very aware that some of my writing illuminates an England that exists more in old photographs, unsent postcards, the distant embrace of young love, the scratched grooves of long deleted LP’s and discredited movies. My England, the one I inhabit from this distance is sinister, haunted, beautiful, idyllic, pissed, broken, vicious and only 24 hours away. 

 

My England smells of burnt toast, cut grass, creosote and ozone. My England is cold, wet, warm, windy, freezing and has a leaking roof. My England is shuffling in the queue at the post office, hanging out by the off-licence and still waiting for the number 11 bus. My England still thinks it is good at all sports, despite the evidence. 

You get the picture… I could go on forever (and I probably will elsewhere). But I’ll stop and try and keep focussed for the time being. What could the new English really become? The vague reference to Billy Bragg is very appropriate here because his book ‘The Progressive Patriot’ has led me to reappraise what being English could be. 

 

For those unfamiliar with his book, apart from being part autobiographical Bragg explores the impact of the Magna Cart, the People’s Charter, Civil War, the Second World War, the Miners’ Strike on the national consciousness. He also grapples with what it means to be a patriot in a country where (at the time he wrote the book) the BNP were running in General Elections. And now, given the invidious nature of the Savile Row besuited bigots (Anderson, Tyce, Farage etc.) the question is even more relevant. 

 

How can I be proud of my country when we continue to churn out a bunch of repugnant racists who are getting more and more airtime from their odious right-wing media paymasters? How can I be proud of my country when an increasing number of my fellow countrymen are seemingly hellbent on out-doing the mad dog MAGA mob of the US with the wildest of conspiracy theories.

 

It is a major challenge and one that I feel ill-equipped to confront head on. That being said, I’ll be jiggered if I’m simply going to stand back and hand over the country of my birth to those members of society whose crazed claims and warped world view makes us seem positively rabid. England isn’t as bad as everyone thinks… but it could well get worse. 

But how can we make it better, without more bloodshed, an armed uprising or hiding in a small hut somewhere in the Lake District. Firstly, we need to be honest with each other and perhaps more importantly with ourselves. For too long the myth has dominated the reality and we cannot head somewhere new if we don’t know where exactly we are heading from. A journey cannot end without there having been a start point! 

 

So, time for honesty. And that leads us to the second thing, we must confront the bullshit wherever and whenever we see it. For example, the neo-liberals who seem to have grasped the steering wheel profess to hate the nanny state. And yet, these bastards have got an uncanny way of trying to get involved in absolutely everybody else’s business: From who they sleep with to which pronoun they prefer, from where to go on holiday to which religion they can or indeed cannot follow. 

 

These charlatans must be tackled on their view of England… they relentlessly tout ‘our values’, ‘our way of life’ and ‘our traditions’ and yet they can never name a single thing that reflects these indistinct ideals. Be it poor old John Major and his “Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county (cricket) grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers”. Or Farage’s updated “Respect”, “Decency” and “not talking down our great country” schtick that doesn’t stop him from buggering off to the States every time Donald McDonald clicks his fake tan stained little pudgy fingers. 

 

Instead of their warped view, we should inspire each other to live up to a higher more honest set of social principles. In short, we should aim to live up to the mantra of several high-performance sporting teams and instil a simple ‘No Dickheads’ culture. 

 

Glib? Well, a little, what did you expect – new patriotic zeal on a stick. Valid? I think so. A starting place for a New England? Absolutely! In fact, following that theme and re-writing one of the most shameful tropes of the early 70’s ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’ (sadly often displayed on houses for rent). 

 

The New England mission statement should perhaps simply read as follows: 

·      No Racists

·      No Bigots

·      No Dickheads

 

... Oh and No Oxymorons!

Never buy The Sun

Someone's hiding in the bushes with a telephoto lens

While their editor assures them, the means justify the ends

Because we only hunt celebrities and it's all a bit of fun

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

And the parents of the missing girl cling desperately to hope

While a copper takes improper payments in a big brown envelope

And nobody in the newsroom asks where this information's from

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

Tabloids make their money betting bullshit baffles brains

And they cynically hold up their hands if anyone complains

And they say "Well, we're just giving the people what they 

Well they're crying out for justice, people crying out for justice 

And the man they call "The Digger" casts a proprietary

Over what goes on in the gutter and what happens in the Sky

And he claims he's fit and proper and the watchdog sings his

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

International executives they hang their heads in shame

Tell us with their hands on hearts that the paperboy's to blame

But everyone who loves that kiss'n'tell, you must share the

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

Tabloids make their money betting bullshit baffles brains

And they cynically hold up their hands if anyone complains

And they say "Well, we're just giving the people what they

Well they're crying out for justice, people crying out for justice

In the corridors of power they all sit down to sup

with the devil and his minions and they for his opinions

But the politicians wring their hands and say "What's to be

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

Well no-one comes out well when all is said and done

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

“and the view's so nice’ - Primrose Hill

When watching TV from the other side of the world I am constantly on the lookout for English landmarks as and when they crop up. The one place that appears more than most is my beloved Primrose Hill (Spooks couldn’t exist without it), which stands a barely breathless 256 feet walk on the north side of Regent's Park in London. The hill has a clear view of central London to the south-east, as well as Belsize Park and Hampstead to the north. It is an ideal vantage point from which to watch capital days blossom, chug along and fade.

