Thread: Identifiable popular "English" folk culture Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
Over on the various Scottish independence (or not) threads, there've been a few comments around England being the only part of the UK not to have a surviving popular folk culture - the inference being that there's a bit of morris dancing, and that's about it.

I wondered to what extent that's true, not least because I instinctively see in a lot of it either a) an English willingness to do themselves down through ignorance of their own background, or b) an easy but no less inaccurate stick with which other residents of the UK like to beat the English?

I suppose there are a couple of angles to this - first, is it true? Does England in fact have no folk culture of its own that survives beyond morris?

Is it in fact that our folk culture is the mainstream from which the fringes, for want of a better term, differ: ie watching competitive team sport, boxing day football, etc? So, we do have a folk culture, but it is now the template for "normal" and thus not recognised as "folk."

Or is it just that England is so big that it doesn't have one folk culture that covers the nation, so much as a host of regional ones that are really important if you're in the locality? Sort of small pipes being big in Northumberland but not in Devon?

Certainly from my experience there's a lot going on under the surface, without ever needing to have a national festival to join it all up:

Lewes bonfire
Shrovetide football in Ashbourne
Abbotts Bromley Horn Dance
Ottery St Mary tar barrels
The whole of Dartmoor folklore
Black Shuck in Norfolk, etc

And then the obvious morris (which itself is more a midland thing anyway), Britannia coconutters, etc.

Of course, aside from the purely local things, which get huge support locally, it's difficult to claim that these are "popular" with everyone from Dover to Berwick. At the same time though, they are English. At the same time, things like the Green Man, which was a presence from pagan times right through to the 18th century (hence so many pubs with the name) fell away with industrialisation.

So England, vibrant folk culture based on locality and knowing where to look, or cut off from it's roots irreperably at and by the industrial revolution? Or something in between? And more or less so than its bordering neighbours? And does it matter? And should it?
 
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :
 
There's a difference between identity and folk culture.

There are, as you said, localised folk tales, songs and superstitions.

I wonder whether the attitude of the English is different because the government and capital city is based there. Perhaps it has been easier for English people to see themselves as British first, which is why any English identity is weak. They've embraced the Scottish, Welsh and Irish folk cultures as their own, while the individual countries have held firmly to anything that distinguished them from the others.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
The identity if England is in largely Scottish and Irish folk songs, Indian takeaways, fish and chips, 70's Rock and Roll, the NHS and the Armed Forces (plus probably page 3). Maybe add the specifically English vagiaries of the planning regulations.

Can't think of much else that is truly popular culture, as opposed to being practiced by about a dozen people somewhere near a county boundary.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
There's a difference between identity and folk culture.
Yes.

I actually a problem with the idea of English Folk Culture as a Thing, in that on the one hand folk culture as we understand it was a a fluid, ever changing thing that at some point became immovable and enshrined and on the other folk culture -- that corpus of stories, music, events -- in its origin was very much the preserve of the working/rural labouring classes and is now very much not a working class thing.


quote:

I wonder whether the attitude of the English is different because the government and capital city is based there. Perhaps it has been easier for English people to see themselves as British first, which is why any English identity is weak. They've embraced the Scottish, Welsh and Irish folk cultures as their own, while the individual countries have held firmly to anything that distinguished them from the others.
See, I think that yes, it's because England is the ruling nation; but I think it's that Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland have held on to their folk cultures such as they are -- Eisteddfods and stuff like that, things that are not quite as prone to class-based gatekeeping in the way that the English variety is -- exactly because they are not the ruling nation, and all, at some time or another in the past, have had their identities and cultures under some some sort of threat from England.

They exist because they were either explicitly (certainly in the case of Wales) or implicitly told not to.

Meanwhile, England, like other imperial nations, tended not to value its folk culture because its pride came from being the ruling nation. Books and periodicals I have from the late 1800s present "folk" culture as a thing that England didn't need, and presented the Welsh, Irish and Scots people as sometimes literal caricatures (like the cartoon "Paddies" that represent Ireland across the 1877-1881 run of Punch that has pride of place on my bookshelf).

It's interesting because I had almost this exact conversation a few weeks ago with a sweet-natured liberal American guy who bemoaned the fact that (he felt) White America had no real culture of its own worth keeping, while the ethnic minorities had proud traditions and identities. I told him that he was wrong, and that while yeah, his people shouldn't feel guilty for who they were, because they were who they were, and that there was a culture... he just wasn't seeing it. I talked about baseball, and things like that. He didn't buy it. He thought his own culture was dead. I felt pity for him.

I think that there is an English identity and an English culture. I think it is more recent, and is fluid, and is harder to pin down through markers like songs and stories. I think that it does not come from appropriating the cultures of the other home nations, and I think that it does not have a problem of gatekeeperdom.

[ 12. September 2014, 15:07: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I always felt there was something very English about Sunday dinners and pastries. Although admittedly I've seen them in Wales too.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
The identity if England is in largely Scottish and Irish folk songs.
I don't really buy your whole list, but this in particular isn't true. Who's singing these folk songs? The only time I've gone anywhere near people singing folk songs they've got a repertoire of several hundred (thankyou Cecil Sharp) without having to go anywhere near the borders let alone over them.

One of the things that really annoys me is when people hear a fiddle going on eg Matty Groves and think "oh, Irish music" because the cultural cringe has set in so far when ten to one what they're listening to is English. Same for the broadside ballads.

Even craic's an English word (crack) with the same meaning, borrowed by the Irish as late as 50 years ago and then exported back as something uniquely Irish when in fact it's Northern English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic

Is the problem as much misidentification of what they're looking at and hearing because of what they've been told/encouraged to think?

I just genuinely don't get why we're told we haven't got a folk culture, or if we have, it's all stuff that isn't ours or has come in in the last 50 years.

Is that true? Or is it a good line to take to support the argument that we've genuinely got rid of all our own stuff?

I mean

"Indian takeaways, fish and chips, 70's Rock and Roll, the NHS and the Armed Forces"

all go down quite well in Wales and Scotland as well (vote yes to save the NHS/ or earlier in the decade save our Scottish regiments), but for them you appear to be suggesting it's "that and...." whereas for England it's "that only."

Or have I misunderstood?
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
...
Or have I misunderstood?
Then give us a positive list of English cultural identity. Add a few English songs that most people know, and maybe a national costume.

If you disagree with my list, then show it's incorrect with concrete examples.
 
