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

[Lionsandtigersandbears7]

Inspired by another thread ,it got me thinking I don't really have a strong sense of my identity being British..
I'm born in UK ,but moved around a lot ,so don't have an area I feel is home either ,or a strong sense of being British.
There's Christian festivals.christmas and Easter ..is that classed as our culture ?or is that religion?..I suppose there were mods and rockers and teddy boys ,that would of given people a sense of identity..then skinheads and skar ..moving in to music , different types like rock and indie gives people an identity...I missed all that though..
On postcards you get beaches and the seaside towns .. Blackpool was part of my childhood holidays,does that make up part of my identity then ?..
What makes me British other than just being born here ..I feel like culture and identity has passed me by .
I get what it would mean to be Scottish or Irish..I can see an identity with that ..but all I can think of for British is morris dancing.

I get what it would mean to be Scottish or Irish..I can see an identity with that ..but all I can think of for British is morris dancing.
Scottish and Northern Irish folks are British- do you mean 'what it means to be English'?

For me, the chalk hills. I grew up close to the South Downs, moved west along them and now live in sight of the Ridgeay.

That sense of the dry uplands and the wet valleys, the rain clouds and needing to watch them. The temperate, changeable climate. That sense that we can always grow and graze food, that we can collect water, that the land can support a lot of us.

I love artists like Eric Ravilious and Turner that show the big skies and the hills and rain.

Culture… privacy and finding ways to allow people a private life and freedom even on a small bunch of islands in close proximity. That I don’t intrude, but I try to guess when people need help and pretend I was just going to do that anyway so it’s no trouble, when in fact I am putting myself out for them.

Yes sorry ,I've worded it badly

Thats lovely,yes exactly what I mean ,I need to think what I could feel about where I live

British weather..we all love a good moan about the British weather,but I love the fact it changes with the season I'd hate it to be the same all the time

If that is how you genuinely feel, you aren't unreasonable. It's a bit sad though. What do you miss when you are on a bad holiday abroad or a foreign business trip?

For me, British culture is Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses. It's September Sundays blackberry picking and drinking cider in pub gardens. It's ParkRun and brilliantly varied pop music. It's the V&A, John Betjamen poetry and Friday night partying in Newcastle. It's Gavin & Stacey and CBeebies and terrible nativity plays. Making sloe gin. Robin Curtis films and mince pies. The occasional full English breakfast. Even basketcase trains strikes and rain. It's where I belong. 😊

Having lived abroad in many places I would say the reliance on humour in every day life is uniquely British. Dry, self depreciating wit. Bill Bryson has written extensively about it and I think he is spot on. We keep our sense of humour no matter what. We banter brutally with loved ones and are icily polite to enemies.

I would also say we do traditional ceremony in a uniquely British way and we do it well. Everything from Trooping of the Colour, the Lord Mayor's Parade, the State Opening of Parliament, local 11/11 parades.

Our arts, literature, writing, theatre. We have such a rich tradition of those things. Some of the greatest international franchises are British: James Bond, Agatha Christie, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. London theatres are some of the best in the world and it’s rare to have the network of regional theatres and regional art galleries and arts funding that we enjoy. British actors are vastly over represented in Hollywood. Then the music: the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Queen etc.

I would actually say multiculturalism is a big part of our culture. We have a history of interaction with other people and nations. Many cultures were isolationist, we were not not. Food is a good illustration of that. Going out for a curry is a very British tradition.

Pub culture. Whole family to the pub for a Sunday Roast. Fish and chips. BBQs held outside in defiance of the weather. A pasty eaten on a freezing beach behind a wind break in a hat in May.

Football, talking about football, talking about not being one of those people who talks about football. Horse racing, whole families betting on the Grand National, hats at Ascot. Rugby and sending your tiny skinny boys out in the freezing mud and horizontal rain to be pummeled and many of them growing up dedicated to it for life. Cricket on the village green with a tea break that lots of the community bake for.