Like Regent's Park, Primrose Hill was once part of a great chase appropriated by Henry VIII (which he had called Marylebone Park), having previously been a part of Middlesex Forest. Later, in 1841, it became Crown property, and, in 1842, an Act of Parliament secured the land as public open space.

It has always been a beacon for poets, writers & musicians not least the following:

Poems and Prophecies by William Blake
'The fields from Islington to Marybone,
To Primrose Hill and Saint John's Wood,
Were builded over with pillars of gold,
And there Jerusalem's pillars stood.
Her Little-ones ran on the fields,
The Lamb of God among them seen...
The Jew's-harp-house & the Green Man,
The Ponds where Boys to bathe delight,
The fields of Cows by Willan's farm,
Shine in Jerusalem's pleasant sight.'

Apparently The Jew's Harp inn was a popular rendezvous in Marylebone Park. It stood next to Willan's Farm, where Leigh Hunt remembered having eaten 'creams and other country messes' in the days before 'the dear old fields' were redeveloped as Regent's Park.
Blake's most famous verse, 'And did those feet in ancient time', will not be found in this poem, whose subject is the fallen condition of Man and the forces that will redeem him. London is imagined as the historical Jerusalem.

According to John Black ,Henry Crabb Robinson, in his Diaries, Reminiscences and Correspondence recalls Blake telling him, 'I have conversed with the spiritual Sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill. He said, "Do you take me for the Greek Apollo? – "No", I said, "that (pointing to the sky) is the Greek Apollo. He is Satan"'

However, it waasn’t just English visionaries that recognized the beauty of Primrose Hill.

Guru from Selected Poems 1947-1995 by Allen Ginsberg
'It is the moon who disappears
It is the stars that hide not I
It's the City that vanishes, I stay
with my forgotten shoes,
my invisible stocking
It is the call of a bell
Primrose Hill, May 1965'

In the summer of 1965 the author had made a trip to England with several other Beat writers, and had given a reading at the Albert Hall. In a note to the poem he says that it was 'occasioned by a nap at dusk on the site of Druid mysteries, the grassy crest of London's Primrose Hill, overlooking London's towery skyline'

For Tomorrow - BLUR
'...Then Susan comes into the room,
She's a naughty girl with a lovely smile,
Says let's take a drive to Primrose Hill,
It's windy there and the view's so nice,
London ice can freeze your toes
Like anyone I suppose
I'm
Holding on for tomorrow.



On this point, check out the lovely film on the Blur website about the graffiti on Primrose Hill “and the view's so nice’.

Upfield - BRAGG, BILLY
'I'm going upfield, way up on the hillside
I'm going higher than I've ever been before
That's where you'll find me, over the horizon
Wading in the river, reaching for that other shore
I dreamed I saw a tree full of angels, up on Primrose Hill
And I flew with them over the Great Wen till I had seen my fill
Of such poverty and misery sure to tear my soul apart
I've got a socialism of the heart, I've got a socialism of the heart...'

In an article in The Observer, 22nd October 2000, the singer/songwriter said, 'My song Upfield was inspired partly by [William] Blake; I borrowed events from his life for the song's narrator, such as putting him on Primrose Hill seeing angels. It's about moving from an ideological argument for a better society to a more humanitarian vision; a socialism of the heart, the kind of compassion I find in Blake'. The story of Blake as a child seeing 'a tree full of angels' on Peckham Rye common is well known, however apparently his only mystical experience on Primrose Hill was a vision of the 'spiritual Sun'.

Primrose Hill - MADNESS
'A man opened his window and stared up Primrose Hill
Out there enjoying themselves I've seen them from this sill
Green splashed with white and red going brown
Children baiting animals running up and down
I stare out of this window
See the world go past...
Deliveries every day newspapers and food
Never had to venture out the phone has been removed
Open up the window and stare up Primrose Hill
Sitting here it's dark outside and everything is still...'

Recorded in the 1980's when North London's finest were at its first creative peak, the album had a photo of Primrose Hill on the cover. In an interview in Q Magazine, April 2001, singer and frontman and all round geezer Suggs said, 'Primrose Hill was somewhere that had featured in most of the band's lives. We all came from the surrounding area so we'd always had good memories of the place. Primrose Hill was somewhere you could play football or, in the winter, go tobogganing, so it'd always been a place of fun and frolics.'

Camden Town from the album The Lone Ranger - SUGGS
'...Tramps stare in the window
Of the local butcher's shop
Like a pack of wild dogs
They'd run off with the lot
In Primrose Hill an angry man
His hair standing on end
Shouts and rants in the ear
Of his imaginary friend...'

Primrose Hill - John and Beverley Martyn
'We went to see the sun go down on Primrose Hill
The Sunday evening sun go down on Primrose Hill
Never could be anything else
Never should be anything else
'Cos I like that kind of life
I like that kind of life
Never thinking too far ahead
Hanging high I fall to bed
That's the only kind of life I've led...'

And on that note, I think it is high time to head back to London and head up the footsteps to heaven to the bench on top of Primrose Hill! Bring a bottle and bring a friend.

With thanks and acknowledgment to the late John Black whose excellent website that delves deeper into Primrose Hill & Regents Park can be found here: http://www.regentsparklit.org.uk/index.htm