Posted by deano (# 12063) on :
 
I think that a national culture is just another way of saying "national stereotype".

Fish and Chips, Roast Beef, Morris Dancing and so on are stereotypes just as much as the sausage-eating Germans or the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

Why do we need such a culture anyway? If there is an English culture it is that of absorbing other cultural influences and making them our own!
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
I think that a national culture is just another way of saying "national stereotype".

Fish and Chips, Roast Beef, Morris Dancing and so on are stereotypes just as much as the sausage-eating Germans or the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

Why do we need such a culture anyway? If there is an English culture it is that of absorbing other cultural influences and making them our own!
I think all of the things your described are part of a national stereotype, but I am not sure that the culture of English people works quite the way you describe it. I don't think it's about appropriation.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Then give us a positive list of English cultural identity
well, ok, but what are the terms of debate? Ie, if I come up with clothing or music or food is that going to count because the Scots have got tartan and bagpipes (but not all Scots want to wear the former or play the latter) and haggis, or is that not going to count because people only do something in Cumbria? There's 50 odd million people in England, and 5m in Scotland. Does it have to be truly national to be English cultural identity if more people are doing it than are in Scotland? And is something that the world thinks is Scottish actually Scottish if it's only done in the highlands or the lowlands, or is that regional too?

Anyway, on those fragile terms:

Morris
black dog legends
may queens
maypole dancing
Robin Hood legends and ballads
well dressing
aunt sally
muffins
crumpets
Anglican choral tradition
rapper dancing
english folk music
cricket
small pipes
ploughing matches
fell running

I mean, that's an arguable and disparate list of specifically English cultural things, but I'm not sure what it is you're asking for. Does an English muffin count as much as positive cultural identity as a caber? Or English folk music to Irish folk music? When it comes down to it is there more interest in percentage terms in Ireland in Irish folk music than there is in England in English folk music? If not, why is Irish folk music a cultural signifier and not English folk music?
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
...
Or have I misunderstood?
Add a few English songs that most people know, and maybe a national costume.

If you disagree with my list, then show it's incorrect with concrete examples.
sorry, I got distracted...

a few English songs most people know:

what shall we do with the drunken sailor
oranges and lemons
London's burning

national costume - well, arguably. Our clothes. You recognise the welsh and scottish national costumes precisely because most people there are no longer wearing them surely? Because they're wearing what we're wearing. It's just that globalisation has made it the standard (obviously minus things like denim), but trousers with creases down the front and back rather than the sides that are tailored, Oxford shoes and shirts,Barbour jackets, etc ad nauseam are everyday clothes invented in England and worn by the English. The fact that others have also adopted them doesn't mean it isn't what English people wear or wore before others also adopted them.
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Is it in fact that our folk culture is the mainstream from which the fringes, for want of a better term, differ: ie watching competitive team sport, boxing day football, etc? So, we do have a folk culture, but it is now the template for "normal" and thus not recognised as "folk."
I think that's the point. If I may quote from another post.
quote:
Originally posted by Wood
It's interesting because I had almost this exact conversation a few weeks ago with a sweet-natured liberal American guy who bemoaned the fact that (he felt) White America had no real culture of its own worth keeping, while the ethnic minorities had proud traditions and identities. I told him that he was wrong, and that while yeah, his people shouldn't feel guilty for who they were, because they were who they were, and that there was a culture... he just wasn't seeing it. I talked about baseball, and things like that. He didn't buy it. He thought his own culture was dead. I felt pity for him.
From here, the USA is a very foreign place, in many ways, despite deceptively speaking a dialect of English, more foreign, culturally more alien, than adjoining countries in Europe. So QED.
 
Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :
 
Should eating Indian food stop counting as part of our national culture because the Scots also do it? If so, since the English started doing it has it ceased to be part of Indian culture?

One part of culture is the flow of things (ideas, activities, attitudes to life, myths etc) passed from one generation to another: the Lamarkian component of our social evolution.

The parts of our culture we may be most proud of are those which others have adopted.
 
Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :
 
Can we add queing and cynicism about politicians to the list?
Some years ago, we had a group of Americans visiting our church. They found "Have I got news for you?" very strange as they seemed to treat politics as something very serious, and certainly couldn't be cynical or sarcastic about it.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
quote:
Some years ago, we had a group of Americans visiting our church. They found "Have I got news for you?" very strange as they seemed to treat politics as something very serious, and certainly couldn't be cynical or sarcastic about it.

I'm assuming these particular Americans never watched Saturday Night Live or Southpark?
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
Smockfrocks
Singing in pubs - beer songs, barley songs, cockney songs, whatever
Last night of the Proms
Amdram societies
G&S ditto
Brass bands
Trainspotting
Building model train layouts
Lace making
Tatting
Jam making
Hunting with hounds
Lamping rabbits
Rambling
Birdwatching
Going to the seaside
Holidaying in non-mobile mobile homes
Embroidery
Needlepoint
Tapestry
Baking local recipes
Arguing about the authenticity of whichever niche activity one is involved in.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Wood
It's interesting because I had almost this exact conversation a few weeks ago with a sweet-natured liberal American guy who bemoaned the fact that (he felt) White America had no real culture of its own worth keeping, while the ethnic minorities had proud traditions and identities. I told him that he was wrong, and that while yeah, his people shouldn't feel guilty for who they were, because they were who they were, and that there was a culture... he just wasn't seeing it. I talked about baseball, and things like that. He didn't buy it. He thought his own culture was dead. I felt pity for him.
From here, the USA is a very foreign place, in many ways, despite deceptively speaking a dialect of English, more foreign, culturally more alien, than adjoining countries in Europe. So QED.
Except the one thing the US has in common with England is a history (albeit a slightly shorter one) of imperialism and of colonisation, and the same sort of contempt for its own old-skool folk traditions.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Some years ago, we had a group of Americans visiting our church. They found "Have I got news for you?" very strange as they seemed to treat politics as something very serious, and certainly couldn't be cynical or sarcastic about it.

I'm assuming these particular Americans never watched Saturday Night Live or Southpark?
The clue there is that they're visiting a church, I think.
 
