PREFACE

THE ENGLISH are a remarkable and singular people. They owe much to being an island race and much to the beauty and landscape of their island. They owe much to all those who have settled in England and fallen in love with this uncommon land. Celts, Romans, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Jews, Normans, Huguenots, Flemings and Walloons – the English have borrowed something from all these peoples, and have forged the disparate elements together in a very English way, be it in language, customs, identity or character.

In return the English have given much back. The English language, the language of Shakespeare, more widely spoken than any other, ‘Parliamentary’ democracy, ‘the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried,’ according to Winston Churchill, cricket, football, rugby, the Industrial Revolution, railways, the pub, the class system, Georgian architecture, Alice in Wonderland, afternoon tea.

This book travels to every corner of England to discover the people and the flavour that each has contributed to England and the English. You cannot pin down or define the English, you can only listen to their stories, learn something of their ways and enjoy the experience.