50 years later, we live in an increasingly ‘Pythonesque’ world

What did the Europeans ever do for us? … a street plaque on the corner of Bore Street and Bird Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

I spent much of Friday afternoon with former schoolfriends, celebrating 50 years since we left school at Gormanston College in Co Meath.

Over 30 or more 60-somethings gathered together for a long and lingering lunch in the Cliff House in Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin.

There were sad but grateful memories of those who could not join us for lunch, and we read the names of those we know who have died over the past half century. But the afternoon was filled with memories of what were largely happy school days, and how well we were prepared to go out into the world.

How that world has changed over the past 50 years.

It is 50 years Monty Python’s Flying Circus was first broadcast on BBC1 ago, on 5 October 1969. It went on to run for four series, inspiring four original films, numerous live shows, several albums and many follow-up shows, including Fawlty Towers.

Ten years later, I was a student in Japan in 1979, on a fellowship provided for young journalists by Journalistes en Europe and Nihon Shimbun Kyokai. That year also saw the release of the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian, released on 8 November 1979.

In The Life of Brian, John Cleese plays Reg, who gives a revolutionary speech at meeting, asking, ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’

In response, his listeners outline all forms of positive aspects of the Roman occupation, such as sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health and peace, followed by ‘what have the Romans ever done for us except sanitation, medicine, education ...’

Reg: ‘Oh, great. Great. We – we need doers in our movement, Brian, but, before you join us, know this. There is not one of us here who would not gladly suffer death to rid this country of the Romans once and for all.’

John Cleese later parodied his own line in a 1986 BBC advert defending the Television Licence Fee: ‘What has the BBC ever given us?’ The scene inspired a BBC history series, What the Romans Did for Us (2000), written and presented by Adam Hart-Davis.

The Bird Street Pedestrianisation plan in Lichfield was aided by the European Regional Development Fund (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Walking through the streets of Lichfield earlier this week, there was one small reminder of how we live in an increasingly Pythonesque world.

A stone plaque embedded in the paving at the corner of Bore Street and Bird Street reads: ‘Bird Street Pedestrianisation Lichfield District Council aided by the European Regional Development Fund.’ In the centre, the year ‘1992’ is encircled by the 12 stars of the European Union.

It is so easy to forget what Europe has done for us, in Britain and Ireland, over the past half century. It is 80 years since World War II began in Europe. Asking what Europe has done for us shows how absurd and Pythonesque world we live in.

Sadly, to paraphrase Reg in The Life of Brian, it seems that in the deeply divided Britain of today, there are some people who might easily declare, ‘There is not one of us here who would not gladly suffer death to rid this country of Europe once and for all.’

I have never known Britain to be so divided as it is today, not even at the height of the miners’ strike. Perhaps it has never been so divided since the English civil war in the 1640s and the 1650s. When I hear people talking about the ‘Dunkirk Spirit,’ I want to remind them that Dunkerque is in France, and that it was a spirit that regretted being forced to withdraw from Europe, that wanted to engage with Europe, to set wrongs to right, to seek justice and peace, and to put an end to the extremes of the far right. I am even more worried about the tangible rise in Islamophobia and racism in ‘middle England.’

I was at a meeting earlier this week at which my former colleague at The Irish Times, Paul Gillespie, spoke of the present Brexit crisis in Britain, and posited four scenarios that may unfold in the months to come, two due to a hard Brexit: the break-up of the UK or a differentiated UK; and two due to a soft Brexit: a renegotiated UK or a federal UK.

Each of these scenarios points to the present crises in British identity and English identity. What does it mean to be British any more, when it seems the majority of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland appear to resent a move towards a hard Brexit that seems to be driven by English nationalists? And what does it mean any more to be English when English nationalism does not share the social justice values found in either Scottish and Welsh nationalism, and, ironically, appears to be more European than British in that it shares many of the characteristics of populist nationalism found today in France, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Italy and other EU member states?

Writing in the Tablet last week [14 September 2019] under the heading ‘The End of England,’ Professor Nicholas Boyle of Magdalene College, Cambridge, argues the British constitution is crumbling before our eyes, its frailties brutally exposed by the Brexit storm. But, he says, something even more fundamental has been shattered: the country's national identity. He argues the English no longer know who they are as a people, or what they are for.

Apart from the constitutional crisis that is unfolding, there is also a break-down in the unwritten conventions of British political culture. Both Boris Johnson and David Cameron have drawn the monarch into politics in recent weeks, and as I watch the behaviour of Dominic Cummings I find myself thinking the Spivs have taken over the Tory party. As Lord Hennessy wrote in the same edition of the Tablet, ‘it has become starkly apparent: the day of good chap is no more.’

Paul Gillespie also referred to the ‘good chap theory.’ It was invented by a Cabinet Office civil servant, Clive Priestly, who used to put it that the ‘good chaps’ (of both sexes) know where the undrawn lines of the constitution are and make sure they come nowehere near, let alone cross them.

It sometimes worries me when I find myself admiring Tory politicians such as Ken Clarke and John Major and dismissing the leader of the Labour Party because of his failure to deal with antisemitism at all levels of party membership.

Am I beginning to sound too like my father 50 years ago, listening to the news in the mornings and I finding myself acclaiming the vote in the House of Lords the night before?

Grenfell Tower tolls the bell for England’s ‘green and pleasant land’

Enjoying England’s ‘green and pleasant land’ in East Anglia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

The poet William Blake (1757-1827) described England over 200 years ago as a ‘green and pleasant land.’ When his poem was slightly altered by the composer Sir Hubert Parry, it became the unofficial anthem of England.

The poem, written as a tribute to John Milton, was inspired by a myth that Christ once travelled to England with Joseph of Arimathea, and that they had visited Glastonbury. This myth is reflected in the original title of Blake’s short poem, ‘And did those feet in ancient time.’

Are city tower blocks the image of the real England? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

But ever since Parry composed his setting in 1916, poem and song alike have been known as Jerusalem. It is sung at the Last Night at the Proms, at the close of political party conferences, in school assemblies and public schools, and at gatherings of the Woman’s Institute, so that it inspired the title of BBC sitcom Jam and Jerusalem.

It is sung at sports events and was sung at the London Olympics, accompanied by enthusiastic waving of the Flag of Saint George as the flag of England, and over the past century it has become the unofficial anthem of England.

The phrase ‘green and pleasant land’ instantly creates images in the mind’s eye of the English landscape described in the poetry of John Betjeman, or the England depicted by TS Eliot in ‘Burnt Norton,’ ‘East Coker’ and ‘Little Gidding.’ This now seems to be an England that many are yearning for today, though it probably never existed.

