As a Scot, to ask 'What is Englishness?

There is a well known word in Welsh which I think sums this up, I have heard Welsh actors who have moved to and live in America speak of it in interviews ,

Hirieth. Which mean a longing, not homesickness, it was once explained to me as an invisible umbilical cord which connects one with the land of their birth

I love your description of what being English means to you Joan.

Agusasked:
Can I ask those of you who are English living abroad, do you feel that same pull to return to live in England?

For me, in Australia since the year Thatcher was elected (1979), the pull of England is always there. It is the feeling of wanting to be where I belong, where my accent doesn't label me. I remain English even though I have been an Australian citizen since 1982. I love tea, I'm polite, I moan about the weather, I have a home that is cluttered and cosy.....

But the England I left is no more - Thatcher saw to that. In any case, almost every country changes in three and a half decades. Without trying, I've become Australian and I do admire much about my adopted country.

But - whatever it is to be English, I'm still that.

Of course, racially I'm probably Celtic, Scandinavian and Russian Jewish. I guess that makes me extremely English - we are all a mishmash, as Daniel Defoe's poem so eloquently explains:
www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173337

One GC has African-Caribbean heritage; others have Welsh and yet others Irish blood. All that in addition to the Scottish Celtic, Norman, Anglo Saxon and very probably Viking blood from my family and my ex's.

Yes - my next generation already includes, as well as the whole UK, some Hungarian, Jamaican and old Norman French.....yeah, from 1066....

How many of us are actually English? My grandfather was Irish, my husband's grandfather was Italian, my son in law is American and my soon to be daughter in law is Hungarian. My three grandchildren are complete mongrels. The next generation will probably be even more complicated.

Maggiemaybe because the post is asking 'what is Englishness' so I posed the question to English posters living abroad.

Not questioning anyone's individuality just asking posters if they had the strong pull to return home that I felt. Which you say you had.

I would pose the same question to Welsh or Irish if this post was referring to them.

The Scotsman David Davidson, Politician
“I’m not sure there is such a thing as Englishness, it varies so much. Scots don’t walk through Glasgow in a kilt, on the whole, and the English no longer walk through London in funny hats.”

The Welshman Rob Brydon, Comic
“Scots say, ‘The English can take our land, but never take our freedom.’
The Welsh say: ‘You’ve taken our land: don’t forget our freedom before you go. Thanks for coming!’ ”

The Irishman Dara O Briain, Comic
“London is hosting the Olympics, yet you all talk about how terrible the country is . . . and then there’s that giggly, Carry On attitude to sex, that is unique. But you don’t realise any of this.”

I'm a bit puzzled as to why you think an English person living abroad should be different to anyone else, Agus? Some of us would be homesick, others wouldn't, we're all individuals. I thoroughly enjoyed life in Germany for a couple of years before yearning for England, so I came home. At that stage I was missing the place so much I nearly kissed the ground. I dare say others would happily have stayed.

Living in an area that is so reminiscent of home must help, also having family and precious grandchildren there must make a huge difference.

I sincerely hope that you will make some good friends and you personally find contentment. All the best Absent

Apart from the unknown origins of my PGF, most of my ancestors are very much from rural England back to around the mid 1700s as known of. They are very Midlands based, I will include Cheshire as Midlands there and then mostly Leicestershire and its surrounding counties.

perhaps being English or Englishness is like the kid who starts school, secure in the knowledge that s/he is well loved and cared for so does not cling or worry because they have a secure sense of self. they cannot articulate what it is as it is just who they are!

Having only recently moved abroad I have to say that I am desperately missing my friends. I haven't yet made any new ones, although I am on good terms with my charming neighbours. Consequently, I do feel quite lonely. (Anyone who has read another current thread will appreciate that the bond between Mr absent and me is somewhat cracked and patched.) Do I miss England? No – but then I am in an anglophone country and living in a place surrounded by hills reminiscent of the best of the countryside in many parts of England. The town is even called Richmond – and I know both the one in Yorkshire and the one in Surrey quite well.

We lived in France for 10 years. We could not have had more welcoming, helpful neighbours who eventually became and still are close friends. But at some point we began to miss home and our own people, who, we identified with more.

As you say MargaretX you don't know how a Scot feels so I have no way of sharing these feelings with you. For me, it is simply, home.

Can I ask those of you who are English living abroad, do you feel that same pull to return to live in England?

Granny23 "gey few and they're a' deid."

I have the vernacular...Theseus says "here's tae your eyes..."

I have no idea what represents Englishness. I just am English. It's where I was born. I've Spanish and French genes. It's where I consider home.

I love the language and the countryside. I live in France, but always have the scent of England in my nose. It's where I like to be. I 'get' it in a way I don't with other cultures/countries.

That's just how it is.

Margaretx One of the reasons why I am a Scottish Nationalist is that I want to live in a peaceful country, instead of one with a cache of nuclear arms (controlled by the USA) just down the road and a thirst for poking its nose into foreign wars, (usually at the request of the USA) putting our troops into danger and our populace into fear of reprisals.

Had to laugh at your idea that we Scots have an inferiority complex . Here's tae us, wha's like us.

I am British and proud of it.

MargaretX I was going to agree completely with you but then I thought again. The Irish are still fighting the Battle of the Boyne, the Welsh still resent the Prince of Wales's not being Welsh while perversely moaning about Elton John's "Goodbye English rose", claiming that he should have sung Welsh even though it doesn't scan, and the Scots still blame the English for outsourcing the throne to a German king. However, the English have never stopped fighting the Hundred Years War with the French and World War II with the Germans, so they're no better.

absent Hit the spot as usual.

Surely the most defining characteristic of Englishness is the wonderfully sophisticated language itself. The fact that it is spoken from Detroit to Melbourne and from Edinburgh to Bridgetown does not in any way detract from the fact that it is English.

MargaretX Agree! A wise post.

I'm English but not proud of it. Why proud? it is not an achievement. I didn't have anything to do with it. I had 2 English parents who had sex and 9 months later I was born in a house in England.
I live abroad and when abroad you get to feel more English than when living in England and over the years I feel European. Particularly in the States I feel European and long for European values and food.

The Scots rather over do things I think. They are terribly sensitive, but then I don't know how a Scot feels, I presume there is some sort of inferiority complex otherwise why go on about it all the time. Compared with the worries in the world to day, climate change, hunger and war everywhere, what does it matter if you are English or a Scot when you live in a peaceful country.

I feel sure we have Irish and Welsh in our family history, but a thread of England has been easier to identify from public records, and verbal family history. I identify myself as English, I love 'coming home' after holidays abroad, love the sense of irony and ability to laugh at ourselves. I value being British and part of a very small group of islands that give us our identity.
My family has been settled in the north west (and some in Yorkshire) since the 1850's. The neglect of the north west and east by a government that is based in London is a source of irritation to me. What about UDI and a northern government, based in Manchester or Leeds - ok then, based on the yorkshire/lancashire borders......

I am English and always put that when asked my nationality. I'm proud to be English.