ENGLISHNESS VS.

BRITISHNESS
Alexander J. Betts

Various factors make it difficult to distinguish between Englishness and Britishness.

Take the notion of England's island status, for example: while mainland Britain is
completely surrounded by water, England itself is actually joined to both Wales and
Scotland. Assuming that the south-west peninsula is a part of England (which some
Cornish might dispute), England faces water on three sides and land --or borders—on
two sides, so, technically, while it is on an island, it is not itself an island.
Even the name "Albion" is ambiguous. To many people, it is synonymous with
"England"; indeed, artists and writers down the centuries have used the term in
precisely this way. However, there is another school of usage which takes Albion to
mean "Britain." The reasoning behind this is interesting. It is generally accepted that
for some time before and during the last Ice Age, the British Isles were part of the
Continent of Europe. When the ice thawed and the vast ice sheets receded, the English
Channel appeared, cutting off the isles from the rest of the continent. It is said that
when those on the Continent looked across the English Channel, they saw the White
Cliffs of Dover, so they described the British mainland as "Albion" or a word similar
to it (the Latin root word "albus" means "white"). If this theory is correct, the whole of
England, Wales and Scotland was named after the chalk cliffs. (However, there is also
a possible Celtic or Gaelic origin for the name "Albion": an exact cognate in Welsh
derives from a root which denotes both "white" and "mountain.")
In the same way, history, and the composition of various institutions, have sometimes
made it hard for individuals to sort out their loyalties. For example, the British Empire
was a product of the efforts of many people, from all over the isles. Then there is the
British Army, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Air Force. All three armed services
contain regiments drawn from specific regions of the individual nations, and even now
these regiments are fiercely proud of their local roots, often defining themselves by
county rather than country. The fact that the English language -originally the
possession of the English alone— was spread around the world by the British has
produced the strange appellation "British English" (as opposed to, say, American or
South African English), although there is not, and never was, a British accent, only
regional English, Welsh, Scots or Irish accents. Furthermore, regional forms of
English in the United Kingdom have always varied wildly, producing vibrant and
colourful dialects rather than a homogenous tongue. An examination of the respective
English and British symbols might be helpful. Representing Britain there is Britannia,
a female figure with a trident and shield; the trident, a nautical symbol, underlines the
fact that she surveys the oceans. England is represented by St. George, a male figure
with lance and shield, who, in contrast to Britannia, surveys the land: he is often
depicted on horseback, thrusting the lance through the dragon's head and into the earth.
As for the ancient personification of Albion (whose nationality, as noted above, is
unclear), he is usually depicted as a male giant, sometimes armed with various
weapons, bestriding the land.
While the rose is associated with England, heather and the thistle with Scotland, the
daffodil and leek with Wales, and the shamrock with Ireland, it is difficult to find a

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floral emblem for Britain -some might suggest the oak leaf or acorn, though the oak is
also a symbol of England. The lion is the national animal of England, and,
confusingly, also of Scotland, while Wales is represented by the red dragon (Ireland
does not appear to have a national animal). Britain as a whole is represented by the
bulldog, and also by the lion. It is clear, therefore, that there are some overlaps of
national symbols between the nations.
Whatever a nation's official characterisations and symbols, national identity remains a
highly personal and individual matter. I was born in Paddington, London, in the late
1950s. When I was still a baby, my family moved to Brixton in south London, where
we lived until I was eleven; then we moved again, to a part of Bayswater, next to
Paddington. At the age of twenty-seven I moved to Merton Abbey in south London,
almost at Wimbledon, and then finally moved again at thirty-one to Loughton in
Essex, on the edges of both Epping Forest and east London, where I currently reside. I
still work in London, and regard myself as a Londoner (primarily a south Londoner,
because of my first ten years in Brixton). My mother also saw herself as a Londoner,
but further back, my family background is more complex. My maternal grandmother
had come to London from Wales, and always felt Welsh. My maternal grandfather, her
second husband, was an Irishman who had come to England in search of work. After a
long day spent working as a navvy on the London building sites, he would go to the
local pub and drink Guinness. He and my grandmother were married in the local
Catholic church, despite the fact that she was a staunch Welsh Methodist. My father
came from Somerset in England, but his family had moved there from the Black
Country (the Midlands around Wolverhampton) when he was a boy. My father did not
regard himself as "Real Somerset," because although he spoke with a West Country
accent at will, he could not forget the Wolverhampton way of speaking.
My understanding of my national identity became even more complicated when I
learned that, some generations back, I had also had an ancestor from Edinburgh. In
terms of nationality, who or what was I? This question has exercised and fascinated
me ever since childhood. And in 2006, now that I am in my forties, am I any closer to
knowing whether I am British or English - or both? What relationship did my London
forebears see between their city and the rest of the country? When my Irish
grandfather left Ireland for London, did he think that he was going to England, or
Britain, or did he perhaps think that London was a kind of self-contained city-state,
geographically located within England and Britain, but in a way separate from them?
My education did not dispel any of this confusion for me. When I was at secondary
school in the seventies, the history teacher, although a very enlightened, forward-
thinking man, explained that we should assume that the authors of our text-books used
the terms 'Britain' and 'England' interchangeably, which puzzled me. Then, in the late
seventies and early eighties, I studied law at the London School of Economics.
Constitutional law was on the syllabus, and inevitably we covered the (then) semi-
dormant topic of devolution. In a nutshell, it was recognised at the time that there were
nascent nationalist movements in Britain, but discussion of these centred upon the
activities of the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and the IRA. No-one in my study
group imagined that England might want to separate from the other countries: again,
England was seen as effectively synonymous with Britain, at least by the English law
students. In the eighties, I was unaware of moves towards devolution on the part of

