English?

I want to return briefly to the subject of national identity following my previous posts on the topic.

I was interested to catch the introduction to a television show a few days ago which claimed it would define what it is to be English, thinking it would help in my journey to discovery.

I forget its title now and to be honest it is irrelevant as I would not suggest anyone watch it!

It started out with the boldly arrogant statement: “to be English means to be the best; to have God on your side”

So does this mean, then, that God hates everyone who is not English? Someone had better tell the rest of the Christian world, because I think they are under the impression He loves everyone equally…

And if God truly does love only the English, should we set out to please him by ridding the world of all the non-English?

I’ll just pop to the shed and get my pitchfork, eh?



I watched about ten minutes of this drivellous nonsense before deciding it was probably not going to help me much.


In fact, all I gleaned from what little I tolerated was that to be English is to be arrogant and sanctimonious; so is it any wonder I feel no affiliation to my country of domicile?


I have not been resting on my laurels over this whole subject. Given my deep roots within this place, I took lines of research which would explain the connection I feel to Wales – the hub-creature is in a really dark phase right now, though, so getting to the library to research properly is impossible; regardless I have learned much from my web-based research that has been helpful even if I make the normal assumption that only 30% of what I read online is true.

I am making the assumption that as my ancestors have been based in one area for more than three hundred years, they have maybe always been there. I know it is unwise to assume anything but to be honest although there are people who make claims to have traced their own lineage back into the earliest parts of history I find claims that this might even be possible hard to believe; also there have been DNA-based research programmes which took people who only had to be the third generation in a given area to be indigenous, so when you get beyond nine generations I very much doubt my ancestors ever made a grand hegira from the Far East or any such*

*Although rather interestingly, when I first commenced my genealogical journey, one particular such line were said to have been originated from Romany Gypsies… make of that what you will!


Shortly after discussing this topic recently, I received an email from which the following excerpt comes:

“extensive research into my own Cornish lineage brought up some strong connections between [the Cornish and Devonians] and the people of Wales. You need to go back quite far but knowing how you Devon-ish types are afraid to travel too far it is quite likely that your people have always been in the same place. I would suggest you start your research at the Saxon invasion. Of course, there might be later connections, but this time period makes for an interesting read in terms of the questions you are asking.”

Since I had no clue where to start, this seemed a logical enough suggestion.



Turning the clock back, then, to when the Jutes, Angles and Saxons arrived, settling first on the East Coast and gradually pushing the Britons (known to the invaders as the Wealsc, pronounced Welsh) further west. By the end of the century, only Wales and the Westcountry remain under Briton rule.

Image blatantly stolen from another blog so please click through to give them traffic by way of recompense!

In spite of many battles, the situation remained thus for the most part of the next 200 years or so until Somerset was also lost to the Anglo-Saxons resulting in the separation of the West Welsh of Devon and Cornwall from the Cymru Welsh forces of Wales. In spite of the well-documented battles, Wales was relativaly secure behind Offa’s Dyke, with the armies sending the clear message: “Look after your bloody selves! There is no way we are crossing the damned bridge to come save your asses!”

So it was that the people of Devon and Cornwall built barricades of trestle-tables laden with honour-box market garden stock, homemade jams and chutneys and the obligatory cream teas.

And this proved a decent enough line of defence until the arrival of the more observant Vikings who noted that some of the cream teas looked different, at which point the people of Devon realised that every one of the Cornish-made teas had its jam/cream component inverted and thus started a period of internal skirmishes which allowed the invading forces to penetrate the barrier and led to the Cornish-Welsh gathering up their goods and headed back to their own border. Thus it came to be that Devon was also lost to the invaders; although they had no intention of living here, preferring to rule the county from afar, leading to the advent of Devon as the state for second homes, regular invasions and short periods of intensive plundering occupancy it and Cornwall remain today.



My research has pulled up some other rather interesting statistical points:

This particular image depicting the affiliations across the UK through the English Civil War interested me slightly, much as because it is a period of history I am hugely interested in:

Rather notably, we can see that the regions last to cede to the original European invaders were those most resistant to Parliamentary rule… yes, those darned Europeans and their democratic ways!




I also want to mention the peculiar modern camaraderie between those coming from either the Southwest or Wales in that everyone assumes us all to be quite backward – the mandatory jokes as to whether electricity has reached certain places, do they still eat their young there and of course the instant assumption of incest and bestiality quite aside from the mockery of accents and the implications of abject stupidity. In fact, I once read a review of the comedy of a *particular* Welsh comedian (not naming names, because I don’t want to mess with the search engine thing… but you know the one!) which complained that his comedy couldn’t possibly work outside Wales because he was just “too Welsh” … I disagreed completely… having seen him perform outside Wales, I couldn’t see how other people could not simply equate his thoughts and expressions to their own circumstance… but that was a younger me who did not think as deeply about such things – I realise now that it possibly doesn’t equate to everyone… maybe only to the indigenous people!