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
I thought Hoodies were traditional English folk clothing. [Smile]
 
Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on :
 
English folk traditions - richest in the world

Carnival - everything from village carnivals to Notting Hill
Fairs and Fayres and Galas
Music - incredible range of English folk music, choral traditions, pop and rock, orchestras and brass band music.
Food - astonishing range of local and regional cuisines - pasties, cheeses, stews, dumplings, cobblers, cream teas, unrivalled puddings, breakfasts, clotted cream, ice creams, bacons, hams and sausages, chicken tikka masala.
Dance - Morris and maypoles to ballroom.
Rural - competition of livestock, vegetable growing, jams and preserves, tug of war, ploughing competitions, fox hunting.
Sports including all those we invented such as - oh wait just about every major sport.

The list starts to get boastful at this point because I haven't even touched upon the fact that we are a nation loving hobbies and crafts, literature, drama, art etc.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
English folk traditions - richest in the world

Carnival - everything from village carnivals to Notting Hill
Fairs and Fayres and Galas
Music - incredible range of English folk music, choral traditions, pop and rock, orchestras and brass band music.
Food - astonishing range of local and regional cuisines - pasties, cheeses, stews, dumplings, cobblers, cream teas, unrivalled puddings, breakfasts, clotted cream, ice creams, bacons, hams and sausages, chicken tikka masala.
Dance - Morris and maypoles to ballroom.
Rural - competition of livestock, vegetable growing, jams and preserves, tug of war, ploughing competitions, fox hunting.
Sports including all those we invented such as - oh wait just about every major sport.

The list starts to get boastful at this point because I haven't even touched upon the fact that we are a nation loving hobbies and crafts, literature, drama, art etc.
The problem is that few of these things, many of which are wonderful, are really "folk" anymore. There are a lot of middle class pursuits here.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
English things / folk culture - random list

I could go on, possibly indefinitely.
 
Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
Folklore as we know it was invented by people collecting and writing down English folk culture, and though Scotland and Ireland were thought to have a richer supernatural lore than England, a quick glance at such early folklore collections as Brand's Antiquities (1777) will discover plenty of folk traditions.

From its inception those studying English folk lore thought it was dying out. But perhaps what is really happening is the replacement of older folk customs by new ones. The artist Jeremy Deller is particularly interesting in contemporary folk customs; so is the photographer Martin Parr. The environmental organisation Common Ground brings politics, environmentalism and art together in a series of projects around English local distinctiveness, folk customs and landscape.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Some years ago, we had a group of Americans visiting our church. They found "Have I got news for you?" very strange as they seemed to treat politics as something very serious, and certainly couldn't be cynical or sarcastic about it.

I'm assuming these particular Americans never watched Saturday Night Live or Southpark?
The clue there is that they're visiting a church, I think.
Well, yeah, but presumably, Gwladys' English churchgoing friends WERE familiar with the idea of comedians making fun of politicians. So, going by that, I would not say that churchgoing is the indicator for an inability to appreciate satire.

With all due respect to Gwladys, I think he or she might be generalizing a bit from a small sample of people, ie. the tourists at her church. I would think that most Americans, even the ones who hold political discussion in solemn esteem, would still be familiar with things like SNL, the Daily Show, Doonesbury, Bloom County etc, at least enough not to be shocked to hear that people elsewhere in the world make fun of politicians.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
Doublethink wrote:

quote:
Avon ladies & Anne Summers
If by "Avon ladies" you mean the cosmetics people, that company is American.

Though possibly Avon flourishes more in the UK than elsewhere, since as a Canadian, I don't think I have ever met an actual Avon Lady.

[ 12. September 2014, 20:43: Message edited by: Stetson ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Yup, going strong over here.
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
English folk traditions - richest in the world

Carnival - everything from village carnivals to Notting Hill
Fairs and Fayres and Galas
Music - incredible range of English folk music, choral traditions, pop and rock, orchestras and brass band music.
Food - astonishing range of local and regional cuisines - pasties, cheeses, stews, dumplings, cobblers, cream teas, unrivalled puddings, breakfasts, clotted cream, ice creams, bacons, hams and sausages, chicken tikka masala.
Dance - Morris and maypoles to ballroom.
Rural - competition of livestock, vegetable growing, jams and preserves, tug of war, ploughing competitions, fox hunting.
Sports including all those we invented such as - oh wait just about every major sport.

The list starts to get boastful at this point because I haven't even touched upon the fact that we are a nation loving hobbies and crafts, literature, drama, art etc.
The problem is that few of these things, many of which are wonderful, are really "folk" anymore. There are a lot of middle class pursuits here.
Not in my corner of the world they're not. I couldn't describe any of them as being especially "middle-class" - they're just part of the calendar of the seasons that people at all levels participate in, with the exception of fox-hunting and morris dancing.
 
Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
One of the refreshing things about Martin Parr's early work is that he saw (rightly, in my view) that folk culture can be middle class too.
 
Posted by Chocoholic (# 4655) on :
 
Did no one else get taught English country dancing at school?

Not that I can remember seeing it since, although Morris and maypole seem similar styles.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Well, a bit of barn dancing - but not seriously.
 
Posted by jrw (# 18045) on :
 
Until recently most English people seemed to think 'Britain' ended at the Scottish/Welsh borders. I don't know if that's really changed now.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Given this is a thread on English folk culture, how is that relevant ?
 
Posted by jrw (# 18045) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Given this is a thread on English folk culture, how is that relevant ?
It was a bit of a tangent, I admit, but English and British culture has always tended to be seen as interchangeable.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
Part of the thesis of the op though is that it isn't or at the very least probably shouldn't be.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Doublethink - please do!

SHAKESPEARE! Vaughan Williams. Seth Lakeman. Steel Eye Span. Fairport Convention. All the bloody wars. The Forest of Bowland. Far From The Madding Crowd. The Battle Of Britain. Pendle Hill. Sopwith Camels. The Rollrights. Elephant Walk, Queen Victoria's statue, Royal Leamington Spa. Jack The Ripper. One Tree Hill, Kent. Zulu. Down House. Lawrence of Arabia. Kenilworth. Warwick. Elizabeth. Horsell Common. Jack Russells. Glastonbury Tor. Cricket. CRICKET! H. G. Wells. St. Paul's. Tate Britain. Aldous Huxley. Dickens. Orwell. Jayne Eyre. Waterloo Sunset. Spitfires. Over The Hills And Far Away, John Tams. Sparrows. London.
 
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 
Is there an English culture as such? Because the folk cultures of Yorkshire, East Anglia and Cornwall seem to me to be as diverse as Scotland, Ireland and the Black Country. In short, there is no single English culture but a mixture of several different cultures that combine to create something that is undefinable, but still English.