William Blake’s ‘green and pleasant land’ … a walk in the countryside in Comberford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But Blake’s ‘green and pleasant land’ is contrasted sharply in his poem with an England that is being overrun by ‘dark Satanic Mills.’

It is not that Blake is yearning for a flight to the countryside from the cities of the Industrial Revolution. But looking at the Albion Flour Mills built in Southwark by John Rennie and Samuel Wyatt, he saw this tall new building as a symbol of the destruction of another era and of the oppression of the workers and their families.

Blake saw the new cotton mills and collieries of his time as a mechanism for the enslavement of the masses and the destruction of culture:

‘And all the Arts of Life they changed into the Arts of Death in Albion...’

The words of the anthem are, paradoxically, an apocalyptic warning about a future England that is faced with choice between either embracing a more open way of life or of oppressing the masses.

Romance without being blind

Weeping willows and punts on the backs in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Since my childhood and early teens, the concept of an England that is a ‘green and pleasant land’ a romantic image has been enjoyable and inspiring at one and the same time.

I look forward to my walks in the ‘green and pleasant’ countryside in parts of England that I have known and come to identify with over the decades. I have been lost and carefree on many a Sunday afternoon as I wander through fields and farms in south Staffordshire, East Anglia and the West Country.

But enjoying that romantic England has never blinded me to the reality of an England of factories and tower blocks, of over-crowded city streets and slums, in London or Birmingham, Bristol, Derby or Liverpool.

Reflecting on England today … a timber-framed thatched pub on borders of Hertfordshire and Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

I am conscious that the England I am familiar with in Cambridge or Lichfield is an England that is not only unknown to many people in Ireland, but an England that is unknown to the vast majority of people who live in English cities today.

But never since the miners’ strikes and the CND protests in Thatcher’s England in the 1980s have I known England to be so deeply divided as England is today. The hopes and dreams of a more equal society that people like me cherished in the 1980s have evaporated and they have given way to the divisiveness and despair that prevails today.

Three changing events

Was Jane Austen in Cambridge a comment on Brexit … 52 per cent Pride and Prejudice; 48 per cent Sense and Sensibility? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

I am not sure whether three events have changed the climate in England, or whether they merely illustrate change that has been coming about for years: the Brexit referendum last year, the general election this year, and the response to the horrors of the Grenfell Tower fire this summer.

The people who live in tower blocks were targeted in the referendum last year and in the election this year. They knew the Tories never had their interests at heart, they felt betrayed and abandoned by the Labour Party, and clever canvassing tipped the balance. But the first victims of Brexit are going to be the very people who were convinced to vote to leave, thinking it would reverse their misfortunes and remove their alienation.

In the middle of all the angst about Brexit this summer, during the parliamentary recess, there was a cultural diversion when England marked the 200th birthday of Jane Austen on 18 July 1817. It is interesting that a romantic writer is the only woman, apart from Queen Elizabeth, to feature on a Bank of England banknote since Elizabeth Fry was replaced by Winston Churchill on the £5 note.

In today’s broken and divided England, an airbrushed image of England’s favourite romantic writer has more appeal than a woman who campaigned for the rights of prisoners and against war and racism.

As part of the celebrations of Jane Austen’s bicentenary, the Cambridge University Press published a series of new editions of her works. Perhaps those who voted for ‘Brexit’ might consider her words in Northanger Abbey published 200 years ago in 1817:

‘Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind, is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.’

A summer window display in the CUP shop in Cambridge placed Pride and Prejudice to the right and Sense and Sensibility to the left. A friend quipped that this was a referendum window, just a year after the vote: 52 per cent Pride and Prejudice; 48 per cent Sense and Sensibility.

Jeffrey Archer’s house in Grantchester … the Old Vicarage of Rupert Brooke (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

It is not too cruel to say that the way in which the cultured gives way to the crass is typified in the differences between the prose of Jane Austen written 200 years ago and the blockbusters by Jeffrey Archer, who today lives near Cambridge in Grantchester.

Cruel and cynical slogans

Early summer flowers in an English garden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

There is a constant mantra from the politicians who support Brexit that the people have voted and that there is no going back. But democracy would come to a sorry end if we were only ever allowed to have one election, never to vote again.

A cold and cynical slogan during the Brexit referendum was seen on the side of campaign buses: ‘We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead. Vote Leave.’

Leading Brexiteers including Boris Johnson were photographed alongside the bus. But the pledge was dropped immediately when Teresa May succeeded David Cameron and moved into No 10 Downing Street.

A traditional tea shop and a modern coffee shop side-by-side in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

As the EU penalises Britain for leaving, as borders close, banks withdraw, factories close and skilled but fearful workers leave, the voters who were convinced into voting leave will find there is no extra £350 million, and there is no new inward investment to create new jobs.

On the other hand, wealth remains where it has always been. According to a report in Country Life, one-third of Britain’s land still belongs to the aristocracy, and the Guardian recently showed the staggering degree to which the landed aristocracy benefits from payments under the EU’s common agricultural policy.

At least one in five of Britain’s top 100 single-payment recipients in 2015-2016 was aristocratic: in one year, the Duke of Northumberland’s Percy Farms took £1,010,672, and the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Farms estate £913,517. Chris Bryant estimates that once multiplied across the years, these EU payments have benefited the British aristocracy to the tune of many millions of pounds.

The hereditary peerage has consistently resisted democratic reform of House of Lords, and 92 hereditary peers still sit in Lords. The administration formed by Theresa May in June included one earl, one viscount and three hereditary barons.

The parish church in Trumpington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When Grenfell Tower burned down in the early morning on 14 June with over 80 deaths, it was just nine days short of the anniversary of the referendum. But it was surprising for the residents of Grenfell how Teresa May, other cabinet ministers and members of the royal family were slow in arriving on the spot to offer tea and sympathy.

Churches and other faith groups responded immediately with practical compassion. Cabinet ministers by their absence in those first 48 hours showed that today’s England is not so much ‘Strong and Stable’ as ‘Weak and Wilting.’

‘Significant and destabilising gap’

Is the Church providing a prophetic critique? … Saint Paul’s Cathedral in the City in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Is the Church providing a prophetic critique? Writing in the Financial Times in September, the Archbishop of Canterbury said capitalism in Britain is broken and needs urgent reform. Archbishop Justin Welby said Britain is failing children who ‘will grow up into a world where the gap between the richest and poorest parts of the country is significant and destabilising.’

