feeling proud to be British

I'll be watching a Scotland v Wales netball match on Sunday. I'm more 'English' than anything, so far as I know. I'll cheer good play from both sides and not like fouls by either side (not that I expect anything serious). I have Irish, Anglo-Saxon and Norse ancestors (that I know about). My kids have all that plus some Pict and Scot and Welsh and more Irish.

I'm British and glad to be so.

I don't think Miranda was abused and I don't think the police abused their powers.

How ironic that this thread (many of whose sentiments I do not necessarily disagree with) should coincide with anoither example of UK police heavy handedness (Miranda, Heathrow etc) Many of the qualities of British life we think we enjoy no longer apply today. I am thinking of justice, equality before the law, fairness, tolerance, freedom of speech.....
As someone on another thread siad "It's not Dixon of Dock Green anymore"

It doesn't iam64 I was just wondering.
Yes indeed feetle hence all those French speaking redheads on the English throne and the female ideal of beauty being nordic blonde.

@JessM - the Normans were actually Norsemen who had settled in Normandy - as they did in, for example, Yorkshire.

These islands have been invaded and conquered so often and we're a mongrel race as a result. Nationalism was something I disliked, and saw as shoring up wars when I was a young woman. I'm more tolerant, accepting and understanding of it now, but I stand by my belief that holding on to age old resentments doesn't help any one. reconciliation starts with individuals who are strong enough to accept the past, and move into a future together. JessM, you may be right, that Greatnan's neighbours would have been equally unpleasant to a Pakistani family, but how does that justify racism of any kind?

It is an odd fact that I owe my existence to the way the British government failed to help the Irish in the great potato famine. My great-grandparents had to emigrate to England, first to Liverpool and then up the Mersey to Salford.
Of course, the British government of the time was also failing to help destitute English families. I feel more affinity with the poor and powerless of all nationalities than I do with any particular ethnic group.

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
George Bernard Shaw, "Misalliance"

Well yes, and that is another whole set of resentments. But round here it is a reasonable requirement for many jobs as the first language of the majority of the population is Welsh.
Everyone now does Welsh up to GCSE year and I know of several English immigrants who have learned Welsh up to a working standard.

Welsh is compulsory in Welsh schools

Does the need to be a Welsh-speaker not discriminate against the 80% of the Welsh who do not speak the language?

greatnan steady on absent said feel resentment that's all. It is shocking that you and your family were the personal butt of such resentment. I wonder how they would have behaved if you had been Pakistani.
There are many people who feel the resentment and do not feel "British" because of it, but they would not take it out on individuals. They would express their resentment by not cheering for English sports teams (but for anyone else) or by being anti-monarchists. They might well express the resentment by voting for Plaid or by voting in the forthcoming Scottish referendum to separate from the rest of the UK. For many of us the resentment is very minor and expresses itself when the rugby is on as a good natured rivalry. But when English people subsume and assume it irritates and increases resentment.
absent the Normans (those French people who became the English aristocracy) were complete brutes.Where I have moved to it is very "in your face" with their massive forts everywhere, not to mention a huge acreage of the local landscape made up by 3 big estates (2 in NT hands now). But go just back to Napoleonic times and there was Lord Anglesey building something the size of a large county council building to live in, on prime land {with the best views of course}. Not to mention his family erecting an enormous pillar with a statue of him on top in military uniform. (so he could still see his favourite view maybe?)
But in Wales a lot of the current resentment has to do with suppression of the language which was very heavy handed and went on into the 20th C. In recent decades the balance has been redressed and in fact swung the other way - public sector jobs in many parts of Wales have Welsh speaking as a requirement.

absent - do you really think that whatever some English people did in the past justifies the way we were treated by the people of Mold?

Issues in Northern Ireland are not just distant and romaticised history about the Earl of Tyrconnell, Red Hugh O'Donnell and Queen Elizabeth I. They are not even more recent history about the Black and Tans. They are part of living memory and for many these memories are still painful and abrasive. Of course, for others, they are just a good excuse to cause trouble. However, the situation is far more complex than "let bygones be bygones" will solve completely for at least a few more generations.

I know less about Welsh history but I think English conquests involved more substantial effects than the defeat of a few tribes.