Other counties are even more diverse. The culture of Massachusetts and Arizona are vastly different to each other, but still American.

Culture does not have to be uniform.
 
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chocoholic:
Did no one else get taught English country dancing at school?

Not that I can remember seeing it since, although Morris and maypole seem similar styles.
I did it every week after junior school in the 70s, not a posh school either, we lived on a council estate. We also did it occasionally in PE.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
Is there an English culture as such? Because the folk cultures of Yorkshire, East Anglia and Cornwall seem to me to be as diverse as Scotland, Ireland and the Black Country. In short, there is no single English culture but a mixture of several different cultures that combine to create something that is undefinable, but still English.

Other counties are even more diverse. The culture of Massachusetts and Arizona are vastly different to each other, but still American.

Culture does not have to be uniform.
Any culture will split down into different components, I am not sure why that makes it difficult to claim there is an English culture.
 
Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Not in my corner of the world they're not. I couldn't describe any of them as being especially "middle-class" - they're just part of the calendar of the seasons that people at all levels participate in, with the exception of fox-hunting and morris dancing.
I can't say I know any Morris dancers. I do know plenty of hunters - very mixed class wise and mostly working on the land.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
I know a morris dancer, he's a nurse - I am not sure what class that makes him under what system.

Under class defined by inherited privilege it would depend on his father's occupation which I don't know, he is paid for his labour which I think technically makes him working class if you are a marxist, he is probably earning about 130% of the national average wage which might make him middle class if you are going on income alone.

Mind you, if you are going on income alone, it is no longer a class system.
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
First of all it is not the English who get to define what is "English Culture". In the British Isles English culture is the dominant culture and that means it is seen as normative. Minority cultures such as Scots, Irish and Welsh tend to be defined as how they are different from English Culture. "Culture" works by the relationship to "the other". What a culture is dominant those within a culture often do not have access to "the other" and are therefore culturally blind until those with access to "the other" start pointing it out.

So unfortunately the stereotypes by the Americans and such are better guesses at English Culture than are those of most English. The culture is the common sense ways things are done. This talk of culture that relates it to folk events is perhaps an artefact of English Culture, that we associate culture with those things, but it really does not define it.

For instance, I would say having churches keep a register of the weddings that occur in them is very much English culture. The Scots do not, the French do not and I suspect many other nationalities do not.

Jengie
 
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
quote:
Originally posted by Chocoholic:
Did no one else get taught English country dancing at school?

Not that I can remember seeing it since, although Morris and maypole seem similar styles.
I did it every week after junior school in the 70s, not a posh school either, we lived on a council estate. We also did it occasionally in PE.
And my 13 year old says that he does country dancing in PE sometimes.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Zulu, Martyn?

It was a Welsh regiment at Rorke's Drift, the 24th Foot, South Wales Borderers.

Ok, so most of them came from Birmingham ... but John Fielding (Williams) VC is buried in the church yard where my parents married and I was christened ...
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
I'd agree with Jengie that it's very difficult to identify, from within a culture, what makes that culture distinctive, because for people who live them cultures are just 'what is'. The exception is I suppose where you are consciously a minority or marginalised culture.
Oh, and Zulu is certainly Welsh- the 24th aren't singing Greensleeves when the Zulus attack, are they! AIUI Stanley Baker made the film because he wanted to make a 'Welsh western'.

[ 13. September 2014, 14:20: Message edited by: Albertus ]
 
Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
First of all it is not the English who get to define what is "English Culture". In the British Isles English culture is the dominant culture and that means it is seen as normative. Minority cultures such as Scots, Irish and Welsh tend to be defined as how they are different from English Culture. "Culture" works by the relationship to "the other". What a culture is dominant those within a culture often do not have access to "the other" and are therefore culturally blind until those with access to "the other" start pointing it out.

So unfortunately the stereotypes by the Americans and such are better guesses at English Culture than are those of most English. The culture is the common sense ways things are done. This talk of culture that relates it to folk events is perhaps an artefact of English Culture, that we associate culture with those things, but it really does not define it.

For instance, I would say having churches keep a register of the weddings that occur in them is very much English culture. The Scots do not, the French do not and I suspect many other nationalities do not.

Jengie
No that's one view of culture. Not mine. We're talking about folk culture differently, and we have as much right to talk about our local traditions, celebrations, arts, sports etc as anyone else. I wouldn't dream of lecturing the Welsh, Irish or Scottish about their traditions and wouldn't expect them to pretend to have a definitive view of English folk culture. I'd welcome their views and definitions because it is always fascinating to learn about differences and similarities because our borders are very porous and flexible.

To define English folk culture only in relation to Celtic cultures is dismissive.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
I'd agree with Jengie that it's very difficult to identify, from within a culture, what makes that culture distinctive, because for people who live them cultures are just 'what is'. The exception is I suppose where you are consciously a minority or marginalised culture.
Oh, and Zulu is certainly Welsh- the 24th aren't singing Greensleeves when the Zulus attack, are they! AIUI Stanley Baker made the film because he wanted to make a 'Welsh western'.
I think the point with Zulu that was being made is that the 24th Foot *became* the South Wales Borderers but wasn't at the time. At the time of Rorke's Drift it was basically the 2nd battalion of a regiment recruiting largely from Warwickshire. So it's become this big Welsh myth, but actually in reality the depot had just moved to Brecon, and there were some Welsh soldiers, but Stanley Baker, for his own reasons, was making it up. Most people at Rorke's Drift were English.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
Source for above:

http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com/myths/myths.htm
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
The two officers, Bromhead and Chard, were ENGLISH as was Hooky. 6 of the 11 VCs were awarded to Englishmen.
 
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :
 
Chard was, of course, Royal Engineers.

Zulu is a great film, but replete with errors.
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
... For instance, I would say having churches keep a register of the weddings that occur in them is very much English culture. The Scots do not, the French do not and I suspect many other nationalities do not. ...
Is that really true? If it is, it's weird.

I can see that the French might not as church weddings there have no legal effect. But it must be that in every modern country where church weddings are effective, they are recorded and certificates issued.
 
Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
... For instance, I would say having churches keep a register of the weddings that occur in them is very much English culture. The Scots do not, the French do not and I suspect many other nationalities do not. ...
Is that really true? If it is, it's weird.