Tudor architecture in Vicars’ Close, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Jerusalem of Blake and Parry is inspired by the apocalyptic images of the second coming (Revelation 3: 12 and 21: 2), in which Christ establishes the New Jerusalem. Blake suggests that a visit by Christ could create a heaven in England that is in contrast to the ‘dark Satanic Mills’ of the Industrial Revolution.

The England that was part of my growing up was a welcoming and hospitable land, characterised by and symbolised in a romantic way by public footpaths that invited the city and town dweller to cross the wooden style and to walk out into the open green and yellow countryside.

Hospitality and welcome are as much part of the English spirit and psyche as they were part of the Irish self-image. Despite the xenophobia created by Brexit, I still imagine walking into country pubs with low wooden beams and warm fires in which I am instantly engaged in conversation and invited into the community.

Public footpaths are romantic symbols of a welcoming and hospitable England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

But the apocalyptic image that I fear may be unfolding in England today means the England of tea shops and timber-framed, river-side pubs with inglenooks is changing if not lost. Alongside them is the England of the ‘Wind in the Willows’ and Punting on the Backs in Cambridge, of tea in the Orchard in Grantchester and country churches with their churchyards, of thatched cottages and English country gardens.

A walk along a country lane near Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In this nightmare, the tower blocks are crumbling in ashes and the flag of Saint George is torn and tattered as it flutters alone against a grey sky.

But it is a nightmare, not a dream. England is divided today in a way I have not known for decades. But the English people I know keep my faith in the England that I know can be.

The world of the traditional, welcoming English pub is changing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Priest-in-Charge, the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes. This feature was first published in the October 2017 editions of the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough) and the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory)

The flag of Saint George is torn and tattered as it flutters alone against a grey sky (Photograph: Patrick Comerfordm 2017)

Neighbours are good neighbours when we are good friends too

‘In England’s green and pleasant Land’ … a summer stroll in the countryside in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

I grew up thinking of England as my second home. My generation grew up watching English television, supporting English football teams, and reading English comics magazines and newspapers. I remember school debating teams that were obsessed with British politics.

I have never felt I am an outsider in England. From my teens I was familiar with places in England associated with my family background. My first employer sent me to England when I was 18. I have worked in England, written for English newspapers and magazines, made television programmes with English production teams, and sat on boards and trustee bodies based in England.

I have preached in English cathedrals, churches and college chapels, I have shed tears in the hulk of Coventry Cathedral, I have soared to dizzying heights at Evensong in King’s College Chapel and Westminster Abbey, and I have spent time studying in Cambridge and in Birmingham.

I have found the clock at ten to three in Rupert Brooke’s Grantchester, and have had honey for tea (or at least a hearty lunch) in the Orchard after walking from Trumpington or walking along the ‘Grantchester Grind.’ Yes, I know how a jug of Pimm’s always adds to the feeling that summer has arrived in an English garden, and I also enjoy the pleasures of English cricket, rugby and soccer.

I can spend hours exploring the architecture of the churches, houses and shops of towns like Saffron Walden, Bishop’s Stortford, Calne, Tamworth and Lichfield, or weekends in search of another Pugin church in the Staffordshire countryside or another Tudor timber-framed pub in Hertfordshire or Essex.

But I have also campaigned and protested on the streets of English cities and towns against wars, the arms race and racism, and I have spoken in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square.

I enjoy strolling through the rolling countryside of Staffordshire, on Wenlock Edge, through Coe Fen, in the Cotswolds and the Peaks, by the white horses of Wiltshire, along the banks of the Tame, the Trent, the Avon, the Severn, or the Thames. I can stand for hours watching rowers and punters on the backs in Cambridge and barges on the canals around Birmingham or the Lea Valley. I enjoy summer in the countryside in what William Blake describes as “England’s green and pleasant Land.”

I enjoy strolling through the rolling countryside near Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

If you want to preserve a romantic vision of England, I understand you. But I want that England to be part of my Europe too.

I am not a foreigner in England. For as long as I can remember, I have been as at home in Lichfield as I am in Wexford or Dublin. For me, there never has been a border between England and Ireland.

In recent years, when I have been asked for a passport travelling between Ireland and Britain, it has usually been by Ryanair staff members checking my boarding pass or by the gardai at Dublin Airport.

I only travel on my Irish passport. Yet, there are countries where I have been more than happy that British embassies provide hospitality and backup when there is no Irish embassy on the ground – indeed, even where there is an Irish embassy, British embassies have been places of welcome and hospitality.

I only travel on my Irish passport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

English culture is inseparable from my culture: poets, playwrights, composers, novelists, artists, dramatists, film-makers, television producers, sculptors, sports starts, journalists … we live in overlapping cultures that nurture each other. Who cares – who asks – whether Bob Geldof, Jeremy Taylor, Terry Wogan or Alec Guinness is or was English or Irish? Who remembers that John Betjeman wrote some of his best and most enduring poetry in Ireland? Or, for that matter, that George Herbert was born in Wales, that Vaughan Williams was of Welsh descent, and that TS Eliot was American-born?

It’s only when we get to the extremes that I get embarrassed: William Joyce, ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ was American-born, but was he from Galway or from England? Oswald Moseley and Diana Mitford lived in Co Galway and then in Co Cork after World War II, but no-one in Ireland would want to claim them.

In 1946, Evelyn Waugh travelled throughout Ireland in his quest for a romantic country house. In December 1946, he visited Gormanston Castle, Co Meath, and described it as “a fine, solid, grim, square, half-finished block with tower and turrets.” He made an offer to the owners of the castle, but had a change of heart and withdrew his offer when he read in a Dublin evening newspaper that Billy Butlin was planning a holiday camp nearby at Mosney, his first outside England. Had he bought Gormanston, perhaps I might have been sent to a school in England; instead, his silly snobbery made way for my school.

I do not want to see England, or any other part of the United Kingdom, leave the European Union. If today’s referendum was about the United Kingdom alone, I would not interfere. I would be an observer, a passive – an amused or bemused observer, depending on the result.

But today’s referendum is not just about the future of the United Kingdom. It is about the future of Ireland too, and it is about the future of the Europe we share together.

As John Donne, the poet and Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, wrote:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

Crossing the border between Spain and Gibraltar at La Línea de la Concepción (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Of course, I enjoy my times in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales too. I do not want to see a new border from Derry to Dundalk the replicates the only present British land border with the EU – the thin but tortuous border that separates Gibraltar and Spain.

