An article on the BBC website set us thinking today, especially as it came at the same time as the 'resolution' of a row between Theresa May and Michael Gove which seemed to centre who who was being tougher on immigrants.
Over breakfast, we looked at our family which is depressingly 'English' bar the usual mix of Irish and Scottish. Our surname is Normanised Welsh in origin so that hints at the male line (if our grandmothers are be believed). One member of the family is qualified to play for Scotland but has no vote in the referendum while another, very English one, happens to be domiciled in Edinburgh and does.
Then there is the Peruvian great grandmother and the two lovely half Polish children-in-law - both Cambridge graduates and not to be entirely trusted with domestic plumbing - whose parents were fleeing racial hatred, another unpleasant regime and tyranny not very long ago.
Tom Shakespeare has a good point about a natural division of England into smaller parts, something John Prescott tried but for which he found no traction amongst the populace. Where JP went wrong was neither choosing the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms nor their modern equivalent: television areas. The moment you include Leicestershire (Mercia) in East Anglia or Gloucestershire (The Marches?) in the South West, the odour of compromise bubbles to the surface.
Like many families, our ancestors left the land in the mid 19th century and became educated entrepreneurs. and so perhaps we should be railing against any immigration by others, but we are not. As Tom Shakespeare - ah, name to conjure with - so eloquently puts it, we are first and foremost human beings. Although that idea probably puts us down as 'untrustworthy Guardian-reading, wishy-washy, left-wing, intellectual liberals' in some quarters.
All this inspired the following which is dedicated to Theresa May and her friends MG and the farrago who is driving the intolerance:
How may I deport thee? Let me count the ways:
Your mother's folks were Vikings and your father's, they were Danes.
They say your aunt Matilda married ancient Norman stock
By a Saxon out of Wessex for a piece of Brighton Rock.
When Scot crossed into England they made an awful mess
The colour of your uncle's hair, came from a Pict we guess.
And now that Aunty Barbara is courting Samjit Din
I'm sure that they'll deport her, or refuse to let him in.
Our queen is really German. Her husband is a Greek.
Some Angevins who ruled us were really rather weak.
We're Celtic tribes we're Beaker Folk, we're Roman, Saxon, Dane
We're Frenchmen, Dutch, Italian, and Spaniards from the Main.
We've come from places far away, across the seven seas
From India and Pakistan, we're Malay, Thai, Balinese.
We all arrived and stirred it up and somehow made it fit.
The splendid outcome of this mix is what we call True Brit.
With apologies to so many poets ... Kipling or Chesterton would have said it so much better.
