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

Do you mean that immigrants from the former Empire are expected to 'feel British'? I suppose I would expect people choosing to come and make their permanent home here to identify with Britain at some level. I think that's a fair expectation. I suspect the French are even more hot on this with their immigrants than we are, and Americans certainly expect it.

One of the loveliest thing I ever saw was a lady with a hijab morris dancing at a festival with the hat on top of her hijab.

I don't think there's any evidence for that??

Also - the British (as opposed to just the English) are famous for a sense of humour. This is illogical, of course. All nations have humour but I do think it's based on different things. The British has a sense of the absurd, perhaps, and also love a cock-up.

We had a German exchange student staying and she had to do a work experience job locally. When she came home after the first day, she had a face like thunder and recounted a series of disasters, mistakes, mess-ups etc which had us all in stitches. But to her it was NOT funny. I twigged that it isn't that Germans don't have a sense of humour - they just don't find rank incompetence funny, which I think the British do (Some Mothers do 'Ave'em, Dad's Army, The Office, etc etc).

Actually - my Dutch friend really doesn't have a sense of humour!

That's an interesting point. There's an account on Instagram that sometimes pops up on my feed and talking about what millennials remember from younger years and it's really America- centric, so a lot of the references go right over my head. The shared cultural references across Britain also often transcend generational divides.

Have you seen the named gritting lorries?

I want to break freeze.
Itsy bitsy teen weeny yellow anti slip machiney

https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/council-news/transport-streets-and-waste/more-transport-streets-and-waste-news-stories/cornwall-has-spoken-your-top-25-gritter-names-revealed/

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/transport/hampshire-gritters-these-are-the-funniest-names-of-the-gritting-vehicles-in-hampshires-fleet-3964421

https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/news/trendingacrossscotland/24052530.see-hilarious-scottish-gritter-names-chosen-public/

The Scottish ones are brilliant.

I think outsiders are often brilliant at analysing national or cultural characteristics. I recommend Bill Bryson (esp Notes from a Small Island) for this. He moved to England for many years, having married an English woman, then moved back to the States but had to come back because he missed the seasons! He's good at nailing the good and less-good aspects of British culture and behaviour. Similarly, Henning Weg (hope I've spelt that right).

One thing I only appreciated fairly recently (mainly from reading the Millennium Trilogy by Stig Larsson, but also from my Scandinavian friends) is why the Brits have a reputation for eccentricity and individualism. These 2 traits are always trotted out as being particularly British, but I never really understood why.

The Scandinavians and many Northern European cultures have a concept 'lagom', which is hard to translate but means something like 'just enough, don't overdo it, don't stand out or try to be different'. This is, I guess, the concept behind IKEA, for eg. My Dutch colleague was invited to a dinner with Queen Beatrix in London, just before she abdicated, and when I asked her excitedly what she planned to wear, she looked at me in bafflement and said she had an M & S jacket from years back that she hoped would do.

It's considered bad form in these nations to try and be deliberately different - it's seen as showing off - in a way that the British don't mind, and actually value. I think that's why we dominated/still dominate popular music and fashion, because of this eccentricity and individuality (punk rock, Zandra Rhodes, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood etc etc). Yes, the Italians and French are big on fashion but it's nearly always more understated and conventional - think of Chanel or Armani. Armani wouldn't even use actual colours - only neutrals.

I think this is fascinating.

I've never suggested that I think the British were the only imperialists. Only the British however think people from any part of it should 'feel' British (in the context of being from any part of it) and get a bit angry if people don't.

Not trying to be agressive or hostile...but don't you equate being French, Belgian, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, American, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese.........with imperialism? If not, may I ask why not?

I don't know why, but it's alarming how many people seem to think the British were the only imperialists. We were, along with nearly all the other European (and other) powers once, but we were far, far from being the worst. Yet we get the most stick.

I think you don't really think about it until you go abroad or hang out with people from other cultures.

For me it's:
-the self-depricating/sarcastic humour
-our comedy shows
-our musicians
-What to call a cob (the only correct term btw)
-the 30000 different accents
-Queueing
-Pub culture
-6am airport pints
-the ability to turn any event into a piss up
-Cheeky nandos
-Spoons
-my German wife was perplexed by the seaside 😂 she loved it, but was like 'why does it feel stuck in the 80s' and had never seen a penny arcade!
-Castles
-Sunday Dinners

And so on! It's ridiculous when people say Brits have no culture. Culture isn't about religion. It's about what you eat, the way you dress, the way you speak, your history, the weather, and so on. Even North/South culture is different. Blew my mind as a Midlands small town girl going to uni and seeing Southerners wear coats on nights out and asking for cloak rooms 😂 For me it's specific things you wouldn't know unless you've been here a long time or you've grown up here.

I also think there's this weird left-wing idea that if you 'feel British' or associate with the 'culture' you are racist or don't understand we were colonisers. I'm very left-wing, and consider myself a socialist, but it doesn't change the fact I am culturally British and if I moved elsewhere I would feel it. It's not right wing to accept your culture is made up of lots of different things. If people saying that suddenly moved to Brazil or Saudi Arabia or something, you'd strongly feel your loss of culture.

I don't feel any sense of national identity at all. Supporting my football team maybe. A lot of the things people have mentioned remind me of the stuff about England that John Major came out with back in the day.

