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    So! You Want to Be British
    So! You Want to Be British
    So! You Want to Be British
    Ebook148 pages1 hour

    So! You Want to Be British

    By John Barber

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    About this ebook

    This book is a collection of fifty eight blogs posted on the author’s personal web site over a two year period. It was headed ‘The Best of British’ and was inspired by my collection of news clippings. Read about cultural events that take place on May Day such as Penky Follar, famous and ordinary people like Billy Bunter, Desperate Dan and Judge Michael Argyle who once sentenced a football hooligan to life imprisonment. Eccentric clergymen and debates over sex shops appear here as well as a history of the Halifax gibbet and Tiddlywinks. All these illustrate what it means to live in Great Britain and by understanding and accepting this lifestyle, be proud to call oneself British. Most articles are quite short with more than a touch of irreverent humour and read together explain what being British really means.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Barber
    Release dateJul 11, 2012
    ISBN9781476098401
    So! You Want to Be British
    Author

    John Barber

    John Barber was born in London at the height of the UK Post War baby boom. The Education Act of 1944 saw great changes in the way the nation was taught; the main one being that all children stayed at school until the age of 15 (later increased to 16). For the first time working class children were able to reach higher levels of academic study and the opportunity to gain further educational qualifications at University.This explosion in education brought forth a new aspirational middle class; others remained true to their working class roots. The author belongs somewhere between the two. Many of the author’s main characters have their genesis in this educational revolution. Their dialogue though idiosyncratic can normally be understood but like all working class speech it is liberally sprinkled with strange boyhood phrases and a passing nod to cockney rhyming slang.John Barber’s novels are set in fictional English towns where sexual intrigue and political in-fighting is rife beneath a pleasant, small town veneer of respectability.They fall within the cozy, traditional British detective sections of mystery fiction.He has been writing professionally since 1996 when he began to contribute articles to magazines on social and local history. His first published book in 2002 was a non-fiction work entitled The Camden Town Murder which investigated a famous murder mystery of 1907 and names the killer. This is still available in softback and as an ebook, although not available from SmashwordsJohn Barber had careers in Advertising, International Banking and the Wine Industry before becoming Town Centre Manager in his home town of Hertford. He is now retired and lives with his wife and two cats on an island in the middle of Hertford and spends his time between local community projects and writing further novels.

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      Book preview

      So! You Want to Be British - John Barber

      So! You want to be British

      By John Barber

      © John Barber 2012

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Preface

      This book is a collection of more than fifty blogs posted on my web site over a two year period.

      It was entitled ‘The Best of British’ blog and I got the inspiration for it from my collection of scrapbooks. These contained news clippings from all over the world from 1979 to about 1990.

      The original intention was to publish this as a book and several main stream publishers did express an interest. I wanted to concentrate on the news from Great Britain and separate them into categories.

      My negotiations with publishers came to grief on deciding where the book would fit on the shelves of a book shop. The traditional publishing route was abandoned in favour of posting my thoughts on my web page as a blog.

      Cultural events, national treasures, famous and ordinary people who made the news illustrate what it means to live in Great Britain and to call oneself British. Most articles are quite short with more than a touch of irreverent humour and read together explain what being British means to me.

      Being British means different things to different people so this is a very subjective collection.

      Table of contents

      The best of British

      The Fairground Association of Britain

      Robin Hood

      Sunday drinking hours

      Train travel

      Tourist questions

      Bedroom survey

      Going to sea in a barrel

      Eccentric clergy

      Britain’s Most Boring Town

      World’s Greatest Liar Competition

      Penky Follar

      More tourist questions

      Saltburn

      British political parties

      Hartlepool

      More eccentric clergy

      Planning

      Ffestiniog railway

      Private shop

      Halifax gibbet

      Mr Absolutely Fabulous

      Ferrets

      Society of King Charles the Martyr

      Gladys Leap

      Briefcases

      Trial by combat

      Licensing laws

      Half time entertainment

      Frank Bruno

      Tea

      Merrills

      Christmas past

      Unemployment

      Ghost writer

      Desperate Dan

      WC’s wine bar

      May Day

      Judge Michael Argyle

      The British test

      Billy Bunter

      The Mousetrap

      By the seaside

      DIY

      Moles

      Wimbledon

      Three men in a boat

      Tiddlywinks

      Beer mats

      British currency

      Cinema

      Telephone box

      Recycling

      Fore Street, Hertford

      Hertford architecture

      Men in black

      Mary Portas

      Queen’s Jubilee

      The Best of British - 2 September 2010

      And what better way to begin than this letter from a Roland Breitsprecher to the Guardian in early 1980 who from a quick search on Google appears to be a prolific German author. He stated that in his time in Great Britain he kept a small notebook in which he noted down all the comments he heard. What follows is a small selection but you'll get the drift.

