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Nigel Farage bombed in Edinburgh – what does that really tell us about Scottish antipathy to the English? Nigel Farage bombed in Edinburgh – what does that really tell us about Scottish antipathy to the English?
(4 months later)
Do the Scots dislike the English? Overlook for the moment the lamentable generalisations inherent in any such question and think of Nigel Farage struggling with his student opponents in an Edinburgh street recently. They see Farage as a racist who should go back to England. Farage sees them as fascists who represent the ugly side of Scottish nationalism. On the one hand, the students' antagonism towards Farage might be highly specific, and no more characteristic of a general tendency than the football chant "Bobby Moore, superstar/Walks like a woman and he wears a bra" aimed at England's captain 40 years ago. On the other, could it be that the hostility towards both men has its roots in the same dark resentments? After all, the popularly adopted national anthem, Flower of Scotland, bristles with words about defeating an English army in the 14th century.Do the Scots dislike the English? Overlook for the moment the lamentable generalisations inherent in any such question and think of Nigel Farage struggling with his student opponents in an Edinburgh street recently. They see Farage as a racist who should go back to England. Farage sees them as fascists who represent the ugly side of Scottish nationalism. On the one hand, the students' antagonism towards Farage might be highly specific, and no more characteristic of a general tendency than the football chant "Bobby Moore, superstar/Walks like a woman and he wears a bra" aimed at England's captain 40 years ago. On the other, could it be that the hostility towards both men has its roots in the same dark resentments? After all, the popularly adopted national anthem, Flower of Scotland, bristles with words about defeating an English army in the 14th century.
National prejudices are difficult to quantify outside wars and emergencies, when they can become violently manifest, to vanish again as though they had never existed. (My uncle used to tell us that when Mussolini declared war on Britain, mobs smashed the windows of every Italian cafe in Greenock.) Personal experience may be as reliable a guide as any, and mine suggests that anti-Englishness in Scotland is now inextricably interwoven with prejudices about social class. Scottish universities are a good place to observe this. Many students at the four oldest – Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews – come from England and particularly southern England. According to a Londoner studying at one of these places, "No matter how rich the background of a middle-class Scottish student, she will always see a middle-class English student as richer." This blinkered prism conflates Englishness with being posh; heterodox, multi-racial and multiclassed England has been stripped from the picture. To be an Englishman is to be white, loud and confident, and to hold forth in bars about world affairs as others drinkers murmur obliquely about local matters. Few people could better fill a Scottish stereotype than the booted, suited and absurdly cheerful Nigel Farage.National prejudices are difficult to quantify outside wars and emergencies, when they can become violently manifest, to vanish again as though they had never existed. (My uncle used to tell us that when Mussolini declared war on Britain, mobs smashed the windows of every Italian cafe in Greenock.) Personal experience may be as reliable a guide as any, and mine suggests that anti-Englishness in Scotland is now inextricably interwoven with prejudices about social class. Scottish universities are a good place to observe this. Many students at the four oldest – Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews – come from England and particularly southern England. According to a Londoner studying at one of these places, "No matter how rich the background of a middle-class Scottish student, she will always see a middle-class English student as richer." This blinkered prism conflates Englishness with being posh; heterodox, multi-racial and multiclassed England has been stripped from the picture. To be an Englishman is to be white, loud and confident, and to hold forth in bars about world affairs as others drinkers murmur obliquely about local matters. Few people could better fill a Scottish stereotype than the booted, suited and absurdly cheerful Nigel Farage.
Was it always like this? I moved to Scotland as a seven-year-old when my parents returned after a 22-year stay in Lancashire. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me – the transition from a house on the edge of a smoky mill town to a flat overlooking the Firth of Forth was like moving from darkness to light. Of course, a move to Bournemouth might have had a similar effect, but there would have been no uncles and aunts in Bournemouth, and the voices there would have been different. The main reason to come "home", particularly for my mother, was to rediscover the comfort of familiar things. Some of her happiness must have rubbed off on me.Was it always like this? I moved to Scotland as a seven-year-old when my parents returned after a 22-year stay in Lancashire. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me – the transition from a house on the edge of a smoky mill town to a flat overlooking the Firth of Forth was like moving from darkness to light. Of course, a move to Bournemouth might have had a similar effect, but there would have been no uncles and aunts in Bournemouth, and the voices there would have been different. The main reason to come "home", particularly for my mother, was to rediscover the comfort of familiar things. Some of her happiness must have rubbed off on me.
To my new friends in the playground and the street, I must at first have sounded like a little Lancastrian, but I can never remember being made to feel conscious of it. The fact was that heavy industry and military bases built to serve two world wars had infused the local population with workers from across Britain and Ireland, and for most of us "British" was still the primary national identity. It was Britain that had won the war, as British films continually reminded us, and even if the officers on the bridge spoke the most beautiful RP there was always the chance of finding a Scotsman in the engine room.To my new friends in the playground and the street, I must at first have sounded like a little Lancastrian, but I can never remember being made to feel conscious of it. The fact was that heavy industry and military bases built to serve two world wars had infused the local population with workers from across Britain and Ireland, and for most of us "British" was still the primary national identity. It was Britain that had won the war, as British films continually reminded us, and even if the officers on the bridge spoke the most beautiful RP there was always the chance of finding a Scotsman in the engine room.