I can see that the French might not as church weddings there have no legal effect. But it must be that in every modern country where church weddings are effective, they are recorded and certificates issued.
Even if it is true it's nothing more than a bureaucratic fact. It is not English folk culture.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I'm sat here listening to the Last Night of the Proms - Rule Britannia, Elgar, Jerusalem and - currently - God Save the Queen. Splendid tunes all of them - but imparting to me not a scintilla of the feelings aroused by Black waterside or Carrickfergus or For a' that or Ay waukin o or Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau .

As MacNeice says -

I would say to you, Look;
I would say, This is what you have given me...
A heart that leaps to a fife band:....I cannot be
Anyone else than what this land engendered me:
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
Tea. More generally available and ubiquitous. Like coffee is in Canada. When travelling in England, it seems reliable that there is a kettle and tea in your hotel or B&B room. Elsewhere there may be coffee things and if tea things, variably contaminated by coffee. Only when travelling to the UK (and Ireland) has it been safe to not pack my own kettle and tea.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
From a list earlier in the thread, I don't understand how these things are particularly English:

Lace-making, embroidery, needlepoint, tapestry -- all of Europe has a long history of these needlecrafts.

Jam-making -- again, isn't this ubiquitous in Europe?

Going to the seaside -- people do this all over the world!

What am I missing?
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I will say that when my daughter went to England it was the tea she noticed. (She went with fellow US Army cadets to train with British troops, and complained that at every pause they would make tea.)
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
From a list earlier in the thread, I don't understand how these things are particularly English:

Lace-making, embroidery, needlepoint, tapestry -- all of Europe has a long history of these needlecrafts.

Jam-making -- again, isn't this ubiquitous in Europe?

Going to the seaside -- people do this all over the world!

What am I missing?
Well, if you consider things that widely, perhaps they aren't specifically English customs. Many cultures also have people who:
...so there go most folk customs.

Actually the cultural bit is in the details.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:

Actually the cultural bit is in the details.
Just so. The point I was making re music - everyone has rousing songs, but it's particular ones that have you dampening the patriotic hanky. And why those ones is an accident of birth and upbringing. And behind that lies a primal instinct to be attached to those first conceptions of Home, Identity, Belonging.

If you have a cultural transfer - the LNOTP also included Auld Lang Syne - it's because one expression happens to latch on to a universal sentiment, rather than anything to do with it's specific characteristic. We sing it for the maudlin nostalgia, not the Scottishness.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
We INVENTED the seaside.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
Ruth, I know that others do those things - but one thing I was thinking was that women's culture gets rather overlooked in the culture debates. Also, I didn't want to clutter things up with specific Honiton, Nottingham references, or the specifically English embroidery tradition which was valued across Europe, or the long strings of cars on the A2, the A20, the A13, the A23 and so on as the Londoners poured down to the beaches on Bank Holidays or sunny summer Sundays.

I'm glad Doublethink mentioned the tradition of rebellion against injustice. (Last night I caught up with a programme on Turner in which it was told that the crowds cheered when the roof fell in on the burning Houses of Parliament - it made a nice contrast with the reaction to the dogs' home in the news.)

Has anyone mentioned flower and produce shows, with the intense rivalries, and the habit of growing huge vegetables for competition? How general are allotments?

What about change ringing? I remember a comment I read once on the lines of "Only the English would use bells to explore maths."
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
... For instance, I would say having churches keep a register of the weddings that occur in them is very much English culture. The Scots do not, the French do not and I suspect many other nationalities do not. ...
Is that really true? If it is, it's weird.

I can see that the French might not as church weddings there have no legal effect. But it must be that in every modern country where church weddings are effective, they are recorded and certificates issued.
Even if it is true it's nothing more than a bureaucratic fact. It is not English folk culture.
But bureaucratic facts are exactly what makes a culture distinct! It is the oddities that we do one way and everyone else does another.

Jengie

[ 14. September 2014, 12:22: Message edited by: Jengie Jon ]
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Just make this thread very uncomfortable, the one external social anthropologist who has looked at English culture (social anthropologists always look at culture) that I have read, got interested in the way "culture" is related to "ethnicity" within English culture.

Jengie
 
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Just make this thread very uncomfortable, the one external social anthropologist who has looked at English culture (social anthropologists always look at culture) that I have read, got interested in the way "culture" is related to "ethnicity" within English culture.

Jengie
How could it not be? It's about Southall! If multi-culturalism means anything at all, surely that is to be expected (even if not inevitable)?

OK, that's the short point. The longer one is that "culture" is and has been defined in many ways. There's a useful (and readable) summary somewhere which I'll try to look out and link to.

But some of those understandings disagree at some point. A few are incommensurable. The interesting point I took from your linked paper is the apparent unwillingness of those interviewed to sign up to the original anthropologist's understanding of what constitutes culture.

Which raises the interesting point as to who we are to believe. At the moment I have an uneasy feeling about the fact that neither the reviewer, nor (apparently) the original writer are unwilling to address this combination of circumstances.

Why should Southall have a unified culture? It's a fairly random delineation of a local government area. I mean, it might have, but surely that is to be determined?
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Why should Southall have a unified culture? It's a fairly random delineation of a local government area. I mean, it might have, but surely that is to be determined?
Declaration of interest: I grew up in Southall, and in the days when it was its own borough, my grandmother was at one time mayor. Whites were in the minority in my primary school. Looking back I treasure the multicultural experience that gave me.

Southall's unique ethnicity was, as I understand it, originally due to a local employer, Woolf Rubber, who took on large numbers of immigrants from the early 1950s; so there was a geographical factor.

And we too, multicultural as we were, did country dancing at school. Does anyone else remember Gay Gordons?

(Except the Internet tells me this is a Scottish dance [Two face] )

[ETA: Goddesses appears to be English though. Does this stir anyone else's memory? Is there anything the Internet can't find?]

[ 14. September 2014, 20:30: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
Apparently, before the Sikhs moved there, Southall had a large Welsh population- migrants from S Wales to the growing light industry of Middlesex in the '30s.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Arnhem (one of our many, many finest hours):

Corp. Hancock: Sir.[Offers mug of tea]

Maj. Gen. Urquhart: Hancock. I've got lunatics laughing at me from the woods. My original plan has been scuppered now that the jeeps haven't arrived. My communications are completely broken down. Do you really believe any of that can be helped by a cup of tea?

Corp. Hancock: Couldn't hurt, sir.