      The best legal system in the world.

      Definitely the best police force in the world

      Our parliamentary system is the envy of the world.

      The standard of British journalism is unmatched in the world.

      The finest health system and a model for the rest of the world.

      The British pub, the most envied leisure institution in the world.

      Undoubtedly the best theatre in the world.

      The best television service in the world.

      The most mature electorate in the world.

      Still the best railway system in the world.

      After all the finest postal service in the world.

      Still the most law-abiding people in the world.

      The Times - the best newspaper in the world.

      The English language is the most perfect work of art mankind has ever created.

      Despite these drawbacks, probably the best weather in the world.

      Scotland is after all the greatest f***ing country in the world.

      Still the best sewerage system in the world.

      Mr Breitsprecher admits that he failed to make these observations and asks where he went wrong. Well, its like this ..... Keep reading.

      Fairground Association of Britain - 3 September 2010

      I have always had an aversion to fairs ever since I knocked out my two front teeth on the dodgems at Hampstead Fair. Even watching children's merry-go-rounds makes me feel dizzy and sick.

      So I don't quite understand people's fascination with machines that spin you at ever increasing speeds around a haphazard path. Neither do I understand the person who said: 'Of course I did throw up twice when it was over but it was worth it. Best ride I ever had.'

      He was a member of the Fairground Association of Britain. This was formed by people with a love of fairground rides who not only pay to be sick on them but actually buy them and restore them and exhibit them.

      One member owns a juvenile ride that dates from 1895 and was worth £12,000 (1979 prices). He stores it in his mother-in-law’s shop because he has a shooting gallery in his own back garden.

      Another is the proud owner of a moon rocket which is stored on waste ground near his home. This is because it is 54 feet long, 20 feet high and needs three trucks to transport. It might have to stay there - but when is it used I ask myself?

      Why do they appear here? One of our main aims is to protect fairground items from the Portobello Road mob, says Chairman Graham Downie. We have lost too much of our heritage to the bonfire, the trendy restaurants and the transatlantic trade, but we hope we can start to reverse that trend.

      Robin Hood - 4 September 2010

      As we all know Robin Hood was really Robin of Loxley who was stripped of his title and lands and exiled to Sherwood Forest. Here he formed a band of merry men including Little John, Will Scarlet, Alan a'Dale and others; and was helped by Friar Tuck. He had a lovely lady by his side called Maid Marion and his sworn enemy was the Sheriff of Nottingham.

      He was true to the absent King Richard who was overseas raping and pillaging across Europe on the Crusades, whilst seeking to overthrow the wicked Prince John who was left to raise taxes to pay for Richard's away days. Robin robbed from the rich to give to the poor which is a strange way of justifying redistribution of wealth to supporters of New Labour.

      Now a modern day Robin Hood is snatching Robin Hood for Yorkshire, claiming that he was born in Wakefield, west Yorkshire. The Robin Hood for Yorkshire school dates from about 1850, when the Reverend Joseph Hunter, Vice president of the Society of Antiquaries, hit upon the name of Robert Hood and his wife, Matilda, in the Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield in 1316, more than 100 years later than the generally accepted date for Robin Hood’s adventures in Nottinghamshire.

      The Yorkshire school claimed that Robin lived, fought and died in the county. He is said to have gone to Kirklees Priory near Huddersfield when he was dying because his cousin was the prioress. The prioress at Kirklees at about that time was Elizabeth de Staynton, who came from Woolley, a few miles from Wakefield.

      There have been many cinematic portrayals of Robin Hood including Errol Flynn and Kevin Costner but to me, Robin Hood will always be Richard Greene in the 1950's ITV series with not a Yorkshire accent to be heard.

      Sunday licensing hours - 5 September 2010

      The barmaid in my local pub expressed some surprise when I mentioned that at one time you couldn't get a drink in England after 2.30pm. You had to wait until 5.00pm or if a Sunday 7.30pm. This was all down to the Defence of the Realm Act of 1914 which sought to restrict the amount of time munitions workers and armed forces had to consume alcohol and thereby limit its effect on their performance.

      Combined with the influence of the Lords Day Observance Society and the prevailing archaic Sunday trading laws you could buy a drink in a corner shop on a Sunday but not a

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