Neighbours are good neighbours when they are good friends too. I do not want my friends to become more distant. If you have a vote in the United Kingdom today, please vote to Remain. Your European neighbours and friends want you to continue being part of our family and want to continue being part of your family

Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green and pleasant Land.

The stories of two nations divided by a common language

“Folks don’t always lock their bikes” … bicycles outside Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge last month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

It is amazing how conversations can eventually turn to rugby these days. After preaching at the Harvest Eucharist in Christ Church, Taney, this morning [4 October 2015], I found myself renewing many old friendships.

I had referred to my homesick travels through Wexford the previous day [3 October 2015], and inevitably some of the conversations tried to locate me.

We talked about boats in Courtown, crabbing in Cahore, former Rectors of Wexford, shared friends in Wexford, old family connections in Bunclody, and rugby in Enniscorthy and Wexford.

Some of the conversations managed to drift across to Achill Island or even (in one corner of the Sinnamon Hall) to Calne in Wiltshire.

But inevitably – and not only in male company – the conversations returned to the outstanding performance of Ireland in the Rugby World Cup.

A walk around the lake at Farmnleigh after lunch in the Boathouse Café (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Autumn flowers in the grounds of Farmleigh this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Later, two of us crossed the city to the Phoenix Park fora light lunch at the Boathouse Café in Farmleigh, followed by a walk around the lake. But I was back home in time to be ensconced in a comfortable position to see Ireland playing against Italy.

Despite a weaker than expected Irish performance throughout the game, it is comforting to see Ireland is holding on to its standing in fourth place in world rugby placings.

On the other hand, I find it difficult to comprehend how many Irish people are rejoicing at England’s exit. Looking at Facebook postings, it seems many Irish people were cheering for any side playing against England, and the gloating is both unhealthy and unneighbourly.

I have always felt comfortable in Ireland and in England, and while I am as aware as anyone of the differences that separate us, they are nothing compared to the shared similarities that should always make us the best of friends and the best of neighbours.

Five weeks ago [29 August 2015], while two of us were walking back to Trumpington after lunch in the Orchard in Grantchester, two pretty villages close to Cambridge, I heard the delightful observation: “There is something very, something very English about England.”

Yes, there is something very English about England, as there is something very Irish about Ireland. But the similarities are greater than the differences, and the differences do not create the same chasm as the one that exists, for example, between England and America.

Both Winston Churchill and the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw are credited with saying: “England and America are two countries divided by a common language.” Last week, the Revd Sally Hitchner, Chaplain at Brunel University, drew attention to a modern take on this saying when she reposted a Facebook posting by Scott Waters of Florida, who shared some interesting observations on a recent holiday in England.

I was amused by his observations that “soccer is a religion, religion is a sport,” and that in England “you’re defined by your accent.” What he says about trains and the hospitals, and very interesting comparisons of English and American experiences of racism and policing. Most telling of all, his repetitive observation: “There are no guns.”

He wrote:

I was in England again a few weeks ago, mostly in small towns, but here’s some of what I learned:

● Almost everyone is very polite

● The food is generally outstanding

● There are no guns

● There are too many narrow stairs

● Everything is just a little bit different

● The pubs close too early

● The reason they drive on the left is because all their cars are built backwards

● Pubs are not bars, they are community living rooms.

● You’d better like peas, potatoes and sausage

● Refrigerators and washing machines are very small

● Everything is generally older, smaller and shorter

● People don’t seem to be afraid of their neighbours or the government

● Their paper money makes sense, the coins don’t

● Everyone has a washing machine but driers are rare

● Hot and cold water faucets. Remember them?

● Pants are called “trousers”, underwear are “pants” and sweaters are “jumpers”

● The bathroom light is a string hanging from the ceiling

● “Fanny” is a naughty word, as is “shag”

● All the signs are well designed with beautiful typography and written in full sentences with proper grammar.

● There’s no dress code

● Doors close by themselves, but they don’t always open

● They eat with their forks upside down

● The English are as crazy about their gardens as Americans are about cars

● They don’t seem to use facecloths or napkins

● The wall outlets all have switches, some don't do anything

● There are hardly any cops or police cars

● 5,000 year ago, someone arranged a lot of rocks all over the place, but no one is sure why

● When you do see police they seem to be in male and female pairs and often smiling

● Black people are just people: they didn’t quite do slavery here

● Everything comes with chips, which are French fries. You put vinegar on them

● Cookies are “biscuits” and potato chips are “crisps”

● HP sauce is better than ketchup

● Obama is considered a hero, Bush is considered an idiot.

● After fish and chips, curry is the most popular food

● The water controls in showers need detailed instructions

● You can boil anything

● Folks don’t always lock their bikes

● It’s not unusual to see people dressed different and speaking different languages

● Your electronic devices will work fine with just a plug adapter

● Nearly everyone is better educated then we are

● If someone buys you a drink you must do the same

● There are no guns

● Look right, walk left. Again; look right, walk left. You’re welcome.

● Avoid British wine and French beer

● It’s not that hard to eat with the fork in your left hand with a little practice. If you don’t, everyone knows you’re an American

● Many of the roads are the size of our sidewalks

● There’s no AC

● Instead of turning the heat up, you put on a jumper

● Gas is “petrol”, it costs about $6 a gallon and is sold by the litre

● If you speed on a motorway, you get a ticket. Period. Always

● You don’t have to tip, really!

● Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall really are different countries

● Only 14% of Americans have a passport, everyone in the UK does

● You pay the price marked on products because the taxes (VAT) are built in

● Walking is the national pastime

● Their TV looks and sounds much better than ours

● They took the street signs down during WWII, but haven't put them all back up yet

● Everyone enjoys a good joke

● There are no guns

● Dogs are very well behaved and welcome everywhere

● There are no window screens

● You can get on a bus and end up in Paris

● Everyone knows more about our history then we do

● Radio is still a big deal. The BBC is quite good

● The newspapers can be awful

● Everything costs the same but our money is worth less so you have to add 50% to the price to figure what you're paying

● Beer comes in large, completely filled, actual pint glasses and the closer the brewery the better the beer

● Butter and eggs aren’t refrigerated

● The beer isn’t warm, each style is served at the proper temperature

● Cider (alcoholic) is quite good.

● Excess cider consumption can be very painful.

● The universal greeting is “Cheers” (pronounced “cheeahz” unless you are from Cornwall, then it’s “chairz”)

● The money is easy to understand: 1-2-5-10-20-50 pence, then-£1-£2-£5-£10, etc bills. There are no quarters.