If Brits, particularly the English, feel pride in their Britishness/Englishness because of others' actions in the past, it is not unreasonable that some citizens of the UK feel resentment because of others' actions in the past.

positive post greatnan, and I agree with Tegan about bearing grudges over such long periods. Like Greatnan,my ancestors were all poor. Our paternal family walked from Kent to the Midlands for agricultural work, and when that ended, a future generation, including my paternal grandmother, walked from Coventry to Bury for work in the new mills. When doing our family history, we found many children from the paternal family had been in and out of the workhouse for short periods. It was clear they went in when the parents couldn't feed them, and came out again as soon as they could. So they were oppressed by the same people who were building an empire. We have to move forward don't we and accept that things happened, that shouldn't have happened. i will celebrate when the IRA/provos apologise for murdering children, mothers and many others. When the various groups in NI accept they've run drugs, criminal gangs etc to fun their fight for so called loyalists or republicans. That beautiful country has a tortured history, and of course England has a part in that. I was working for a large asphalt/construction firm at the tim of Bloody Sunday. We were based near Manchester and I arrived at work to find so many men weeping about what had happened in Belfast the previous day. Dreadful time. Cover ups of all kinds have occurred during our life times, bloody sunday, hillsborough etc. I feel sure none of us would support that. But, we have to find a way to live together and go into the future with hope.

There are many things I like and admire about the British in general, but I have never felt tribal about my place of birth. I feel no animosity towards any race or nationality and I was shocked to the core to find so much nastiness directed at my family when we moved to Mold. We were just an ordinary couple, with two little girls, aged 4 and 2. The day after we arrived, our neighbour came round and I thought he was coming to welcome us, as usually happened in Lancashire. He actually said 'I just want you to know that we do not like people coming round to borrow things'. (We must have won him over, because after a time he took to leaving a bag of tomatoes, or a lettuce, on our doorstep - but never said a word.
And it is quite true that the mothers would be talking in English outside the school gates and switch to Welsh when I got near. My daughters were never given parts in school plays - but I thought the mother who turned away a four year old from a party took the biscuit for cruelty and spite.
Of course, it wasn't 100% of the people in Mold - I made some good friends when I worked as a temp at Allis Chalmers, a manufacturer of agricultural machinery.
I found this racism quite bewildering - we were not responsible for anything the English had done in the past. How long do people bear grudges? I really don't think the fact that some English (probably not my ancestors, who were dirt poor) exploited or defeated some Welsh tribes, justifies this continuing hatred.
Fortunately, I have not encountered similar hostility in Monaco, Belgium or France.
And I am glad to say that on many holidays in Scotland we met nothing but warmth and welcome.

It always saddens me that people in countries still hold grudges now against people whose nation did something bad a long time ago..especially people like me who do feel ashamed of what happened historically. We wandered off the beaten track in Dublin and were accosted by a group of people who hurled abuse at us, and a friend of mine went into the loo in a pub and was followed in by some girls who pinned her against a wall [even though her husband had Irish relatives which is why they were over there]. It cast a shadow over the wonderful hospitality we received everywhere else during our visit . My Irish friend's uncle said he felt the English were the most tolerant people in the world, and I like to think he was right.

Many Welsh people see themselves as a subject nation that has been conquered by the English. This of course historically true if you go back a few centuries. But like the Irish (you'd think Oliver Cromwell invaded last week in some people's eyes) they take a long view.

Absent, I accept what you say. I don't seek to minimise the history of the troubles, and 30 years ago I had some sympathy for the desire for a united Ireland. That isn't going to happen, and the peace process seems to be the best opportunity for progress. I've felt despair at the violence and further entrenched positions in NI over this marching season.

There are those who regard Northern Ireland as occupied territory. The UK government did renege on the original plan for a Free Ireland (all of it). Hence the IRA and the Troubles. In spite of the Peace Process, one of the few things to Tony Blair's credit although he was far from solely responsible, there are still those today who talk of the Occupied Counties.

What do you mean Jess M?

Occupied Territory.....In the UK?? Give over, JessM

It does to those who see themselves as living in occupied territory merlot.
I actually found the Olympic park made me feel patriotic. It was wonderful and a great tribute to UK project management, construction and architecture. Oh and gardening as well. "coo-er did we do this??!!" was my response.

Watching the Olympic ceremonies last year roused my feelings of pride in being British & what this small off-shore group of islands has achieved. I am particularly proud to be in a country where there is so much tolerance of difference, in spite of the problems & the fact we often get it wrong. I am especially proud to be a Londoner in this respect. I do feel English but am proud that all the British countries have had the maturity to rub along together in spite of old animosities - there is always friction between the place where Government is based & those far away (even in Scotland, some outer islands aren't keen on Edinburgh).

I agree with nanaej's analysis and disagree that you can't be proud of the place you were born in (even if by chance). Sheep become hefted to a location & I think many people feel grounded in their place of birth. I've been told how the Irish feel great attachment to their Township of birth.

I've come across many Londoners of immigrant background who are proud of being Londoners & declare themselves as British but would never say they are English.

Some English people aren't all that keen on the Welsh, Scots, or Northern Irish. Doesn't really matter does it?

Seasider could not agree more , what a wonderful place this !