About Being English

Chips by the seaside. Wind off the sea. Old houses, pubs and churches. For all the countries I've travelled in, all the different cultures I've sampled, today was a chance to experience being English again!

We travelled to Westgate in Kent, through grey clouds which lifted to reveal a sky that somehow seemed higher than usual - framing the coastline. It could hardly be described as a beautiful day, yet somehow the bleakness of it made it feel all the more English. Today was something of a homecoming: my mother had been born in her grandparents' house just a few miles away and had lived her childhood in this town. I too had often visited here as a child, getting ice-cream all over my face and swimming in the sea with my brother.

We walked down the road and the wind kept our hair dancing around our heads. Several hardened seaside dwellers were out walking their dogs. In summer the town is busy with people, barefoot children padding along the waterfront, families sitting on the beach, little shops selling beachballs. Today, however, we escaped from the cold by entering one of the few cafes that is open all year round, where we ordered a bucket of chips and doused them in salt and vinegar.

Somehow the mundane simplicity of the day, coupled with the untamed wildness of the wind and sea, captured the essence of Englishness. Here my sister lies buried, here past generations of my family were born and lived, and here for a day I was able to remember my roots ... of being English.