● Their cash makes ours look like Monopoly money

● Cars don’t have bumper stickers

● Many doorknobs, buildings and tools are older than America

● By law, there are no crappy, old cars

● When the sign says something was built in 456, they didn’t lose the “1”

● Cake is pudding, ice cream is pudding, anything served for desert is pudding, even pudding

● BBC 4 [he means Radio 4] is NPR

● Everything closes by 1800 (6pm)

● Very few people smoke, those who do often roll their own

● You’re defined by your accent

● No one in Cornwall knows what the hell a Cornish Game Hen is

● Soccer is a religion, religion is a sport

● Europeans dress better than the British, we dress worse

● The trains work: a three-minute delay is regrettable

● Drinks don’t come with ice

● There are far fewer fat English people

● There are a lot of healthy old folks around participating in life instead of hiding at home watching TV

● If you’re over 60, you get free TV and bus and rail passes.

● They don’t use Bose anything anywhere

● Displaying your political or religious affiliation is considered very bad taste

● Every pub has a pet drunk

● Their healthcare works, but they still bitch about it

● Cake is one of the major food groups

● Their coffee is mediocre but their tea is wonderful

● There are still no guns

● Towel warmers!

● Cheers

“The English are as crazy about their gardens as Americans are about cars” … country flowers in a country garden in Chesterfield, a tiny village south of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Carols and Hymns for Christmas (10): ‘As Joseph was a-walking’ (No 148)

Saint Joseph leading the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, followed by Saint James, on the flight into Egypt … an Ethiopian artists’s impression (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Saint Joseph is one of the truly enigmatic characters in the Gospel stories. He appears in both Saint Matthew’s Gospel and Saint Luke’s Gospel, but he is in neither Saint Mark’s nor Saint John’s Gospel. And after Mary and Joseph return from Jerusalem to Nazareth with the Child Jesus, Joseph disappears from the stage again.

The Gospels are silent when it comes to the details of Joseph’s life. We know not where or when he was born nor do we know where or when he died. Was he married before? Was he an older man? Was he the father of the brothers of Jesus – James, Joses, Judas and Simon – from an earlier marriage? Did he live on into old age? We do not know.

We do not even know what he worked at: Joseph was a τεκτων (tekton), which is traditionally translated as carpenter. But the Greek word applies too to an artisan with wood in general, or to an artisan in iron or stone, a builder or even an architect.

And if the Gospels are silent about the intimate details of Joseph, then Joseph too is silent in the Gospels. He has the worst part to play in the school nativity play … a walk-on part, but no lines to say. Joseph has no speaking parts at all. All we know is he lived in Nazareth in Galilee before the birth of Christ (Luke 2: 4).

Joseph does not speak. Instead, Joseph dreams and Joseph listens. He listens to the angel who tells him not to divorce Mary (Matthew 1: 20-21), and does what the angel of the Lord tells him (Matthew 1: 24). When the law commands it, Joseph takes his pregnant wife to Bethlehem (Luke 2: 4), and there the child is born.

After the birth of Christ, Joseph listens to an angel in another dream – and, silently, he does as he is told, and without mumbling or grumbling gets up and takes the Mother and Child into Egypt (Matthew 2: 13-14).

When Herod dies, Joseph is told by the angel in yet another dream to return with Mary and Jesus from Egypt (Matthew 2: 19-21).

Then Joseph learns in a fourth dream that Herod Archelaus is in power in Judea, and he is warned in a dream to move to Galilee. And so, Joseph takes the mother and child to Nazareth and they settle there (Matthew 2: 21-23).

The last time Joseph appears is when the family visits the Temple in Jerusalem at Passover, when Jesus is about 12 (Luke 2: 41-52). When the Gospel writers resume telling the story of Christ’s life, after the hidden years, the Virgin Mary is present at some events, but there is no mention ever again of Joseph.

Did he hear Jesus preach in the synagogue?

Did he see him heal?

Was he too at the Wedding at Cana?

We do not know.

Like his namesake Joseph in the Old Testament, Joseph in the Gospels is a dreamer. Most dreamers are good on ideas but weak on delivery, dreamers but not doers. Saint Joseph, on the other hand, is both a dreamer and a doer.

What if Joseph had rolled over and had another 40 winks after each of those dreams?

What if Joseph said No at each turn?

At different times, we have all pondered Mary’s potential “No” at each turn. But, what if Joseph said No, had divorced Mary, left Jesus to be brought up by a single mother?

What if Joseph decided to stay at home and Jesus was born in Nazareth?

What if Joseph had ignored the warning and stayed on in Bethlehem, so that the new-born child was found by Herod’s troops hunting down all the new-born children?

What if Mary and Jesus moved back from Egypt to Bethlehem or Jerusalem, and became victims of the murderous schemes of Herod Archelaus?

What if Joseph and Mary had failed to find the teenage Jesus when he got lost in the Temple?

We often think that dreamers need to take their heads out of the clouds and set their feet back firmly on the ground. We often think that those who have little to say have little to contribute. Joseph proves how wrong we can be. Joseph is a dreamer and Joseph is a doer. Joseph plays a key role in the great story of salvation. Does it matter what he does afterwards? No. It just matters that he did what he was asked to do. We leave the rest to Jesus.

Is life just a bowl of cherries? ... ‘The Cherry Tree Carol’ is a traditional English carol dating back to the early 15th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Each morning during this Season of Christmas, I am reflecting on an appropriate hymn or carol. This morning [3 January 2015], I have chosen ‘As Joseph was a-walking.’ This is a beautifully serene and atmospheric setting of traditional words on the prophecy of Christ’s birth as told to Joseph by the angel, and is traditionally known in England as ‘The Cherry Tree Carol.’

This carol is No 148 in the Irish Church Hymnal. This old English carol, which dates back to the Coventry Mystery Plays. It was performed in Coventry ca 1400 during the Feast of Corpus Christi, and was still being sung in many parts of England more than 450 years later.

A version of Mystery VIII was published in 1823 by William Hone in Ancient Mysteries Described, and a more complete version was published in 1841 by James Orchard Halliwell in Ludus Coventriæ. A Collection of Mysteries, Formerly Represented at Coventry on the Feast of Corpus Christi, where Halliwell dates the carol to 1468.

Later, William Studwell pointed out that there is not a single “Cherry Tree Carol” but rather three separate folk carols that were later merged. Even among these three carols there is considerable variation in the lyrics. The editors of The New Oxford Book of Carols say there may be at least eight texts.

