What parts of our traditions and culture makes you feel like you belong in Britain

Evergreens brought inside in winter is a very ancient Celtic tradition though, so I figure the tree thing was an adaptation of that.

Parliamentary democracy. Enjoy it while you can.

British culture is amazing.

Just because an individual doesn’t identify with every aspect, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Rain, rain and more rain.
Escaping the rain with a cup of tea.
Discussing the rain.
The SENSE OF HUMOUR!!! Sorry but it’s the best!
Apologising for everything - as above!
Guy Fawkes, bonfires, May Day, then there’s more local traditions
Christmas - we have our meal on the day! Tins of Quality Street, eating leftover turkey on Boxing Day…
Amazing National Trust properties where, when the suns out, it’s just gorgeous walking around and looking at the scenery
Green rolling hills, forests and windswept beaches
The same songs we’ve all sang at Primary school forever… He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands,..
The Royals, whether supporting them or slagging them off!
Music - Britpop is the King
Pubs with carpets and darts boards (don’t miss the smoking though) and declaring IT’s PUB GARDEN WEATHER whenever the sun comes out in the summer
Carnival Night - local men dressed as nuns
and majorettes

It’s always so petty when people ‘have no idea what British culture is’ - we all know!

@ClamChowdersfabulous reply.

Omg jumble sales!! Not as common as they used to be, but our local refugee aid charity runs them sometimes, and I look forward to them so much!

And yes, village fetes- but there has to be a decent tombola, and also Splat the Rat, even though neither I nor my descendants have ever- or will ever- managed to splat a single rat 😆

I have had a very English weekend. My neighbour came round to talk about getting the fence between our gardens repaired, we sat and had a cuppa with a slice of cake with our polite "I can arrange...", "oh no, I will...". Afterwards DH and I went to a garden centre (spelt the proper English way -re, not -er ) for the afternoon to look at the fantastic Christmas displays. Came home and put our feet up, with another cuppa, then had a roast dinner for our tea watching Strictly.

Ha ha yup.

And Turkey, Not a native bird.

I realise that I forgot to add something really important to my previous post, which is the fabulous multiculturalism, and the feeling it gives me that everyone is welcome and accepted.

(Important to me as an autistic oddball, even though my family is white English as far back as I have been able to research).

(And also because it has made the choice of food a million times better, especially as a vegetarian).

Shared catchphrases- "can't park there mate", "nothing beats a Jet 2 holiday".

when I was younger it was

watch out there's a Humphrey about
don't tell sid
nice legs shame about the face

love this list

also summer fetes from another list

Christmas fairs

Woman's institute

red post box
M&S
walkers crisps, especially cheese and onion

cream tea, cream on the bottom of course
fish and chips
punch and judy
mr whippy ice cream with a flake to make it a 99
royal family parafanalia - changing the guards etc

I mostly feel the same ie if I was given a ticket to move to any other country I’d most likely move (unless it was a war zone or Iceland)

Having said that when I’m abroad I DO miss a full English breakfast, and roast dinners. I don’t think there’s anything better than a goose-fat roast potato.

oh and quaint British pubs - nothing better than going for a PIMMs on a summers

I think the fact that you misread the OP as "English", and the fact that to you Englishness is defined as something genetic neatly illustrates the difference between Britishness and Englishness, and the reason that so many people find the concept of Englishness problematic.

It's all in this poem:

s

I only have a sense of noticing I'm English/British (varies which one as can also feel Northern etc) when compared to others who aren't. So the hand wave/nod thing when letting cars pass - you notice this doesn't happen (as much) when driving abroad.

I was a guest at a multi national hen night - only me and one other English person. We were all asked to stand up and declare how amazing etc the hen was. Utterly excruciating and could only through it by trying to be funny.

We massively punch above our weight population wise in the arts. Was reading this as heard it brings in about £1.6 billion. And that arts funding and modern language funding is being slashed shows how we take these things for granted.

Radio 4. Every day I am astonished that I get to listen to such a wide range of topics from brilliant journalists and scientists and presenters. I learn so much from it.

