Next to the beach where we are staying in Wales is a little shop, full of all manner of stuff proclaiming The Joys of Being Welsh. Welsh flags to go on your sandcastles. Beach towels with proud red dragons. Books on how to learn Welsh and Welsh jokes and Welsh recipes and Welsh songs and Welsh poetry.
And in pride of place, right at the front of the shop there is a plaque that reads ‘To be born Welsh is to be born privileged, for it is to have a song in your heart and poetry in your soul.’
Take a minute to imagine a similar shop in England. Lots of items bearing the St George Cross, red roses and busts of Shakespeare. Racks of books to read all about English national pride. Sheet music of nationalistic songs. A big plaque at the front saying ‘Proud to be English – the most privileged nation on Earth’.
Squirming yet?
It’s not difficult to understand our collective discomfort at this idea. However much we may hate it or even rail against it, English pride is often connected in our culture with intolerant nationalism, jingoism and even racism.
So far, so blah. We all know that expressions of national pride are really only socially acceptable when England is competing in some sort of international sporting competition and only then on the understanding that we are going to play very very badly and get knocked out pretty darned quick.
I honestly don’t think that in England we have more or less extreme nationalists than in other countries. I just think that, because the average decent English person is too embarrassed to express any kind of national pride, the very idea of English nationalism gets left, by default, to the extremists. In other words, we let it happen, collectively.
And we all know the reasons why, too. A fair amount of (justified) collective guilt at our recent history, especially the history of the British Empire. But that can’t be the whole answer. We aren’t, by any stretch of the imagination, the only nation with a less-than-spotless past. And there are plenty of Empire-building nations, past and present, that can still manage to fly their national flag without blushing or being associated with racism. Possibly there is just something in our national culture that shies away from what we might see as showing off. Especially if it looks like we are celebrating being the oppressors.
It’s hard to be proud, I’ll grant you, when you are portrayed as the oppressors and not the oppressed. Our great heroes, King Arthur and Robin Hood have this in common – they owe their semi-mythical status to their role as symbols of struggle against oppression. The Welsh national story is one of a fight for independence, a struggle for freedom, which is clearly a narrative that is arguably much easier to take pride in.
But I don’t think we should leave the English Defence League in possession of the St George’s flag. I’d like it back, please, because I think that there are many great and positive things about our past and our present that we should be able to celebrate, without the kind of embarrassment that we are so horribly allergic to.
As the plaque in the beach shop suggests, at the centre of Welsh nationalism is a sense of pride in their culture, and nothing could be more justified. Poetry and song and dance are at the heart of what it means to be Welsh. If you have never been to an Eisteddfod, a local one or the national one, then you have missed something exceptional and amazing. All ages, men and women, participating together, making music and bringing their communities together in a common cause.
But if the Welsh have a song in their heart and poetry in their souls well, so have the English, right? Since the beginning of the twentieth century, many dedicated people have been preserving the folk song and dance traditions of this country. And it’s amazing. Go to any folk festival up and down the country all through the year – and there are many many of them to choose from – and see the extraordinary musicianship on display.
If you don’t think that English folk dancing or singing can be energetic, then check out some of the links below. The incredible Time Gentleman Please. The sublime Seth Lakeman. Of course, although there are many wonderfully talented English performers, the English folk tradition isn’t a museum piece. There is, at he beginning of the 21st century, a wonderful synergy between many of the folk traditions – and musicians – of the countries of the UK and Europe as well as with the rest of the world. Nothing is preserved in aspic.
Neither is the idea of celebrating English folk songs somehow to be construed as excluding other cultures, with no relevance for 21st century life. The folk tradition centres on the experiences of the common people, and those have a remarkable continuity across time and geography: falling in love, losing a loved one, the fight for freedom, jealousy, revenge, grief, sorrow, pain, death. Someone is always buggering off to war, or running off with another man’s wife. Of course there are also a great number of songs about herring, but I think we will all just have to live with that.
I am not saying that our inhibitions against expressing English national pride can be cured by Morris dancing. I don’t go in for that sort of sweeping statement, and nor will I until I get a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph*. I’m just saying – let’s give it a go. Traditional singing and dancing back on the school curriculum. Encouraged by grants in local communities. A national scheme of competitions like the Eisteddfodds. Subsidised stepping and clog dancing classes. A revival of traditional instruments. And you – yes, you – going and listening to some traditional music or watching it on Youtube and then giving it a go yourself.
It’s worth a try, isn’t it? Then we’ll show the Welsh who’s really got a song in their hearts and poetry in their souls.
Time Gentleman Please – maverick English folk
*NB am open to offers
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