Some researchers point to the widespread use in folklore of the gift of a cherry, or similar fruit carrying its own seed, as a divine authentication of human fertility. There is also a link between Eve eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden before the Fall, and Mary eating cherries and whose son would erase the transgression. Some versions have Mary and Joseph walking through a garden, rather than an orchard, reinforcing the motif of the Garden of Eden.

Chapter 20 of the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew tells a story that during their flight into Egypt, Mary sits beneath a palm tree and desires its dates, but is unable to reach them. Joseph is unable to climb the tree, but when Jesus intervenes, the tree bows down to give Mary the fruit.

Most versions of this carol follow a similar pattern: when Saint Joseph refuses to retrieve the fruit of the tree for the Virgin Mary, Christ intervenes from the womb and the tree bows down to deliver the fruit to the Virgin Mary.

However, in one version of ‘Joseph Was An Old Man,’ Saint Joseph commands the tree to bow to the Virgin Mary – and it does. In ‘Joseph Were A Young Man,’ it is Christ himself who issues the command.

As Joseph was a-walking

As Joseph was a-walking,
he heard an angel sing,
‘This night there shall be the birth time
of Christ our heavenly King.

‘He neither shall be born
in housen nor in hall,
nor in the place of Paradise,
but in an ox’s stall.

‘He neither shall be clothed
in purple nor in pall,
but in the pure white linen
as usen babies all.

‘He neither shall be rocked
in silver nor in gold;
but in a wooden cradle
that rocket on the mould.”

As Joseph was a-walking,
there did an angel sing,
and Mary’s child at midnight
was born to be our King.

Then be ye glad, good people,
this night of all the year,
and lift your hearts in joyfulness,
his star it shineth clear.

Another version was versified by Charles Wesley, the author of The Water Babies, who has Amyas sing this carol in Westward Ho!:

As Joseph was a-Walking by Charles Kingsley (1899)

As Joseph was a-walking
He heard an Angel sing –
‘This night shall be the birth night
Of Christ, our Heavenly King.

“His birthbed shall be neither
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of paradise,
But in the oxen’s stall.

“He neither shall be rocked,
In silver nor in gold,
But in the wooden manger
That lieth on the mould.

“He neither shall be washen
With white wine nor with red,
But with the fair spring water
That on you shall be shed.

“He neither shall be clothed
In purple nor in pall,
But in the fair white linen
That usen babies all.”

As Joseph was a-walking
Thus did the angel sing,
And Mary’s Son at midnight
Was born to be our King.

Then be you glad, good people,
At this time of the year;
And light you up your candles,
For His star it shineth clear.

This version was set to music by Lydia Avery Coonley Ward (1845-1924), who wrote tunes for many carols, including ‘Why do bells for Christmas ring?’

Tomorrow: ‘As with gladness men of old’

Scottish referendum raises searching questions about English identity

The Palace of Westminster and the London Eye on opposite banks of the Thames … what symbolises England as a nation today? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The Scottish referendum later this month is going to change the identity of Scotland – no matter how the people of Scotland vote. A ‘Yes’ vote means Scotland must find a new way of relating socially, politically and economically to Ireland, to England and to the European Union. A ‘No’ vote, on the other hand, does not mean that things can go back to where they were for the past three centuries: all sides in the ‘No’ campaign have conceded that a post-referendum Scotland will be a very different country indeed.

But the campaign over the summer months also raised questions about national identity south of the border in England.

The war memorial at Saint Mary’s Church in Calne, Wiltshire ... are English regiments and heroes in World War I as celebrated as those from Ireland, Scotland or Wales? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

For many people in England, for generations and centuries, English identity has been subsumed in British identity. British identity found proud expression in the commemorations marking the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. But – while Scottish, Welsh and Irish regiments and war dead were singled out for honours – there was little acknowledgement of the many unique English contributions.

Wounded pride

The flag of Saint George was reduced to a commercial banner outside pubs during this year’s World Cup (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When English identity is boosted, it is quickly deflated. This summer saw short-lived pride in the English football team, and when the team returned home from Brazil they were ridiculed for depriving England of its pride. Yet England only ever won the World Cup once, in 1966, and failed to even qualify in 1974, 1978 or in 1994. So, despite wounded pride, this was not the worst English World Cup performance in 60 years, as some commentators portrayed it.

Saint George’s Day is often an excuse for cheaper drinking but seldom celebrated as the national saint’s day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

For many English football fans, their club is far more significant than the national team, although top-spending and top-earning clubs seldom ever have local players in their squads. As the new season opens, advertising is claiming the Premier League is the world’s top competition. But a Premier League team has won the top European competition only four times in the 21 years since the League was formed.

Cricket at Grantchester ... a fairer image of England than football? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ahead of the new football season, it seemed easier and more comfortable to take pride in the reversal of England’s fortunes on the cricket field. Despite its failings, there are no plans to reform the structures of football in England. Last season, only 25% of the players in the Premier League were qualified to play for England.

Many of the star players on Premier sides are foreign-born players who have come to English clubs at a high price and many have their earnings paid into offshore accounts so they pay little tax, while investment in football facilities at local and schools level continues to diminish and successes in women’s football go unfeted.

Flags and anthems

The Queen’s Official Birthday is marked by the Trooping of the Colour at Parade ... but is the monarchy part and parcel of English identity? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When English identity is expressed, it is often hijacked by far-right groups like Ukip and extremist groups like the English Defence League and the BNP.

While it is acceptable to fly the white flag with the red cross of Saint George from pubs, bedroom windows and car aerials during international football tournaments like the World Cup, to fly it on Saint George’s Day is seen as a type eccentric religious nationalism, and to fly it on other occasions is seen as veering to political extremes.

At times, royalty serves as a focus for efforts to create an English identity. Certainly, the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation some years ago saw many streets and villages being spruced up for open-air parties. But the monarchy is shared with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and in recent months historians have pointed out that this year also marks the 300th anniversary of the succession of a minor German princeling to the throne after the death of Queen Anne – because ruling Whig politicians favoured an obscure German-speaking Hanoverian who was a Protestant to a long line of 50 or more claimants to the throne who were all Roman Catholics.

William Blake feared the growth of cities would destroy English country life (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Nor do English people have their own national anthem. God Save the Queen is a hymn praising the monarchy, but says nothing that is specific to England. Ironically, the alternative that is often offered as an English anthem, Jerusalem, is derived from a short poem, ‘And did those feet in ancient time,’ written by William Blake ca 1804-1808, and only set to music at the height of World War I by Sir Hubert Parry for a rally in the Queen’s Hall in London in 1916.

