‘Embrace Localism and Your Region: Distinct and Common Threads in Our England’
Our quest for the heart of England is an introspective one. It seems only natural that our gaze would turn inward, to our localities and regions. These are the places we are most connected to, inhabiting them and daily interacting with them. These are also places that our presences are felt and have a physical impact.
It was only through a basic interest in history that I was unwittingly thrust down this path, beginning to think about the place we inhabit and who we are. From a position of ignorance, I slowly tore the covers off tales of old. I set forth to grasp how we got here, scratching the surface of English history. Beginning with dynastic and political chronologies, I soon ventured further, of course, down ancient tracks and back lanes. Further curiosity led me to think about landscapes, ways of life, trades & markets, buildings and art. From here I would set forth and explore these themes in real life, beyond the page and screen. Finally, I had started to see the bounties and richness that had always surrounded me.
I became more deliberate and a mere walk became a survey. The field became a visible sign of a thousand of years of work, something so vital to providing sustenance and nourishment. The house on the horizon, a reflection of lives spent on this land. The street acting as a testament to the changing shape and endpoint of these efforts.
I would go further, travelling to places of local note and national significance. It was here that I was awoken to the distinctness of each area, even that of neighbouring towns and villages. The sights and sounds, the tastes and feels. I had not only become aware of the particulars of my area, but I was also now ingratiate and infatuated with them.
George Orwell wrote in his essay ‘The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius’:
‘When you come back to England from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character.’
I do agree that there is an indescribable feeling when one returns home, but I contend that there is a similar experience when travelling within our island. My journeys elsewhere awakened this sense of self, noticing and appreciating the differences around and within us. Intermittent travel from the South to the North illuminated these points, watching the shapes and patterns of the landscape change from the wooded-pasture lowlands of the Weald to the open ‘Champion’ lands that run up the middle of England to the stone walls that divide uplands fields in the North and West. I would eagerly anticipate the sign welcoming me into another county.
This realm came together out of many older kingdoms, gradually unified into England. Some of our counties still bearing these names, each has a unique landscape and natural placement that has shaped its inhabitants way of life. Forged by these environments, we have the resilience and resourcefulness of our ancestors to thank for the obscure and the common threads of Englishness we enjoy today.
Every region has its own story and details, an embellishment and arpeggiation of England’s broader history and culture. I now visit other counties as often as I can, delving into their local or regional history and culture. Endeavouring to gain an outline of the area’s background, past and present, goes a long way to engage with an outside area. A hearty sampling of the produce and delicacies helps immerse oneself even more; there are five senses after all.
Taste the Lincolnshire sausage, fork out for a Bakewell pudding and even sample Teesside’s chicken parmo. Beyond the natural, historic or culinary, the vernacular language and architecture will bear outward signs of difference, while still existing within the wider net of English customs and traditions. All areas have their prominent figures who made their mark close to home and across the country, English history and culture is a tribute to the influence of real people far and wide.
Nonetheless, Englishness can not only be experienced in tours and taster sessions. These values and practises must live and breathe, first and foremost through and for its people. This can be made into reality with our own involvement: frequenting a local store, becoming a dedicated patron of the public house, attendance at the parish Church are the simplest of ways to keep the fast-expiring embers of community aflame.
For good reasons and to better ends, we have many differences. Still more, we are united in other ways. We are enclosed on this island and joined under the Crown, both serving as a guide and symbol for all to look upon. Each area has its own variations that make up the picture as a whole. This has been the case for centuries, though its nature and extent has morphed across time. Widely accepted tenets of ‘Britishness’: politeness, goodwill, orderliness, literature and hymns, tea, fish & chips, and the Sunday roast. These reflect a consolidation of disparate parts that grew in reach and intensity from the Industrial Revolution into the Victorian period and through to the twentieth century. But these things had their antecedents, developed out of local and regional forms and practices from long before.
In previous generations, local and national identity could coexist, as each one feeds into the other and cannot exist alone. Sadly, much is already diluted to the point that we risk losing its real feeling and essence. Local and regional particularity must be carefully preserved.
England is much like tapestry, she is not as refined as the sculpture or as conceived and fabricated as portraiture. Like tapestry, she is now an older form that is much forgotten and out of fashion. These tapestries still bear the patterns and designs of their creators, though they have lost the brightness and vibrancy of their former glory. They took inspiration from more ornate works, reproducing these motifs in new ways. These pieces are often overshadowed, longingly awaiting restoration or revival. Each thread, with differences so finely and carefully woven, feeds into the other to create the whole, resulting in marvels of nature, man and divinity.
England and Englishness is not pre-determined and innate, it was shaped and crafted by our ancestors adaptation to its rich and varied environment. It is these weaves and threads of different colours and textures that created this masterpiece, one we can still call home.
F. L. Forman can be found on YouTube and on X at @formanofkent. In his day job, he cares for a heritage site.
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