[Urquhart accepts his mug of tea]
 
Posted by Chocoholic (# 4655) on :
 
I remember the Gay Gordons! Another dance from junior school! Ok, so I remember we did it but wouldn't have a clue how to do it now. It involved some swapping arm positions when changing direction is all I recall.

Some people were talking about barn dances. I went to some church ones years ago but thought they were American?

[ 14. September 2014, 21:04: Message edited by: Chocoholic ]
 
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :
 
Eutychus wrote:
quote:
Goddesses appears to be English though. Does this stir anyone else's memory? Is there anything the Internet can't find?
Well, it was certainly being danced in England in the 17th century - it's in Playford's "Dancing Master". And - ta da! - here it is. Complete with instructions on how to dance it properly. (1651 edition)
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I will say that when my daughter went to England it was the tea she noticed. (She went with fellow US Army cadets to train with British troops, and complained that at every pause they would make tea.)
In, I think, Antony Beevor's book on the D-Day campaign he says that the Americans and Canadians were astonished and irritated to find that the first thing some British troops did, on landing on the beaches, was to find somewhere sheltered to have a brew. Must say that it seems eminently sensible to me- I'd have thought that you'd want a chance to catch your breath and calm down a bit.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Ruth, I know that others do those things - but one thing I was thinking was that women's culture gets rather overlooked in the culture debates. Also, I didn't want to clutter things up with specific Honiton, Nottingham references, or the specifically English embroidery tradition which was valued across Europe,
Ah, I see. Thanks, now I have something to go on.

quote:
or the long strings of cars on the A2, the A20, the A13, the A23 and so on as the Londoners poured down to the beaches on Bank Holidays or sunny summer Sundays.
Sorry, based on having seen the traffic to the beaches here in SoCal and the traffic from Boston to the beaches in Maine, I don't think this is uniquely English.

quote:
I'm glad Doublethink mentioned the tradition of rebellion against injustice.
I wonder where that comes from. Why does England have that, whereas in places like Russia people just seem to say "what can you do?" and drink more and die younger?
 
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
I'm 25 and have never done or even seen English country dancing - I'm not quite sure what it would look like, is it like Irish dancing? Certainly never did it in PE (state schools in urban Coventry from 1994-2005). I did skive off an awful lot of PE in secondary school, but I know we only did netball/swimming/tennis/football/athletics etc.

The only English cultural thing I'd really identify with on here is the tea thing - everything else is either for posh people or just in the countryside, nobody I know does anything like that. What about urban English culture - does that not count? Why is it just countryside things when most people live in towns and cities now?

Related to the tea thing, American friends living in the UK have commented on how normal it is for English people for stop for tea and cake/a snack while shopping (though that would apply to most people in the UK generally I think), to the extent that even American chains like Starbucks have a menu which caters for that here. It's sort of in-between US eating out culture (in the UK we eat out far less) and European café culture. Also, apparently we're happy to eat sandwiches at every meal which is strange to them - bacon sandwiches for breakfast for instance.
 
Posted by Galilit (# 16470) on :
 
Kendall Mint Cake.
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
Getting fighting drunk (really). Not an attractive tradition but undoubtedly there, and of long standing.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I'm 25 and have never done or even seen English country dancing - I'm not quite sure what it would look like, is it like Irish dancing? Certainly never did it in PE (state schools in urban Coventry from 1994-2005).
It was alive and well in the urban Black Country state primary schools in the late 80s and early 90s so you may have just missed it - or had a headteacher who just didn't do it for whatever reason.

The interesting thing Jade is that this goes back to one of my orginal points. Yes, it's very similar to both Scottish and Irish dancing (albeit not of the Riverdance kind) - which is unsurprising given we all live on a small island.

What I wonder is whether you have seen it in the street or at a fair or whatever, but your brain has processed it as "Irish" or something, just because that's what people now expect it to be, whereas in fact it was English and thus your own heritage. So to the original questions - does that lack of recognition matter, and should it?

Chocoholic:

Barn dances are interesting - they're not really English or American so much as rural ( space for the community to gater for a party). What happened in the 50s in England was they got a bit jazzed up, and turned into a sort of Americana thing, so as to try and make them more popular and shore up attendances. Over time that became the norm, but until then it'd been all the usual stuff viz:
Strip the Willow
Brighton Camp
Speed the Plough
etc, etc.
 
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I'm 25 and have never done or even seen English country dancing - I'm not quite sure what it would look like, is it like Irish dancing? Certainly never did it in PE (state schools in urban Coventry from 1994-2005).
It was alive and well in the urban Black Country state primary schools in the late 80s and early 90s so you may have just missed it - or had a headteacher who just didn't do it for whatever reason.

The interesting thing Jade is that this goes back to one of my orginal points. Yes, it's very similar to both Scottish and Irish dancing (albeit not of the Riverdance kind) - which is unsurprising given we all live on a small island.

What I wonder is whether you have seen it in the street or at a fair or whatever, but your brain has processed it as "Irish" or something, just because that's what people now expect it to be, whereas in fact it was English and thus your own heritage. So to the original questions - does that lack of recognition matter, and should it?

Chocoholic:

Barn dances are interesting - they're not really English or American so much as rural ( space for the community to gater for a party). What happened in the 50s in England was they got a bit jazzed up, and turned into a sort of Americana thing, so as to try and make them more popular and shore up attendances. Over time that became the norm, but until then it'd been all the usual stuff viz:
Strip the Willow
Brighton Camp
Speed the Plough
etc, etc.
Re my school - my secondary school was a large one so had its own swimming pool (just a small one!), tennis courts etc. It's not a school with a wealthy student body at all (it's just a comprehensive), just big enough to get more than average funding - or at least it was when I was there. So it's probably down to the other options our teachers had, since if they had all that space and equipment they may as well do more sports the school could compete in with other schools.

It's a good point about me seeing English country dancing and mentally processing it as Irish or Scottish dancing, and that's probably been the case at least sometimes.
 
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Also, some dances are popular on both sides of the border. Strip the Willow is a good example. The Gay Gordons is another. Longways dances are probably originally English (though the French also claim to have invented them) but a lot of people think of them as American because American contra dances are similar. The Waves of Tory (used to be popular at barn dances when I was younger, but not nowadays unless you're at a dance for experienced folk dancers) is really an Irish dance, but the most popular version of it is American. Most people think of square dances as American, but there are English and Scottish square dances too, such as Cumberland Square Eight and the Eightsome Reel.