The hymn, which has become a popular anthem for the Labour Party, the Women’s Institute and others, uses phrases that have passed into popular English culture, including “Chariots of Fire,” “Green and Pleasant Land,” and “dark satanic mills.” Sir Edward Elgar re-scored the work in 1922 for the Leeds Festival, and this version is usually used on the Last Night of the Proms.

But the England of Blake’s hymn is no rural idyll. His Jerusalem is the new city established by Christ at the Second Coming (see Revelation 3: 12 and 21: 2), and its beauty stands in sharp contrast to the “dark satanic mills” of English cities during the Industrial Revolution, which Blake believed was ushering in the destruction of nature and human relationships and the enslavement of millions.

Westminster Abbey … Tom Wright suggests William Blake was referring to the great cathedrals and churches of England in ‘Jerusalem’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When he was Bishop of Durham, the theologian Tom Wright, a former Dean of Lichfield, even suggested Blake’s “dark satanic mills” may have referred to the great churches or cathedrals of the Church of England.

Although there has been an interesting rise in attendance at traditional English cathedral liturgies, the Church of England no longer claims the loyalty or even the affection of the majority of people in England and contributes little to shaping present English identities.

The mills at Quemerford in Wiltshire ... hardly the “dark satanic mills” that Blake wrote about (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Nation of shopkeepers?

Big Ben … an attraction for tourists and ‘John Bull’ protesters alike (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

There is no distinctive English national costume, and the English language is so international that it fails to shape national identity in the way language functions in neighbouring Wales, or further afield in Greece, Italy, Iceland or Poland. On the other hand, the same could be said about Spanish, French and perhaps Portuguese, and many European countries, such as Belgium, Switzerland or Austria, have no national language.

So, if sport, a flag, royalty, an anthem or the Church of England no longer help to shape English identity, how is English identity going to be defined, no matter what result the Scottish vote produces?

Time for Pimm’s ... a summer treat in Cloister Court in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Is it to be reduced to Morris dancers, cider, scrumpy, Pimm’s – or a “nice of tea – or to the red-faced rotund, Daily Mail-reading men who dress in silly “John Bull” costumes and protest beneath Big Ben against the latest perceived European threat, whether it is the abolition of the Pound or imperial measure or the imposition of straight cucumbers in their local greengrocers?

Napoleon was unfairly dismissive of the English character and business acumen when he said: “L’Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers” (“England is a nation of small shopkeepers”).

Napoleon denied he was being disparaging and claimed he was only stating the obvious. Whatever his intentions, Napoleon was merely citing the economist Adam Smith, who wrote in The Wealth of Nations (1776): “To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.”

Small shops in Saffron Walden in Essex ... Napoleon dismissed the English as “a nation of small shopkeepers” (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Interestingly, Smith was not English, but was born in Scotland and died in Edinburgh. He may have borrowed this idea from the Welsh-born Dean of Gloucester, Josiah Tucker, who said ten years earlier: “And what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shop-keeping nation.” Tucker in turn owed his preferment in the Church of England to Robert Nugent from Westmeath, who was MP for Bristol before becoming Earl Nugent, and who was once described disparagingly as “a jovial and voluptuous Irishman who had left popery for the Protestant religion, money and widows.”

Today, England’s finances are so secure that the debate in the Scottish campaign eventually turned to the currency union, and despite Britain remaining outside the Eurozone, the City of London is a major player in the financial and economic life of the European Union.

Nation state nationalism

Regional identity is strong in East Anglia ... but the chocolate box thatched cottage and flower garden is far from the real living conditions of most English people (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Perhaps it is unfair to expect England to have developed a coherent national identity. English identity became subsumed, if not sacrificed, in 1707 with the efforts to forge a new British identity after the Act of Union united England and Scotland. England had rescued Scotland from financial collapse after a disastrous Scottish venture in the late 1690s to establish a colony called Caledonia in Panama.

In the preceding centuries, English language and English cultural identity were being shaped, perhaps, by writers like Shakespeare, the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer and the translators of the Authorised Version of the Bible. But in those centuries, England was ruled first by a Welsh dynasty, the Tudors from 1485, and then a Scottish dynasty, the Stuarts from 1603, followed from 1714 by the Hanoverians and a succession of German dynastic families.

There was little room to develop a distinctive English cultural and political identity while ethnic nation states were emerging in Europe, including post-Habsburg Spain (1700), post-Bourbon France (1789), the modern Greek state (1830), a unified Italy (1861) and modern Germany (1871).

The towers of the power station at Rugeley dominate the Staffordshire countryside for miles ... has industry destroyed rural England? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Regional identities are often more important in places such as Yorkshire, the West Country, East Anglia and the Midlands. Indeed, many English people presume Irish identity is of a similar nature. It is an English blessing that national identity was never shaped through the violence of civil wars and ethnic cleansing that created many modern European states. The identities of the majority of old European states are new constructions, and so it is unfair to expect England to have a mature, developed, national and cultural identity.

Yet in those 300 years, apart from generals and statesmen, England also produced its great architects (Wyatt, Pugin, Street), composers (Parry, Elgar, Vaughan Williams), poets (Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth), painters (Reynolds, Constable, the pre-Raphaelites), philosophers (Darwin, Bertrand Russell) and industrialists (Wedgwood).

The majority of people in England today live not in the countryside but in tightly packed cities, suburbs and towns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Rummaging on a second-hand bookstall during the summer, I came across some back issues of the Countryman, and apart from the sentimental memories they brought back, they reminded me that for many English people the ideal England is that “Green and Pleasant Land,” romanticised not since Blake penned those words but since Jerusalem was popularised at the height of World War I.

Bright yellow rapeseed reflected in blue rain pools in the brown soil of the English countryside near Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I enjoy my regular walks in the English countryside. Indeed, the ideal England for many is a romanticised countryside, depicted in thatched cottages on chocolate box covers, with the flowers of country gardens. But the majority of English people live in cities, and this month’s referendum is not merely a question about the future of Scottish identity but one about forging a realistic future English identity.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay was first published in September 2014 in the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Church Review (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory).

Rescuing the flag of Saint George from football hooligans and cynical commercialism

The English flag flying outside a pub in Dublin this week ... who are Irish football fans going to cheer for over the next month? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

The whole world is going football mad. Not just the 32 countries with teams in the World Cup .... but most countries in the world, apart from, perhaps, India and China.