I referred briefly at the outset to a DNA study. I want to return just to give a little more detail as I think it makes a good closure to this whole theme:

People from across England and Wales who had lived within a certain range of particular towns for at least three generations were tested. Those throughout England were found mostly to have markers reflected in certain regions of Europe which were laying claim to be the origins of the Jutes, the Angles and the Saxons; the people of Wales lacked this marker. There is no distinction as to where in England those few also void of the European marker were based, but I would like to think maybe they were here in the Southwest. Certainly in my own case it is highly likely that my family far up on the northern-most coast of Devon, hidden behind Exmoor itself were more likely to have been Welsh Britons than European English…

So I think that is where I am right now…

Am I English? Most certainly not.

I am a Briton; an original, indigenous, Celtic Briton… thus am Welsh. Devon-Welsh, but Welsh nonetheless.



I assume…

Still Searching...

In order to truly make sense of this post, you do need to have read the post Without Portfolio Although, I am perfectly aware that you will ignore this and continue to read regardless, before realising I might have been correct after all, slipping off to read it and returning here with the hope you’ve not been noticed. So it’s nice to have you back; I hope it all makes more sense to you this second time.

But anyway… to the point:

This weekend’s England vs Wales six nations match has done little to help my Nationality Displacement… I thought it might inject a little pride in my team to see them battle it out in this way, but I ended up instead thinking about the move and how desperately I need to be away from here. Who knows, maybe that’s the key – maybe once I leave I will be able to think about the things I miss about England and realise that is wherein lies my own English identity but time alone will tell.

I don’t know what I was expecting; maybe some kind of epiphany through which I would suddenly feel everything fall into place and I would realise my English core; the truth is a whole pile of something else, though…

Lets start, then, at the beginning with the Anthems; the rousing, impassioned “Land of My Fathers” versus the dreary, sanctimonious “God Save Our Queen”.

Okay, I guess you are already seeing how this one will pan out: In this first play, the full 7 points to Wales as there is nothing inspiring or pride-inducing in the drawn-out drime that is our national song.

But hold on, what’s this? A shameful foul from England through not having their own anthem and taking that which supposedly represents a collection of countries (including Wales, of course!) to claim it as English. Penalty to Wales.

So Wales off to a cracking start then at 10-0.


And so it goes.


In my usual girlie manner, I have to point out that the Welsh kit looks far better. Oh and the English team has far less eye candy... but I am aware these are not the things which define a nationality!

So to make some attempt at depth and substance...


Needless to say, there was no English epiphany - in fact here is what happened:

At a couple of points during the game, I found myself instinctively cheering players through some tricky tackles and spectacular plays – a breakthrough, surely? But no, because these players were wearing red… yet still I was spurring them on, willing them past the struggling English defenders to score and cheering when they did.

And another peculiarity: As I went about my business after the game – baking cakes, cooking dinner, folding laundry and other mundanities, those times our mind shuts down and instinct kicks in – I found myself so many times spontaneously singing aloud. Nothing strange in that, I know. But for the fact that the song implanted in my mind was Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. And yes, although I don’t know all the words, I was singing what little I knew in Welsh.

These factors are subliminal, things which just happened without thought or intention. So what does that say for my Englishness?

Just how English am I feeling right now?

Not at all, I am afraid.


I am sure I will return to this topic at some point; maybe when I do you will pay attention to my suggestion of a catch-up read and who knows maybe when I come back to it I may be able to provide something more telling... but in the meantime, I have nothing more to say.

Without Portfolio

Last night I found myself finally getting around to watching Rob Brydon’s Identity Crisis. Any amongst you who have both watched it yourselves and read more than one post of this blog will be aware of two factors which I am sure make you wonder just how I have avoided watching it thus far.

These being:

1. The presence throughout the show of the delicious Chris Corcoran
2. The fact that I actually quite like a bit of Mr C and would make the hugest effort to have him all HD and beautiful in the corner of my living room

Regardless, I have felt mostly indifferent each time it has cropped up on the TV listings until now.

It was bothering me slightly that to see it was on I just had that “Meh” feeling and got on with something else instead - not just because of the Corcoran-apathy, but because I genuinely love Rob Brydon's work too! I realise now though that the timing needed to be right.

The show was fabulous… but this is not going to be a review, mostly since it's a really old programme so my opinion is fairly irrelevant, but also because it seems to have gone deeper than purely entertainment having led me on something of a personal journey of introspection regarding my own lack of national identity.

The issue of timing comes of the fact that it coincides with the Rugby Six Nations.