And let's not forget that the American folk tradition grew out of the English/Scottish/Irish traditions.

[ 15. September 2014, 09:36: Message edited by: Jane R ]
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Also, some dances are popular on both sides of the border. Strip the Willow is a good example. The Gay Gordons is another. Longways dances are probably originally English (though the French also claim to have invented them) but a lot of people think of them as American because American contra dances are similar. The Waves of Tory (used to be popular at barn dances when I was younger, but not nowadays unless you're at a dance for experienced folk dancers) is really an Irish dance, but the most popular version of it is American. Most people think of square dances as American, but there are English and Scottish square dances too, such as Cumberland Square Eight and the Eightsome Reel.

And let's not forget that the American folk tradition grew out of the English/Scottish/Irish traditions.
The last time I danced the Cumberland Square Eight someone broke a leg! Probably one for earlier in the evening these days I think - the majority can dance the eightsome, 51st or Dashing White Sergeant at 3am after drinking all night, but go for something a bit off-piste where they have to concentrate....
 
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
<tangent> Good grief, what happened - did the basket collapse?!

My favourite bit of that dance is the galloping across the set - the head couples can go all the way across the room if they set their minds to it. Not so keen on being whirled off my feet in the basket... <\tangent>
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
The problem is that few of these things, many of which are wonderful, are really "folk" anymore. There are a lot of middle class pursuits here.
Are the middle classes not part of the "folk", then?
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
The problem is that few of these things, many of which are wonderful, are really "folk" anymore. There are a lot of middle class pursuits here.
Are the middle classes not part of the "folk", then?
By definition, you mean? Uh, not generally.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
OK, I'm going to moderate that statement, which was, even for me, a bit class warrior.

The problem with "folk" stuff as it is now, is that it is so often removed from its context. It's not actually traditional for a lot of people, it's mediated by, well, media and picked up as if it were traditional through consuming TV, radio, recorded music. It becomes an issue of taste and also ceases, paradoxically to change in the way that it did when it wasn't a thing you took out of a packaged box.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
The problem with "folk" stuff as it is now, is that it is so often removed from its context. It's not actually traditional for a lot of people, it's mediated by, well, media and picked up as if it were traditional through consuming TV, radio, recorded music. It becomes an issue of taste and also ceases, paradoxically to change in the way that it did when it wasn't a thing you took out of a packaged box.
Now this I can agree with, both in the UK context and in the context of a great many other countries. All around the world local cultures seem increasingly to be packaged and sold to tourists rather than actively engaged in by the people.

Meanwhile, the real cultures of those places - the ones actively engaged in by the people - are what? I'd say the culture of the modern English "folk" is all about football, video games, chips and lager these days...
 
Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'd say the culture of the modern English "folk" is all about football, video games, chips and lager these days...
Yes, if you drop the "chips" and substitute "fast food" you have just about every urban culture in the West and much of Asia as well.

The problem with England is that it isn't culturally homogeneous and never has been. The strongly Saxon influence on the South and East is different to the Celtic influence in the West and the Scandinavian influence in the North Midlands to Northumbria. To me it is justification for Regional Federalism, to split the rUK into six or seven devolved regions of around 7-10 million inhabitants under a strongly federal system. I suspect that this might allow regional identities and culture to re-emerge.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'd say the culture of the modern English "folk" is all about football, video games, chips and lager these days...
Yes, if you drop the "chips" and substitute "fast food" you have just about every urban culture in the West and much of Asia as well.
The whole world, I'd say.
 
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Wood:
quote:
The problem with "folk" stuff as it is now, is that it is so often removed from its context. It's not actually traditional for a lot of people, it's mediated by, well, media and picked up as if it were traditional through consuming TV, radio, recorded music. It becomes an issue of taste and also ceases, paradoxically to change in the way that it did when it wasn't a thing you took out of a packaged box.
That's only true up to a point. English folk music has changed a lot since the 1960s. Personally I think it's a good thing that the tradition of calling folk singers who can't carry a tune 'more authentic' has died out. There is nothing uniquely highbrow about having a decent sense of pitch and judging a musician more leniently because s/he happens to be working class is very condescending.

The invention of sound recording means that you don't HAVE to learn an instrument in order to enjoy music in your own home; you can buy recordings of the world's greatest musicians performing instead. A hundred and fifty years ago only the richest people would have been able to afford to listen to them. So it's not as important now to learn how to play an instrument yourself, because you have other options for entertainment.

And society has changed a lot in other ways. Most of the folk traditions you're talking about are rural traditions which more or less died out as a result of urbanization. They do tend to be revived by middle-class people, perhaps partly because nowadays you have to be fairly rich to live in the country but also because a lot more people belong to the middle classes nowadays.
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
... And society has changed a lot in other ways. Most of the folk traditions you're talking about are rural traditions which more or less died out as a result of urbanization. They do tend to be revived by middle-class people, perhaps partly because nowadays you have to be fairly rich to live in the country but also because a lot more people belong to the middle classes nowadays.
Quite a lot of them have turned out to be the C17-18 equivalents of pop music.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Quite a lot of them have turned out to be the C17-18 equivalents of pop music.
Well, quite. When they have this conversation in the year 2514 they'll no doubt be thinking wistfully of the music of the Beatles, or the strange folk dance that was known as "the rave".
 
Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :
 
Welsh folk music and dance is alive and well, and promoted particularly in the junior schools.There are competitions for singing and dancing at eisteddfods, and some pretty well known artists have "gone back to their roots" - particularly Cerys Mathews. We go to a monthly tune club where traditional Welsh tunes are taught by a very enthusiastic young lady!
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
The rave scene, as it was before it was effectively killed by the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, was a pretty authentic piece of English folk culture. It had its own arts, handicrafts, everything.

Having never been to a festival in a field outside the UK, I do not know if you could call it part of English culture or something that's part of a more general western alternative culture.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I used to teach English country dancing, but in something of a way subverting what was expected by the "experts" at a course I went on.

I allowed boys to dance together. (It was odd how they said that was absolutely verboten "for obvious reasons" not explained - one of the books made the same point. As the same people were adamant that women should never, ever, dance Morris, and could not see the peculiarity of these two positions, I regarded them as unimportant. I'd rather have everyone joining in, than have a lot of unpaired boys sitting around with nothing to do.)

I did not insist on the couples holding hands in what I can only describe as a poncy twee way with fingers sort of cupped together.