There is little for Irish fans to get upset about ... after all, as Ireland has not qualified, there can be no repeat of Roy Keane’s Saipan walkout in Japan in May 2002.

But who are Irish fans going to support this summer, from the first match tomorrow [Thursday 12 June 2014] until the final on a month later on 13 July?

I remember feeling a little bit of an oddity in 1966. I was 14 and staying at an Irish college in Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry. With two of my cousins, we managed to convince the nuns in the Presentation Convent that it would be an act of Christian hospitality to allow three teenage boys in to watch the final.

One my cousins convinced one of the nuns he knew the Presentation nuns in Millstreet, Co Cork, my mother’s home village. The rest of that Saturday afternoon – 30 July 1966 – was uninterrupted, even as the game went into extra time, apart from kind offers of tea and sandwiches.

Had the Irish teachers in the Kerry Gaeltacht realised not only that were we speaking English that day, but we were watching what they called a “foreign game” they would have been shocked. A new nationalism was emerging in Ireland in the wake of the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, and so I was a slight oddity, not only for having a hint of an English accent but also for supporting England, even if I had cheered on the winning team that afternoon.

Even now, almost half a century later, I am surprised how many Irish people are reluctant to cheer for England. This is our nearest neighbour, our biggest trading partner, we speak the same language, watch the same television programmes, are obsessed with each other’s politics, music and comedians, and share families in both countries. Yet many Irish people from tomorrow on will cheer any side but England.

The English flag ... and variations ... outside a pub in Lichfield last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

On the other hand, it is a sign of the times that the English flag – a white flag with the red cross of Saint George – is flying freely and being feted along all the other national flags inside and outside pubs throughout Ireland.

For many years, that flag was hijacked by the English Defence League, the British National Party, UKIP, and far-right racists, or by England football fans looking for trouble abroad. In the 1970s, the National Front recruited on the terraces, which were marked by widespread racism and violence.

The Flag of Saint George first became an acceptable symbol for English fans when Euro 1996 was held in England. England was drawn with Scotland in the group stage, and the label “Britain” was no longer inter-changeable with England ... Wembley was suddenly flooded by the flag of Saint George during the tournament.

By the 2002 World Cup, even the Guardian – albeit with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, provided a “cut-out-and-keep new improved flag of Saint George with no ugly connotations.” For the first time since Agincourt, the flag of Saint George was rescued from blunt nationalism that summer.

It was a trend that continued in Portugal at Euro 2004, when Carlsberg came up with the slogan: “Probably the thirstiest fans in the world.”

Miniature English flags fluttering freely (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

By the 2006 World Cup, while I was staying in rural Hertfordshire, the flag of Saint George fluttered with pride throughout the streets and towns of England, and seemingly from every car driven in England.

Germany 2006 was a picture of England abroad, as seen in Spanish and Greek resorts every summer – wave upon wave of young English men drinking in football shirts ... except this time there hardly any fighting or brawls. The English football hooligan was a dying breed rather than an endangered species.

Eight years later, walking around the streets of Lichfield and other towns in Staffordshire last week, it was comforting to realise that football has been rescued from the far-right and football has rescued the flag from its racist and far-right connotations. The cross of Saint George has become the flag of England once again.

While English football fans were once identified with racism, nationalism and violence, the more the flag is flown, the more it becomes a positive symbol.

But has the change come about not because of a new political confidence but because of confident commercialisation by Carlsberg? I find the most cynical development is the way the flag that has been rescued from extremist politics has been hijacked by a brewery – and at that, a Danish-owned brewery.

Carlsberg has developed a full package identifying its brand with the English team (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Carlsberg is England’s “official beer” and Carlsberg sponsors the Barclays Premier League as well as the England team, and has given its name to the “Carlsberg Fan Squad.”

Branded flags, cooler bags and T-shirts are backing up in-pub promotions and television advertising. It all looks like a cynical ploy to raise the brand image in England of a Danish beer. Although Carlsberg owns Tetley and Scottish & Newcastle, it is the Carlsberg name that is being promoted and that is scrawled across the English flag.

If Carlsberg did football team talks, surely they should be asking the pub-goers to shout for Denmark? After all, Denmark has a similar flag, even if it is turned inside out.

The English flag or the Carslsberg flag ... flying outside the Feathers in Beacon Street, Lichfield, at the weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

However, Carlsberg hardly has to worry about doing this in Copenhagen. It is illegal under the Danish penal code to desecrate the flags or national symbols of foreign nations, but legal to burn the Dannebrog, Denmark’s national flag. The legal reasoning is that burning foreign flags interferes with Danish foreign policy, while burning the Dannebrog does not concern foreign countries. It hardly matters though ... after all, Denmark has not qualified for the World Cup.

Meanwhile, the Revd Steve Parish, a former chaplain to Carlsberg-Tetley and a Labour councillor in Warrington, has written to the Guardian pointing out that while Carlsberg is Danish, “at least they’re [in England], which is more than Saint George ever was.”

Still, I have to ask whether Carlsberg is simply stooping to a less-than-subtle marketing plot to get people in England to spend more in the pubs or more on branded sportswear? Or do I really think people in England are going to drink the summer away, lured into the pubs and into a sense of stupor by branded “English pride”?

No matter what result is produced in September, the Scottish referendum must pose questions for English identity. Is England truly a nation-state that has an identity that is rooted in more than beer and racism?

Can being British be separated from being English, or do most English people find it difficult to differentiate between these overlapping cultural identities whether they are taken together or taken apart? Does the England team represent a multicultural patriotic English identity? What is England and what is it to be English?

The English football team appears to be helping to answer some of those questions this week. While English fans draped themselves in the Union Jack in the past, Saint George’s Cross and the flag of England fly everywhere in England as a symbol of English identity.

But has England managed to attract the support of all who live in England, including people with Irish, black or Asian origins? Can they too wrap themselves in the flag of Saint George?

Many black people still feel alienated by the flag of Saint George and associate it with the EDL, the BNP or UKIP. But then, at the risk of generalising, the drinking and pub life that goes with supporting England is not black people’s culture either.

The World Cup kicks off in Sao Paulo tomorrow [12 June 2014] at 9 p.m. Irish and English time, when Brazil has the home advantage against Croatia in Group A. England’s first match is against Italy in Manaus at 11 p.m. on Saturday night. When England is not playing, I shall be cheering for Greece, and then for Italy.

Who are cheering for? Have you drawn teams in your family, in your parish or at work?