Posted by Andy Morley on April 27, 1999 at 18:26:47:
In Reply to: Englishness... posted by Andy Morley on April 23, 1999 at 09:31:27:
It would seem then, that Englishness is a highly contentious issue. That the relevance of the topic should be questioned surprises me slightly, but let me make good my earlier omission. One of the most thoughtful examinations of the English was in James Burke's mid 1980s TV series that I wish I'd watched more of. Looking back to the time of the 1st Elizabeth, he characterised us as 'a nation of seafaring farmers and fishermen'. No-where in this small island is far from the sea or a river, and a great many children would have grown up, in those days, as 'water babies'. Our mastery of what was to be the principal means of international communication for the next four centuries brought us to the stage where our language now dominates the world. More generally, our skills initiated that other current, the industrial revolution which is a lurking unseen presence behind Ransome's books, and which has come to overshadow that people we once were.
By the time Ransome was writing, our seafaring tradition was already in decline, although coastal schooners, Norfolk wherries and Thames barges still traded the rivers and coastal waters. Having recognised this, and distilled something of that people who James Burke since described, Ransome put it into a bottle and flung it towards the future. There are many writers who have celebrated the aspects of Englishness that Ransome stands for - Thomas Hardy, John Masefield, Richard Jeffries, Hugh Walpole, Adrian Bell, Laurie Lee and more recently Bruce Chatwin (On the Black Hill), but all of these are backward-looking or at best take snapshots of an era. Ransome is the only one I have come across who has an eye to the future as well as a sympathy for the past.
The huge changes going on in the world now are nothing compared to what will happen soon. Is any of this old stuff worth keeping..? Another thing the English are good at is managing change. Lord Anson set out to harry the Spanish off South America with half a dozen or more ships and over a thousand crew. He came back a few years later with one ship, two hundred men and a huge haul of treasure. I've probably said this before as his account is one of my favourite books. At each disaster that overtook that circumnavigation, they took stock, rationalised, transferred those things worth keeping from the ships that would not make it, along with their crews, into the Gloucester and the Centurion. The final transfer took place in mid-Pacific and the Centurion went on alone to capture the Manilla galleon and to put out burning cities for the astonished Chinese.
Water, and the skills that go with doing things with it are an important part of what we have become, whether we're making music, writing software or managing international finance. Ten years ago, the French realised that they had invested huge amounts in preserving their land-based, architectural heritage but that they had entirely neglected their maritime traditions. Their response was a government initiative , and the biennial festivals of Brest and Douarnenez. We risk complacency if we think that because we have the Cutty Sark, the Victory and the Mary Rose, then we have our traditions safely preserved. To have a Great Northern Diver in a glass case, if the species itself were extinct would be a poor compensation. If we fail to make the human aspects of tradition a part of the future, as well as appreciating them as part of our past, then they will simply become museum pieces, and to avoid that, we should begin to try to understand the part played by writers such as Ransome in our unfolding cultural identity.