Leading
question
I went, earlier today,
on one of the walks organised by the leisure group of the next village to ours,
of which I am a member. They are usually
well attended, this time twenty three people set off on the walk, but numbers
swell back in the “clubroom” after the walk when wine, hot chocolate and
biscuits are served, conversation flows, on the two long trestle tables,
predominately one for the men with the wine and another for the women with the
hot chocolate. Donc (then), in time, as
always seems to happen with such gathering in France the cards come out, and I
usually take my leave with a cheery au revoir and even sometimes an à bientôt,
or see you later! Here, I’m reminded of
a day I once said à bientôt, to the artisans working on our electrics, as I
left to go back to our rented house for lunch.
They suggested, with a suitable twinkle in their eyes, that that wasn’t
the best thing to say in the circumstances, as they were on a tight schedule to
get the work finished for us to be able to move in, as although it means see
you later, later in this context could mean anything from later that day, the
next day, to several weeks hence. I
quickly changed my leave-taking to “See you this afternoon!”
But, back to the
beginning of the walk, assembled outside a recently beautifully restored 14th
century church, in a nearby village, just about to be led off, when a small
indistinct man sidled up to me, in much the fashion of a pre cold war spy about
to say something profound yet meaningless, such as “The birds are flying high
today!”, by way of introduction as well as recognition. His opening line, in crisp cultured English
was however, “Are you Great British?!”, to which I was somewhat taken by
surprise as usually all the participants are French speaking apart from a
friend I sometimes walk with, who was otherwise engaged today. Further, my surprise made me answer in the
affirmative, itself something of a surprise, as with apologies to my friends
from over the various borders, since the days of devolution I have tended to
tell people I’m English, and indeed perhaps apologies aren’t needed as thinking
of these friends they would all, to a similar question, answer that they are
Welsh, Scottish or Irish as appropriate.
In fact perhaps these days, I should answer, in defiance of the likes of
some short sighted people that no I’m not Great British, or indeed British or
English, but European and hope to stay that way for many years to come! But, I’m sure that sentiment would be lost on
a lot of people, particularly the French, as despite the cultured English
accent of my questioner he turned out to be, who seeming to be quite European
in many respects do, rightly so, remain fiercely independent of their
“Frenchness”, which I guess we buy into having chosen to live here, which
neatly brings me back to the question: “Are you Great British?”
I found myself
pondering this question a little as we strolled through the surrounding
countryside. Certainly, there had been a
time when I would have said I was British, possibly not going as far as to say
Great!, and seeing “old blightly” from a distance, would I still regard it as
being Great? Here the response might
well be in the negative, particularly as recently Cameron, in posh evening suit
and white tie, at a lavish dinner surrounded by much golden tableware,
announced that austerity was here for some time to come, hardly a “great”
statement in the circumstances and also at a time when the coalition cabinet is
made up largely of millionaires, in May 2010, have they really been there that
long!, it was 23 out of 29! I wonder how
many of them will have tightened their belts over recent years and will
continue to do so!!
However, I have another
dilemma, nay identity crisis. The longer
we live in France the more we realise that French bureaucracy has to be seem to
be believed, it’s almost as bad as in India, although there they have at least
three people doing each job, so sometimes the questions are asked in
triplicate! No, our dilemma is just who
are we, or at least where do we come from, as each of the many and varied forms
we are obliged to fill in, sometimes even those originating from the same
office, when asking you to select your nationality from the attached
alphabetical list, could be any of the following: UK, United Kingdom, Royaume-unis,
Great Britain / British, Grand Bretagne, Britannique, as well as others!! One day, maybe I’ll have the nerve to tick
other and put English, or at least Anglais!