I did not stick to exact versions of named dances, but taught the steps and movements bit by bit. Did do Thady You Gander - I really enjoyed that one.

I did not insist on exact footwork.

I did teach it to Y4 8 and 9 year old children, when the "experts" said it should not be taught before 11, as "it was a social activity".

And they enjoyed it. I still treasure the memory one little boy coming up to me and saying that he had been disappointed not to have a football lesson, and thought he would not like dancing, but he had really liked it and wanted to do it again.

[ 15. September 2014, 18:00: Message edited by: Penny S ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I know a morris dancer, he's a nurse - I am not sure what class that makes him under what system.

Under class defined by inherited privilege it would depend on his father's occupation which I don't know, he is paid for his labour which I think technically makes him working class if you are a marxist, he is probably earning about 130% of the national average wage which might make him middle class if you are going on income alone.

Mind you, if you are going on income alone, it is no longer a class system.
I had a chat with my morris dancing mate, he considers himself working class. His father was a soldier, and his grandfather a tenant farmer. He says in his Morris side of thirty, there are about two or three middle class professionals the rest being working class.

He reckons the class balance would be more middle class in an urban Morris side.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Damn I can hardly breathe listening to this.

And I repudiate it all now!

[ 15. September 2014, 21:07: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
 
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Enoch:
quote:
Quite a lot of them have turned out to be the C17-18 equivalents of pop music.
That's what most folk music is, certainly. Nowadays you'd call it popular culture. A lot of classical composers have used folk tunes in their work - eg Dvorak, Smetana, Vaughan Williams.

And you're suggesting that this is a problem because...?

Penny S:
quote:
I allowed boys to dance together. (It was odd how they said that was absolutely verboten "for obvious reasons" not explained - one of the books made the same point. As the same people were adamant that women should never, ever, dance Morris, and could not see the peculiarity of these two positions, I regarded them as unimportant. I'd rather have everyone joining in, than have a lot of unpaired boys sitting around with nothing to do.)
Depends how old your books were. Traditionally, if you saw two women dancing together at a social dance you would assume they were just filling in time until a couple of men came along. Two men dancing together, on the other hand, were Obviously Gay. I think it's nonsense too; children (and older people) naturally want to dance with their friends.

Attitudes have changed a lot in the last twenty years or so; when I was a caller I was considered radical for saying that men could dance together if they wanted to. Nowadays it isn't such a big deal.

And Morris teams can even be mixed. Especially if they're Molly dancers.

[ 16. September 2014, 10:04: Message edited by: Jane R ]
 
Posted by Avila (# 15541) on :
 
It is the minority that need to assert identity as fear of loosing themselves. Eg various OT traditions codified when the people were in exile.

And if your folk culture is a bit thin on the ground then make up a back story and create your own - eg Welsh National Eisteddfod and the Gorsedd of Bards, the Welsh steeple hats are more to do with Lady Llanover based nr Abergavenny than any daily wear of regular folk.

Likewise how many tartans have genuine history? And the kilts to just the knees? Scots may have been hardy but not daft in those old clan and fighting days.

The English have not previously needed to define why they are and are not - now that they want to, well there is a range of local diversity and oddities to pick between, or just get creative like everyone else.
 
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
posted by Avila
quote:
And if your folk culture is a bit thin on the ground then make up a back story and create your own - eg Welsh National Eisteddfod and the Gorsedd of Bards, the Welsh steeple hats are more to do with Lady Llanover based nr Abergavenny than any daily wear of regular folk.
[Killing me] Its only you English who think of that as Welsh culture or heritage.

Those of us blessed with roots west of the dyke know about our culture thanks very much - if you choose to buy into the tourist version fair enough.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
The books were legacy in the school, may have been pre-war. I preferred to think that the unspoken fear was that the boys would fall into behaviours like that Morris side that performed in black bin liners, safety pins, and enacted kneeing and head butting instead of waving hankies. (While having a strong suspicion that your suggestion is what they were on about.)

Mind you, if I'd had them holding hands in display manner, they would probably have started saying it was gay. In the primary school meaning of the word. The course seemed to have very little connection with barn dances I have been to. (One I recall had a leader whose knowledge of the maths of topology involved was a bit weak. It was upstairs in an oast house. In the middle of the floor was a large cast iron machine for stuffing hops into pockets, and the hole into which the pocket would be dropped. So we started a chain in spirals around the thing, which was fine, until the leader started to cut under the linked arms in the chain on the way to unwinding it. Which, under those circumstances, it could not do.)
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
I think, having been a few times, the National Eisteddfod is a genuine bit of Welsh culture, in the sense that there is keen interest in things like the Chair, Crown and Prose Medal, and in the commissioned art and drama which are often (deliberately?) controversial: and more so in the sense that it's a place for networking and meeting up with people- when you go you expect to run into people that you know. At the same time, people like and respect the Gorsedd ceremonies and so on: but- and this is the crucial thing- no-one is too solemn about them because everyone knows perfectly well that they were dreamt up by Glamorgan Eddie and his mates a couple of hundred years ago and revamped and revised quite often since, notably about 50 years ago- and that doesn't bother anyone at all. Which all seems to me to be a very healthy attitude to your national cultural institutions.
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
We INVENTED the seaside.
We invented the seaside holiday for the urban working class.

After we'd invented the transport to get them there - the railways.

After we'd invented the urban working class in the Industrial Revolution.

But that's all after the Act of Union, so the "we" in question is Britain. And all these things were as enthusiastically taken up in Wales and Scotland as in England, so it's hard to claim them as characteristically English.

To be English culture, rather than British culture, seems to me you need something that either
- pre-dates Scotland's capture of the English throne (the crafts, dances, customs etc of rural England), or
- is associated with a particular area that is part of England (cream teas, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Yorkshire pudding), or
- is part of Anglicanism, rather than the culture of kirk or chapel.

I was in England a while back for the memorial service for one of the BP engineers killed in Algeria. He'd been educated at the small private school attached to one of the English cathedrals; the service was in the cathedral, attended by the current pupils and staff, and many Old Boys of the school as well as friends and relatives of the deceased. We sang "The Lord's my Shepherd", and "Abide with Me" and "Jerusalem" and "I vow to thee, my country".

Not "folk" anything, but a very English, very Anglican, cultural event.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
We did indeed invent the seaside for the urban working class, but didn't we invent sea bathing for the upper classes (and royalty- George III at Weymouth) before that?
 


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