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Recently, I was presented with one of the most challenging
teaching tasks I've had to face over the past few years. Escola
Secundária de Vila Pouca de Aguiar in Trás-os-Montes
asked me to give some of their 11th grade students a talk on what
it was to be British. I hadn't got a clue!
Although of Irish origin, brought up in England and with close
family now living in Wales and Scotland - a patchwork that should,
you would think, give me some insight into 'being British' - I
was left scratching my head. The concept eluded me; it was like
the slippery eel I'd once tried to take out of a bucket at a neighbour's
house when I was about 10. I couldn't get a purchase anywhere.
I could make a stab at defining 'Scots' or 'Irish' or 'Welsh',
though most of the images I came up with were probably stereotypes
anyway - something I was desperate to avoid. The 'English' I decided
were what you had left when you took away the Scots, Irish and
Welsh from the British. As I didn't know what the British were
in the first place, the concept of 'being English' therefore was
also quite elusive. Clearly I needed help.
I sought it by setting up a fairly rushed and impromptu survey
among my British colleagues, and those of my family and friends
who had e-mail addresses. In the end this ran to about 100 souls,
all proud bearers (or otherwise) of British passports. I sent
them a fairly random list of items - objects and behaviour patterns
- that I thought might represent 'being British' and asked them
to choose their top 10 in degree of 'Britishness'. I also asked
them to choose those items they thought were unBritish, and invited
them to submit any other items they thought I'd missed. As it
happens, I missed a lot, the worst omission being Boots the Chemist1
which, by anyone's reckoning, goes a long way to defining Britishness.
I didn't forget Marmite2, but that
- of course - only existed as 'being British' in the minds of
ex-pats. Almost immediately, though, a great, thorny problem arose:
when was 'Britishness' an identifiable solid object - a sight
or a sound - and when was it more of a perception - a pattern
of behaviour, a way of communicating, a hope, a vision, an expectation
or a desire?
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It quickly became obvious that many people identified objects
like the pub and the BBC as being undeniably British, but there
was a mixed press for British passions like gardening, DIY3
and fishing as representing Britain. There were enormous conflicts
too: the British as being over-orderly, rule-abiding citizens
received equal weight to the concept of the British as being unruly
and lawless yobs. A similar result was found over the concept
of the British as being generally friendly or unfriendly people
- half saw the Brits as being warm, neighbourly, chummy people
while the other half saw them as being cool and emotionally distant
people.
Initially I had expected to find a big difference between the
answers of UK residents and ex-pats (after all, why had the latter
left in the first place?), but this didn't turn out to be the
case. Just as many residents as ex-pats identified red double
decker buses and red telephone boxes as being typically British,
even though these items now hardly exist. The Changing of the
Guard was also cited as an example of Britishness by people who
admitted they had never seen it, adding to the stereotypical image
that foreigners might have of the country. This little survey
was turning a thorny problem into one with gigantic spikes on
it. What was I to do?
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I decided to choose the top five items that caught most people's
interest, and the five which people felt were least representative,
and I was going to ask the students to work in groups with the
same list I had given the Brits, and choose their own top and
bottom choices. We would then compare the results. Naturally I
wasn't going to influence the students by showing them the Brits
opinions of themselves first. They went into the group work with
their prejudices and preconceived ideas unchecked. The results,
not surprisingly, differed greatly from the Brits.
The Royal family featured highly in the top ten of the Portuguese
students, while it didn't even reach the top thirty of the Brits;
British humour was one of the favourites for the Brits, and the
Portuguese put it nowhere at all. In fact, the only things that
they both agreed on was the BBC and drinking tea - and the latter
I promptly blamed on the Portuguese, or Catherine of Bragança
anyway! This led to a lively debate about tea addiction, and also
to perceived attitudes of the British to their royal family (Prince
Harry caught smoking cannabis had been in the news only the week
before).
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In top place - with 93% of all respondees agreeing - the pub
reigned supreme as a classic example of British culture and Britishness
according to the Brits I surveyed. I had searched various websites
about pubs and the brewing industry in the UK (giving rise to
jocular japes from my colleagues as I did so), and soon came up
with a range of facts and statistics that in themselves almost
proved my respondents claim for this venerable institution to
be top of the pile. Pubs offer a friendly atmosphere, a chance
to chat in comfort and a variety of games either as participants
or spectators. They are also one of the biggest supporters of
charity in the UK (charity giving being also a top favourite amongst
Brit respondents to my survey) and are at the centre of most communities.
A quiz (in pub style) with the students from Vila Pouca about
this information enlightened some, and, I hope, dispelled a few
myths about the British for others.
What about the British who don't go to pubs and are among the
35% of the population who don't see themselves as part of a pub
community culture? Well, I picked up a few by dealing with the
British and their gardens. The garden, it would seem, is a symbol
of many things British - independence, self-containment, attention
to detail, keeping things in order. And if - as is the case for
many in the UK - they don't have a little plot front and back
(or just out the back) then many seem to aspire to it, and aspiration
simply has to be a keystone in determining who a people are; a
nation without aspirations is a nation without hope so it would
follow that determining collective aspirations will help to determine
what that nation is. Was I getting close to finding out what being
British was? A hair's breadth closer, I felt.
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At the end of the 90 minute session I wondered if I'd done anything
at all to illustrate to the eager, and not so eager, 16-year-old
minds gathered politely in front of me anything at all of what
being British is. I even suggested that, in the population of
59 million or so people that makes up the UK, you might get 59
million answers to what being British was.
Next time - if there is a next time - I'm going to have to be
harder on those who ask for this kind of session and be more specific,
to refine what they mean. It may be an unfair comparison, but
I felt that being asked to define what 'being British' was would
be akin to asking a Portuguese to define what 'being Iberian'
was. No, there was no 'may be' about that. It was an unfair comparison,
wasn't it?
1 Boots the Chemist is a well known chain
of shops in Britain. They sell medicines, toiletries and perfume,
as well as food and drink , CDs, films, gifts etc in larger branches.
2 Marmite is something that you spread on bread
and butter. It's made from yeast extract and tastes salty. You
should only use a little at a time.
3 Do-it-yourself, ie making home improvements.
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