No idea if our sense of humour is better than other countries if I don't speak their languages fluently.

As child raised a Catholic (recovering now) I've never felt any connection to the Church of England. That feels foreign to me. Similarly, only in my lifetime has the Royal Family changed the rules about marrying Catholics and lines of succession so they have always felt a little "other" to me.

So, to answer the original question:

Pubs, and pub culture- especially the decor, delicious local beers and pub quizzes.
Public footpaths.
Ordnance survey maps.
The Shipping Forecast.
Music festivals (why the country with the worst weather is one of the keenest to camp outside for days in primitive conditions I do not know, but it is so).
Shared catchphrases- "can't park there mate", "nothing beats a Jet 2 holiday".
Folk music.
Our plethora of megalithic monuments.
Doing pagan shit in the woods at Samhain in the middle of a storm.
All the weird, wild and wonderful local festivals- the Tar Barrels, cheese rolling, and down our end Montol, Flora Day, Trevithick Day.
Cornish language, tradition and culture- my adopted home, I'm actually English by descent, but it's fascinating. (Also explains why the Cornish don't think of themselves as English either- I've just been reading up about King Aethelstan and his ethnic cleansing, and the Prayerbook Rebellion- 10% of the entire Cornish population slaughtered 😬)

For me an important part of British culture is the "stiff upper lip" and just getting on with things (without whinging) because they have to be done. An important attribute of my generation (older) was being modest about ones achievements and not seeking to dominate. At the same time you stood up for your beliefs and also the right of other people to have opposing beilefs. All of this has now gone out of the windowin favour of everyone for themselves.

It was one of the founding principles of the whole Brexit project, and look how that turned out for us.

I'm from London so I strongly identify as a Londoner.

Well are you English OP? Are your parents / grandparents / ancestors English?

What makes you part of a people isn't performative rituals or the TV you watch or the food you eat. It's your ancestry and downstream of that comes your instinctive way of being. As others have said, you will know who you are the moment you travel abroad. It's quite easy to think you're not part of a people until you go to France or Italy or further afield. And then you know instantly that you are different - you are very much English - in a multitude of ways.

Have you not travelled very much?

And I totally agree that one of England's greatest strengths is has been its ability to (it's hard to describe) stick its head above the parapet culturally - to push the boundaries in every way, to not be held back by its past. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the British Empire, the Industrial Revolution, London as a global powerhouse, punk and fashion - just reinventing and creating new all the time. I'm a late convert to London - I first visited when I was 50 yrs old - and it's breathtaking in terms of its history, culture, energy. The things - the ideas and stories - that have emerged from those few square miles of land? Incredible. The sense of energy and drive and 'anything goes'. The Beatles would never have emerged from Paris, the French are so conservative and have such as strong adherence to the past.

Definitely!

And, thinking of the Industrial Revolution (which happened in Britain first) and the Empire, leaving aside the moral aspects - my God, the energy, dyamism, inventiveness, skill and courage of those people is mind-boggling. The engineers, the surveyors, inventors, navigators etc etc shouldn't be rubbished just becuase Britain had reached a stage of economic development and capitalism which meant going out and colonising.

Niall Ferguson (who talks a lot of sense and has been unfarily demonised by the left) has pointed out what a huge contribution the Scots in particular made to the huge technological leap forward needed for Empire-building. Before anyone starts....I'm NOT an apologist for Empire - but it's a historical reality, a stage which advancing cultures go through (look at China at the moment...). But the achievements of people in that period were immense and I hate to see them disparaged.

When I lived in Copenhagen there were the odd things I missed- proper pubs ( not that I’m in them that much ) marks and Spencer’s and as we live in Bath ( and did before we moved to Copenhagen) a nice bit of Georgian architecture, coming across bizzare things on Radio 4 too . . I think Britainnranks highly on culture , music, art, literary - and the ability for people to take the piss out of things and each other .

Bans on using the word Christmas in schools.

When films and programmes that were originally British/English are remade in the US it's quite jarring how they reinterpret the characters and plots but I think a good indication of the differences in our cultures. Particularly thinking of Ghosts & The Office.