I used to feel more British than I do now but the growth of nationalism has taught me to consider myself English, which I do. 20 years ago I would have proudly said British, but not now.

I support the Celtic nations in the way they champion their cultures, and (just from what I know of my Welsh friends - could be true elsewhere) I admire the way that high culture isn’t class-based as much as it is in England. I’m often hearing about farmers in Wales who are muck-spreading during the day and writing poetry by night and winning prizes at Eisteddfods. The English aren’t usually like that…sadly.

i get that there are huge issues, political and historical, but don’t want to go into them here. I just wish all the home nations could be better friends.

I also feel that, while the Celtic nations might justifiably feel their individual cultures are squashed/appropriated/dominated etc by the English, the English themselves are not very good at appreciating their own. There are lots of reasons for this, not least the fashion for putting down anything perceived to be English by the English establishment!

I'm English and I'd group my sense of belonging as an English person into two buckets, one positive, one negative: I ground myself to some extent in all of these both positive and negative

Positive

Sense of the grandeur and beauty of England: it's heart-stoppingly beautiful. The variety in the landscape and seasons is unmatched, the sense of seasons and the way they evolve around you is like nowhere else on earth
Low-key kindness of the people
Dry, ironic sense of humour and the ability to communicate humour without having to be heavy handed or cruel
History -- the history of this country, for all the crimes it has committed, is incredible, and the sense of continuity, gives you a sense of rootedness
Pop culture -- unmatched anywhere in the world

Negative
Reticence and reluctance to say what's on your mind: I've always struggled with this aspect of the English personality even though I suffer from it myself
Snobbery: the hidden codes which allow people to look down on one another are still hard-wired into most of us. Most foreigners rightly regard our social codes as absolute batshit.
The moaning and cynicism: I've lived in the US and there's a sense there that they get shit done as opposed to standing about complaining
Topical negative for the current state of political discourse in England now which I find upsetting but which (hopefully) will pass

I don't consider myself British or 'feel' British as I equate it strongly with imperialism but one exception that always strikes me is the very strong left-wing and feminist tradition across Britain and the UK that I sometimes feel a part of. That line of women who worked hard to ensure women had a status in law, even with different legal systems etc, and the women who work hard to uphold that.

I can answer you as someone who left my home country as a teen. It's when other people accepts you as their own.

I spent my secondary years to my 30s in a foreign country. I have citizenship but I am always a foreigner. I will never say I'm from there.

I moved to the UK in my 30s and now I'm 50. I am also a foreigner here. Again, if I say I'm British, people here will look at me funny.

I have been away from my home country now for over 35 years. Whenever I go back, at custom, I can queue in their citizen queue with my family and the custom officers will happily stamp my UK passport. Shop keepers will comment I must have lived overseas for a long time because I occassionally misuse a word but they don't treat me as foreign, but an expat.

Do you feel other people don't treat you as British when you are in Britain?

Actually. I looked it up. Lincoln copied the idea from Germany in 1982. So yeah, Christmas markets are German.

Christmas markets are as British as Bratwurst :-)

It’s difficult to explain! I’m nothing else - I’m entirely English. Perhaps because my ancestors for so many hundreds of years were the poorest of the poor, working the same fields for generations, and my father’s generation were the last to do it - it gives you a sense of unbroken stability, continuity, attachment to the land and the people there.

I was lucky enough to know many of the older generations of my family who’d fought in the wars to defend Britain and preserve our way of life. It was a very present theme in my childhood, not something from a history book - my family took their part in it and talked about it.

Some people are ‘somewheres’ and others are ‘anywheres’ - I’m very much a somewhere. This is my history, my family, my country, and I have such a deep love for it - it’s all shaped me. It was a magical experience as a child going to evening services at the cathedral when it was dark - all the weight of that history bearing down on me, knowing my family had done the same for hundreds of years before me, loved this place, cherished this place, that I was a continuing part of the chain carrying it into the future.

Whether I watch cricket or go to bonfire night is irrelevant, that’s all performative, the outward display. Not to say that I don’t enjoy those things, but it doesn’t change how I feel inside, my sense of identity and security in it.

I am Scottish, and I just live with it.

It's part of Scottish culture after all. Being down trodden by the English.. We could say it differentiates us from them.

In fact, excuse the language, this quote from the film Trainspotting is pretty good:

"It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are COLONIZED by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized BY. We're ruled by effete arseholes. It's a SHITE state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and ALL the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!"

And when I get the Hadrian's wall stuff thrown at me, I just say, " Actually, the latest archeological evidence is that the Romans built it to keep you in, not to keep us out. Enjoy your Roman roads. They never defeated us "

I post this lightheartedly. :-)

Lord I wouldn't both with NT. I say this as someone who works in heritage. NT only shows a very small proportion of what life was like for very very lucky people.

For me, it's archaeology and social history. I'm really excited about the museum of London opening and loved the old one. Newark civil war museum is probably one of the best museums I've ever been to. Also Manchester People Museum, Barnsley Museum. Look to these places.

What a beautiful post

Interesting but dh is two years younger than me and his sisters younger still. We watched completely different children's tv programmes. He recalls stuff I've no recollection of. He was also reared on Yorkshire TV, me on Anglia.