What England Means to Me

David Crowther

Gareth — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 18:55:41 +0000

For too many, there is a cringing feeling of shame and guilt about being English, a willingness to accept other peoples’ negative narratives - and often with a deeply depressing historical illiteracy. It’s daft, and yet has a long tradition - especially among well-heeled liberals. George Orwell wrote about it, did he not? A desire to forget Englishness, lump all the available negatives into it, and become only British.

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Pete Kingston

Gareth — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 10:08:09 +0000

What does England mean to me? I don’t know if I can think of England without thinking of Britain. We are inextricably linked (for now at least), a reminder of our colonial histories. I think England is possibly a country which is not honest with itself; the history of England over the past 100 years […] Read more

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John Botting

Gareth — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 23:40:15 +0000

England to me is much more than a football team. The flag of St George means something very powerful to me. It’s a reflection of who I am, where I come from, what I stand for and where I am going. It is not a flag I wrap around me just when the national football […] Read more

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Richard Fowler

Gareth — Fri, 16 Mar 2018 12:13:58 +0000

“Let’s have fish and chips……………cos that’s what we do isn’t it Dad? Cos we’re English aren’t we Dad?”. I countered vainly that we ate fish and chips because we loved the taste but I could see my 6-year-old son Tommy was far from convinced. It was the Summer of 2008 and we were visiting grandparents […] Read more

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David Willey

Gareth — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 19:17:01 +0000

“Are you English? We hate the English.” I was six years old and just starting my new school in Scotland, having moved up from Yorkshire due to my dad’s work. Up until that point I had no concept of England or Englishness. I knew I was from Britain because all the railways and gas and […] Read more

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Mik Clayton

Gareth — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 21:01:11 +0000

We English were moulded together over more than 1000 years and have stood mostly alone for well over 1000 years since. We have survived the Norsemen, the Normans, the Papists and the Puritans, the Kaiser, National Socialism and Mondialism, for the most part by tolerance and self-reliance. We have kept what we liked and made […] Read more

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Andrew Sinclair

Gareth — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 15:33:00 +0000

“O wad some power the giftie gie us, tae see oorsels as ithers see us.” Those are the words of Scotland’s national bard – Robert Burns. This essay is about ‘What England Means to Me’ from a Scottish perspective, hence the introduction. When asked if I’d like to write a piece for this site, I […] Read more

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John Davey

Gareth — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 18:02:49 +0000

Jerusalem. Warm Beer. Cricket. I’ve seen,drunk and heard them all and – well, they don’t do anything for me really. Except cricket, which I played from the age of five. And I like the rather violent, post West Indies version of the game than the allegedly gentle, more ‘English’ game beforehand. Does that make me […] Read more

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Michael Gardiner

Gareth — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 20:40:15 +0000

The pedantic part: England, in a proper sense in which culture and institutionality cross-fertilise, means the victory of the nation over the state-nation, and the release from a corrupt political class. This is also the recovery of what England had, will regain, and will rebuild. It’s hard to avoid a ‘listing’ tendency (Orwell has a […] Read more

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Karl McCartney

Gareth — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:50:20 +0000

To me, England and Englishness is a state of mind rather than just being a member of a people or race on an island just off the European mainland. It is a state of mind much admired and respected by many, whether English or not. There is also a strange English tradition of self-hate, or […] Read more

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