One consequence – I think a benign one, though separatists and revolutionaries might disagree – was that different ways of life expanded our idea of who we were. Just as my father, who went to work aged 14, felt a bond with Billy Bunter's taunters at Greyfriars, so children of my generation could listen to Jennings and Darbishire on Children's Hour, or read the Just William stories in the library, and manage to feel that the leafiness of southern England was part of their culture too. Writers that were encountered later, such as Dickens, Bennett and Sillitoe, had the same effect: I never felt they belonged to any other nation than my own, or to that of writers born nearer to home, such as Burns, Buchan and Stevenson.One consequence – I think a benign one, though separatists and revolutionaries might disagree – was that different ways of life expanded our idea of who we were. Just as my father, who went to work aged 14, felt a bond with Billy Bunter's taunters at Greyfriars, so children of my generation could listen to Jennings and Darbishire on Children's Hour, or read the Just William stories in the library, and manage to feel that the leafiness of southern England was part of their culture too. Writers that were encountered later, such as Dickens, Bennett and Sillitoe, had the same effect: I never felt they belonged to any other nation than my own, or to that of writers born nearer to home, such as Burns, Buchan and Stevenson.
Among families like mine, the English were never spoken of as a generality but divided among counties, cities and naval dockyards: Devonians, Chathamites, Lancastrians, Pompeys, etc. Each was thought to have endearing or offensive characteristics as a group – a notion that any encounter with an individual instantly belied. The southern English as a whole were believed to be mean and inhospitable, the joke being that their idea of a good tea was a few sandwiches spread with Shippam's – where were the pancakes, the doughnuts, the biscuits, the sausage rolls, the chips? – but beyond that I find it hard to remember an example of energetic prejudice. After he was wounded on the western front, my grandfather became batman to an officer in the Royal Scots and, thinking to please him with traditional breakfasts, offered first porridge ("Take away that baby food!") and then oatcakes ("What's this, sandpaper?"). The story might have become an illustration of why the English or – amounting to the same thing – privately schooled Scotsmen were absolute bastards, but my grandad always told it with humour.Among families like mine, the English were never spoken of as a generality but divided among counties, cities and naval dockyards: Devonians, Chathamites, Lancastrians, Pompeys, etc. Each was thought to have endearing or offensive characteristics as a group – a notion that any encounter with an individual instantly belied. The southern English as a whole were believed to be mean and inhospitable, the joke being that their idea of a good tea was a few sandwiches spread with Shippam's – where were the pancakes, the doughnuts, the biscuits, the sausage rolls, the chips? – but beyond that I find it hard to remember an example of energetic prejudice. After he was wounded on the western front, my grandfather became batman to an officer in the Royal Scots and, thinking to please him with traditional breakfasts, offered first porridge ("Take away that baby food!") and then oatcakes ("What's this, sandpaper?"). The story might have become an illustration of why the English or – amounting to the same thing – privately schooled Scotsmen were absolute bastards, but my grandad always told it with humour.
Obviously not everyone had the same tolerance for our friends in the south. Not being interested in sport, for example, my mother and father remained ignorant of the ritual obligation to hate England at football. Only with the 1966 World Cup final did I realise that this obligation extended to cheering on the opposing side, even though the English team included men born no more than 50 miles south of the Scottish border. That seemed odd, but it was for a long time an oddity confined to sport, which accommodates many eccentricities. Then North Sea oil arrived, followed by Mrs Thatcher, and with the rise of political nationalism came the need to assert a clearer social difference between us and them. Paradoxically, Scotland is probably now more anglicised than at any point in my lifetime, in the sense that more English-born people live there, as professionals in the cities and B&B owners and entrepreneurs in the countryside. They may sometimes be resented, but here, too, the conflation of class with nationality is hard to disentangle.Obviously not everyone had the same tolerance for our friends in the south. Not being interested in sport, for example, my mother and father remained ignorant of the ritual obligation to hate England at football. Only with the 1966 World Cup final did I realise that this obligation extended to cheering on the opposing side, even though the English team included men born no more than 50 miles south of the Scottish border. That seemed odd, but it was for a long time an oddity confined to sport, which accommodates many eccentricities. Then North Sea oil arrived, followed by Mrs Thatcher, and with the rise of political nationalism came the need to assert a clearer social difference between us and them. Paradoxically, Scotland is probably now more anglicised than at any point in my lifetime, in the sense that more English-born people live there, as professionals in the cities and B&B owners and entrepreneurs in the countryside. They may sometimes be resented, but here, too, the conflation of class with nationality is hard to disentangle.
Recently my wife and I walked to the top of a small hill on the Scottish west coast where a local landowner wants, contentiously, to site a wind turbine. We met a woman out walking her dog who, it turned out, lived nearby. What did she think? "Oh," she said, "the people who want it are English, and the people who oppose it are English." She shrugged, as if to say it had nothing to do with her – a hopeless sort of gesture that made both the argument for nationalism and against it.Recently my wife and I walked to the top of a small hill on the Scottish west coast where a local landowner wants, contentiously, to site a wind turbine. We met a woman out walking her dog who, it turned out, lived nearby. What did she think? "Oh," she said, "the people who want it are English, and the people who oppose it are English." She shrugged, as if to say it had nothing to do with her – a hopeless sort of gesture that made both the argument for nationalism and against it.
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