Major sporting events tend to highlight the national pride (or lack thereof!) in everyone; in fact, it often feels that I personally am the only individual void of any kind of pride in ‘my’ team.

In a previous job, my colleagues were all very heavily into football. I have no interest myself, so just held back from their conversation. When international tournaments were happening, they somehow expected me to suddenly care about the game, making me out to be strange for having no opinion on how last night’s match went or often not even knowing whether there was one on. I had a heated debate with a very dear friend during the most recent [maybe World, maybe European] Cup over the fact that she had watched an England match and was gutted that we had lost: “I thought you didn’t like football?” “I don’t, but it is England isn’t it!” I don’t understand this. It makes no sense to my mind to endure *half-guessing* 90 minutes (?) of anything unpleasant just to show support for your country; but that’s just me, it seems…

It works the other way too… you may remember (or may not, here’s the page just in case!) my references to the rugby world cup back in the autumn; I do quite enjoy watching rugby. What baffled me, though, was the outpouring at the time from my footie-loving, ‘egg-chase’-hating friends giving their opinion of the plays and outcomes; challenged on their sudden interest, they expressed the same opinion; of course they are interested, their team are playing after all!

So why do I not feel the same? As much as I like to watch rugby, I still cannot muster that national pride to cheer on my team. In fact during the World Cup itself, I noted that occasionally there might have been a choice of matches and I would opt to watch the ‘other’ one, missing the England match. A Welsh friend tried taunting me after a particular match (probably the last one, although I do not remember at what stage or to whom we left the tournament) and was a little down-hearted that his goading invoked such little reaction. His final word on the matter was something along the lines of admiring me for being the bigger person; I never did tell him I just did not care! Especially given that he thought even more highly of me when I sent messages of sympathy over the theft of his Welsh team’s semi-final and afterwards the loss of their third place play-off match against Australia.

And now we are in the midst of the six nations tournament, I find myself headed down the same pathway; being mostly indifferent when ‘my’ team are playing; caring more for other teams than England; feeling I do not quite belong to this nation that supposedly owns me.

So what is the point to all this rambling?

Well, believe it or not it does bother me that I have no affiliation to my country.
Nationality matters. Even with the current pull northwards to Wales, I will still be an English person and am fully aware that moving will not change who I am. Yet if I do not know who I am, how can I teach my children to discover their own identities? There is a heavily ingrained Englishness within me somewhere, believe me; I have studied my family tree and taken at least three separate lines back to the early part of the eighteenth century (the earliest being a 1703 baptism entry) and at no point does anyone move farther than thirty miles from where I now live – that inherent heritage will not go away simply because I move fifty miles north.

So why the calling? Why do I feel such a one-ness whenever I visit Wales, even when I think back on childhood visits? Why the initial round of recurrent dreams which instigated my current need to move away? The desperate need to learn the language and the frantic house-hunting? Why do I feel such a longing, almost becoming of home-sickness when standing at the edge of the county gazing forlornly at the Welsh coastline?

I have no answers, but at least thanks to Rob Brydon (and of course the gorgeous Mr Corcoran!) I do at least have an inkling as to the right questions to ask…




And I am aware of the gleaming irony of using an image representing Cornwall whilst talking of my own heritage, but it kind of illustrates my point to say I really don't much care!

Just an Observation....

Synchronicity is an odd thing indeed! Since the whole debacle over trying to get to Swansea I have had so many little subliminal events happen that I really think the universe is telling me something. A few months ago, even before the Swansea trip was mentioned, I woke one night from a dream with the true belief I was fluent in Welsh. I shirked it off as just another random dream, but it has happened several times since; once the day before an estate agent contacted me wanting to commission an article he could submit to a trade publication. I had to centre my research on his locale in order it would look as though he had written it himself and discovered that property prices in parts of Wales are quite amazing. After this, came an incident whilst my oldest was looking into universities and she asked where a particular place was: I remembered quite clearly a beautiful 5-bed detached house I was looking at a few days earlier (because we all know how my research heads off on a tangent from time to time!), whilst baby, geography really not being her strong point, had not even realised that this town was in Wales at all; this had also been pre-empted with the “I’m Welsh, me” dream. I also found myself randomly dreaming about two old school friends; my first crush at the grand age of nine or ten and a boy from my class when I was maybe seven or so. They had both moved from Wales to live in our home town and after a short time had returned. The dream itself had no geographical connotations but for their being Welsh, but combined with everything else is enough to make me stop and take note for just a moment. The thing is, it’s all very well asking for signs and noticing them; but what are you supposed to do then? It’s like the end of an episode of Bullseye: “Let’s ‘ave a look at what you coulda won!” There is no way we can move right now, with one in the midst of A-levels and one GCSE’s, so we wait…. And hope that when the time is right, that fabulous house is still for sale!

Hold off on buying houses in Wales for a while, please!