School uniforms and each generation finding a way to bend the rules and ruin the look the school envisaged. Few countries have school uniforms and if they do they tend to try and look smart in it!

I liked Britain of the past for the wide range of youth cults ,Mods ,skins,punk,new romantic,rockers(grudgingly)etc.
My own personal one was the Northern soul scene and it still is.
It saddens me now that kids are killing kids for the most absurd reasons plus the renewed division and hatred that was evident in the 70s/80 with extreme far right groups.

I don't want to feel like this ,I'm hoping I'm just not seeing the bigger picture and peoples replies will give me ideas .
I've felt I belong anywhere..but it's nice hearing about how other people do feel they belong

I love the countryside and landscape and the small towns and villages (I’m very interested in architecture). I love history too, and the music which I associate with England in particular: Holst, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Finzi, Britten etc.

Also the literature: Shakespeare, obvs, Milton, Keats, Wordsworth, Hardy etc.

I’m interested in the history and culture of the other UK nations too, and of France, Italy and the Netherlands. I like countries to retain their special characteristics and not become one homogeneous mass, which is where we’re increasingly heading. I love that Wales prioritises it’s language, for eg, and would use some phrases if I was going there. I wish all countries would hold on to and celebrate what makes them different and special and I strongly identify as English.

I’m a Northern European, though, by temperament! Cannot stand heat, love the changing seasons and frosty winters.

Thanks for the replies,you all seem to have a strong sense of identity ..I'm definitely missing that

@ClamChowders I loved your post

Love the varied architecture from castles,Georgian town houses ,Stately homes.
One of our favourite visits was Castle Howard it was stunning on one hand but on the other the opulence seemed obscene when considering how ordinary people lived.
Suppose not much has changed in that regard.

I think this ties in well with a recent thread on " American Scottish " How can Americans be Scottish/Irish/Italian if they have never been there?

As a Scot. I could say to an American Scot, how can you be your age, and Scottish, without having felt the utter desolation of being a school leaver during the Thatcher era ?

Because surely the negative aspects of collective identity also form a part of our culture. Our culture is not just the stuff that makes us feel warm and fuzzy.

But the thing is, I suppose, is that my experience of the Thatcher years is not the same as everyone else in the town where I lived. Although it certainly felt that way :-)

. So can we really all have a common culture ? Nationality is just a label really.

I think that even the things we might feel are ingrained into us, like quoting Monty Pythons " Life of Brian" and having a shared understanding of the reference is not unique to British culture.

After all, What have the Romans ever done for us?

I would say rather a lot actually. And we are not the only nation to say that.

I reckon being British is a bit like being a fruit cake. Lots of different ingredients, different recepes, and a Brit Fruitcake is near identical to a French fruitcake.

Except our fruitcake sinks, like little stones, little tiny ones.

The Hedgerows low, Hedgehogs, Patchwork fields like quilts, Blackberries , Tea rituals, Barbour rainwear, Aunt Sally Tombola , Fete , Gentile blushing Maidens Period costume Drama , Laura Ashley , Liberty, Morris dancing English fayre and Epicure The Bard a MidSummer eve, woodland foxgloves Barn owls red foxes Shire Horse and hound ,The plough and Haystack Inns, Shrews ,A Gentleman in Tweed camouflaged colours of the landscape. Victorian spa seaside towns cheeky postcards and rock. A high trust society queues a woman who could rule and be Queen and be a figurehead. Britiannia , Naval isle , Nettle tea, Mash and liquor, cockles by the seashore, Raymond Briggs, Beatrix potter Daisys , Cricket, old creaky inns, red pillar boxes and phoneboxes manners maketh cloth caps school uniforms with boater hats Steam railways, Bluebells, love of dogs and horses. Community spirit, pies WI,Conservatory, Mini Twiggy, Grand Britiana and Union its about united a Kingdom 🥰 love this land and feel very lucky. The fields to roam are green its the rain the wildlife does not present danger the wit and humble soul a guard may be up but once its down you are beloved.