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any of Britain's nations. Save for the continuing problems in Northern Ireland, there
seemed to be considerable national cohesion, particularly at the time of the Falklands
War in 1982 and after it. In the nineties, the focal point became the handing-back of
Hong Kong to China, which appeared to fuel the discussion of devolution in Britain.
However, the debate still largely concerned allowing more regional control to Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland; it was assumed that England would remain firmly at
the heart of Britain. What, in terms of feelings of belonging, will be the result of
devolution, which has been partly propelled by strengthened Celtic national identities?
The present constitutional situation inevitably encourages people to think about and
choose their national allegiances for themselves. When I was at a party in London
fairly recently, I heard a recognisably Scottish accent - though I could not make out to
what region of Scotland it belonged- and I asked the speaker, a man in his late sixties,
if he came from Scotland. He replied: "Glasgow." I said: "That's right, from Scotland."
His riposte was sharp: "No, from Glasgow." Although he has lived and worked in
England for many years, and is now retired here, he still sees himself as Glaswegian. I
asked his son, just turned forty, how he felt about his own national identity, and he
replied that he is British first, then Scottish, but definitely not English, although he
acknowledged the English contribution to Britain. I asked the same question of the
older man's daughter, in her thirties, and she replied that she is Scottish first, then
British, but definitely not English.

Are you English?

1. Do you speak English with a sufficient command of the rudiments of the

language to: (a) buy a return train-ticket to Saffron Walden; (b) explain to the
doctor that you have a cough; (c) say that you do not believe in Father Christmas
(unless you do); or (d) protest that the figures on the cheque which has just been
handed to you are £3,452.51 out?
2. Do you possess a real sense of fair play?
3. Do you have a well-developed, if quirky, sense of humour?
4. Do you believe that you should only complain if there are genuine grounds for
complaint, and when you decide to do so, do you complain with firmness and
persistence until there is a result?
5. Would you fight an enemy to the death if he tries to take over your country,
but only make war on him when every other reasonable avenue has been
exhausted?
6. Do you believe that you should do a good job for the sake of it?
7. Do you relish your freedoms, as they broaden down slowly from precedent to
precedent?
8. Do you enjoy sex, but try not to let on to our Continental neighbours that you
do?
9. Do you have manners: do you ask politely for the salt to be passed to you at the
dinner table, and thank the person who passes it to you?
10. Do you mistrust all politicians?
11. Do you have blind faith that it will all come right in the end, and are you
willing to move heaven and earth to ensure that it does?

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12. Do you love a good story?
13. Do you like machines?
14. Do you love the countryside, including the coast?
15. Do you adore the sea?
16. Do you tolerate everyone and their views, save on the odd occasion when you
are confronted by an axe-wielding madman?

If you were able to answer "Yes" truthfully to all or almost all of the above, then if you
were a stick of seaside rock, the words "Made by England" would run right through
you. If you were born in England and answered "Yes," your legend would be "Made in
England."

You will have noticed a complete absence of any questions in my test concerning the
colour of your skin, hair, or eyes, the accent with which you speak English, or your
family background. Nor does it ask about your religion. Being English is as much a
state of mind as it is a way of life: if I think and behave like an English person, then I
am one. Everyone should love their country and feel passionate about their nationality,
whether it is their nationality of origin or of choice. But loving your country does not
involve hating everyone else's countries. Being patriotic does involve showing your
best behaviour to everyone else. Unless, that is, they mean to harm you.
It seems to me that many of the questions above could also be used in a test to
determine Britishness, which shows that from my perspective, English and British
qualities overlap. I am English and British, not English or British. For me it is an
inclusive, not an exclusive, arrangement. Since I am English, I am also British, but
being British does not mean that I must also be English, for I could just as easily be
Scots, Welsh, or Northern Irish.
Definitive answers to my questions about English identity therefore prove elusive.
How do we distinguish between the traits that are common to all of us in Britain, and
those that are exclusive to England? I can only assess an individual's Englishness as
opposed to their Britishness instinctively, through interacting with him or her, and
would be hard-pressed to define it in words. Others might yet come up with such a
definition, however; so if all this has left you none the wiser, you can do no better than
to lie back and think of England.