Tell me about the cultural touchstones that have shaped your sense of Englishness

[BornAtTheEndofBrightonPier]

Or Scottishness, Welshness or Northern Irishness, if you're from one of the other nations of the UK (I'd love to steal Under Milk Wood from the Welsh MNs, but I can't do that!)

I have a few:

• Squeezing myself headfirst through the hole in the Mên-an-Tol in Cornwall, while the woman whose garden it stood in assured me I’d be blessed with good health for the rest of my life. I think it was 1991, when I was five.
• Exploring Bronze Age tumuli (burial mounds)
• Turner paintings that capture movement and light
• Thomas Hardy's heroines, like Tess Durbeyfield and Bathsheba Everdene
• The excitement of being a child at the back of the car and driving through a ford
• Organ music in church (particularly when it's Bach)
• Georgian architecture of Bath
• David Hockney
• The novels of Graham Greene
• The 1948 film of Brighton Rock starring Richard Attenborough (I'm from Brighton, so this is an extra special one for me)
• The novels of Evelyn Waugh
• Paradise Lost by John Milton
• Watching the 1946 version of Great Expectations on Christmas Eve
• M. R. James's ghost stories
• Hadrian's Wall and Sycamore Gap (RIP 😢)
• Glastonbury Tor
• Noggin the Nog (the cartoon Viking, repeated on TV in the early 90s)
• Maid Marian (the kids' TV show)
• Narnia
• Swimming around the arch of Durdle Door
• The League of Gentlemen
• Alan Partridge (even though I can't stand SC)
• Folk rock like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span
• The Beatles
• Roxy Music
• David Bowie
• "All the Young Dudes"
• All pubs with character, both town and country
• Just William stories
• Powell and Pressburger films
• Walking through Kemp Town in Brighton just as a sea fret rolls in
• The illustrations and stories of Beatrix Potter
• Beatrix Potter's house in Cumbria
• Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
• White horses carved into hillsides
• Wuthering Heights
• Lewes Bonfire Night
• The Burning of the Clocks in Brighton for the winter solstice
• The film Lawrence of Arabia

I couldn't sleep last night, and these came to mind. I'd love to hear other people's lists.

Maypole dancing as a child
Having a cream tea in the sun
Hot summer World Cup match days
Sitting by the fire in a pub, it makes me feel like I’m in a medieval tavern

Oh I always wanted to do a Maypole as a kid! Never had the opportunity though.

Yes to cream teas. But in which order with the cream and the jam, that's the million question 😉

Much of your list resonates. I went to the first night of Fairport Convention's tour this week, mainly for DH's benefit, as he's a lifelong fan, and I felt as if I'd come home.

Experiencing Spem in Alium being performed in a cathedral dating back to the Normans

A cream tea while sat in a sunny National Trust tea garden

Barbara Hepworth's house and studio in St Ives

The Natural History museum

Walking along ancient byways across fields, forest and moorlands

Wandering around the city of London and finding old churches right next door to modern skyscrapers

Fish and chips by the seaside

@Fozzleyplum I didn't even know they were on your, let alone still going. That's amazing, I need to tell my dad.

I saw them headlining their folk festival in Banbury a few times - Cropredy.

Boaty McBoatface.

Haworth
Scarborough
Lindisfarne/Holy Island
The Palace Pier (as it used to be called)
Hove Lions Day
Carry On films
J.R.R. Tolkien
Shakespeare
Scones with jam and cream
A proper cup of tea
Passport to Pimlico
Morecambe and Wise
Ditchling, and the view from the Beacon, ditto the Dyke
St. Mary's Lighthouse (and island) in Northumberland
Beans on toast
Handel - especially the Water Music
Jerusalem (the hymn, not the place!)
Victoria Sponge
Old money - £, s and d :)
Wet Christmases, rather than white ones
The smell of a proper pub, circa 1980

I'm Scottish and I like anything by Tunnocks. That's about it.

Lol I was living in Berlin at that point in time and the Germans loved that news story for some reason 😂

Nothing really.

The tea cake people?

Seeing my neighbour take his ferret for a walk on a lead. He also enters the Fun Dog Show.

The Village Fair, with competitions for things like Yorkshire puddings and making a man out of sticks and narshmallows

Snowplough names

English country churches.
English cathedrals.
Cornish and Pembrokeshire coast (am English but love Wales.)
My father’s beautiful gardens (flowers and vegetables)
My great-uncle’s vegetable patch and runner beans.
Church bells striking.
Fun nights out at the pub, or clubbing in the 90s.
Maypole dancing as a child
My children maypole dancing
Fabulous country pubs where we live
Have I Got News For You
The Royle Family
Kathy Burke
James Herriott’s books
Jane Austen
Charles Dickens
London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins
Adrian Mole

Where did you grow up? A post war new build city like MK?

@Minasama

London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins

That is an amazing book. My brother bought it for me one Christmas and it got me through January on my daily commute to and from Piccadilly back to Hackney. That is an understatement appreciated gem 💎

Aye that

plus

Irn Bru and square sausage
Hogmanay
Guising
The Gay Gordons
The Tartan Army
Chewin the Fat
the word ‘outwith’
Calling everyone Hen, Pal, Big Man, Cunt
Oor Wullie
Traffic Cones on Statues

Tea cakes, caramel wafers, snowballs and sooooooooo much more

Has the ferret won many prizes?

Hey, they had Enid Blyton/Dahl days there! And St George and dragon/war memorials (which nodded to specifically English as well as British references, England expects etc) at some of the schools, at least! Obviously can't say all, but definitely some!

Often seen in the bar at the Fair with rosettes on his harness.

Morris dancers and hobby horses
cockles by the sea with white pepper and watered down vinegar

No, a village in Somerset that can be traced back to the Doomsday Book.

Clifton Suspension Bridge
Morris Dancers
Holidays . Windbreaks on a beach. Changing under a towel. Crabbing nets.
Things on toast- sardines, baked beans or scrambled eggs
Stonehenge.
The Floral Dance.
Cheese rolling.

Downing a yard of ale? Or would draw the attention of PETA?

Seeing people play cricket on the village green or hearing the commentary on the radio - makes me feel like I've wandered onto the past.
Illustrations in children's picture books - I love seeing this cosy versions of British life.
Floella Benjamin - she is the face of my 70s childhood and I and retain a great deal of affection for her.