Nothing. Not anymore. I have English and French parents. I was born and raised in England. Educated here and lived my life here. Since the referendum, I've felt completely rejected by this country. It was, and still is, a completely visceral feeling. When my family commitments here end, I'm going home, back to my mother's country. This country is not what it was. I feel like a stranger here, it is an odd sensation.

What about customs ,local and national,that make us feel we belong .
Like going to the football on boxing day ,or church on Christmas eve ,or a Christmas market.
What else am I missing

I recently moved from South London to Northampton. Basically 80 miles up the M1. Northampton is a bit of an oddity in that the town centre is a bit crap and depressing, but walk along the Welly Road and life is thriving. It has businesses owned by many nationalities, decent pubs and nightspots, and omg the range of food! I love the diversity of the area. I think that's something to be proud of, that people come here from everywhere else and revive parts of the country previously on the slide.

I also love the weather, and complain how hot/cold/wet it is!

I love our heritage. I read somewhere that Northants has the greatest concentration of country houses in the UK, including famously, Althorp House. I'm also an atheist but love visiting churches and how Christianity has an undeniable influence on our social and political history, good and bad. I love the art in historical places too. Some again, is political, though on the face of it doesn't seem so at first.

I'm not really a Christmas or Easter person, but I will defend anyone's rights to their faith and traditions. You can come here and worship whomever or whatever you like. Equally an an atheist, I can be free not to.

Although I'm having trouble accessing it right now, I love the principles of the NHS. I don't mind paying for it because it's kept my parents, my brother and me from early deaths or disability, and for that I am nothing but grateful.

I love that I can leave Northampton and go somewhere else fifty miles away and the accent changes alongside the scenery. And it constantly changes wherever I go. I love the fact that being English is so different from being Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish. I love all the indigenous languages we have, and how people are trying to preserve them.

The media piss on our nation so much but under the rhetoric I think we are pretty cool, actually.

I need to reconnect,I'm thinking like art gallery or ...I don't know I need ideas

National trust..that's British and has history,..and English heritage I've never joined that ,but I used to have membership of national trust and visit local places

Where do you live?

Guy Fawkes night - a proper bonfire and local fire works display. Or go to Lewes if you want the full 5th Nov experience.

Obviously you just missed that so in the run up to Christmas what about going to a local National Trust property all done up for Christmas in keeping with the era of its hey dey? Book a local Christmas show or Pantomime. We are in London and always go to the Old Vic for a Christmas Carol because it’s brilliant every year and the kids see it as the start of advent.

Races on Boxing Day is one I love to embrace. Or join a local sea dip on Christmas Day if you are near the coast. Midnight mass at your local church or christingles if your kids are small. I’m not religious but always go for carols.

I thought Christmas markets were a German thing, or continental anyway ?

I have been out the UK a couple of decades now, and I can't ever remember seeing a Christmas market.

summer fetes
cricket on a village green
morris dancing
queuing
being hopeless at languages
democracy
driving on the left
scones
English breakfast
christmas trees
bonfire night
apologising when someone steps on your foot
the royal family
moaning and taking our freedoms for granted
fair play
freedom of speech
freedom of religion
boat race
knowing about oxbow lakes (!) (see QI episode)

I feel I belong here because I'm British. (I don't mean people who aren't British don't belong here). I grew up watching Coronation Street and Only Fools and Horses, and eating cottage pie!
As an adult, and an atheist with no kids, the christian festivals don't mean much to me.
But DH and I love pubs! We're not big drinkers, but DH loves real ale and anytime we visit somewhere new in the UK or go away for a weekend break, we go to the most historic pub we can find - something with flagstone floors, beams, an open fire - and settle into a corner with our dog, and have a few drinks and eat pie and mash or fish and chips!
Also, the sense of humour in Britain is the best in the world.

Queuing
Long arguments about inconsequential things, such as where the North starts or what a individual lump of bread is called
Making fun of everything (such as the poll to name a research ship being won by Boaty McBoatFace)