There’ll Always be an England

"Will there always be an England?"

The England of today is not that of 1940.

No country is what it was 71 years ago.

Yesterday I was drinking beer with two friends in nah-Jomtien. Mark was complaining about how England had changed from the time of his parents. His rotten teeth were a tribute to those times. Cigarettes and beer.

"No one rioted back then."

"That's because they were fighting the Nazis. War is nothing but a big riot." Richard had fought for the South African army in Namibia. Long patrols through the desert tracking rebels against apartheid. "Those thugs in Tottenham were rioting, because they hate he rich."

"And right they should. The banks fucked up and the government expect the poor to pay for it." Mark was retired on a pension from HM postal service. He would have starve on his pension in Surrey. In Thailand the redhead had a loving wife, a cheap apartment, and enough pocket money for food and beer.

"The middle class more like it." Richard was teaching in Saudi Arabia. He had fell down in the shower last night. His nose was scarred by the face-plant.

"There's no middle class in the UK. We're all slaves for the rich." Mark was serious.
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"Britons will never ever be slaves." Richard came from good English stock. His grandparents had emigrated to the Cape Colony after the Boer War. He was proud of his heritage.

"Doesn't that line come from RULE BRITANNIA?" I was familiar with the national anthems of England, France, Thailand, and Canada. I could hum them all.

"I think it goes “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves”." Mark sang the words off-key.

"There'll always be an England." Richard raised his glass. We toasted the Spectred Isle and I muttered Free Northern Ireland under my breath, while Mark and Richard dueted Vera Lynn's popular 1940 song. They were in good voice.

My introduction to England was in 1978. I was living with the blonde model from Buffalo in a studio next to the Chelsea football pitch on Fulham Road. Quiet except for football days. Everyone was English then. Proud of the puttering cars, Stalinist wages, polluted skies, and double-decker buses. I felt like it had always been 1984 in the UK and nothing was ever going to change.

“And England’s dreaming.”

The Sex Pistols tried to their best.

They had the only # 1 chart buster to never be played on the BBC.

That England doesn't exist anymore either. what it used to be.

Chicken curry has outpaced fish and chips as the #1 English meal and even more pointedly by year’s end Mohammad will be the most popular name for newborns in the UK.

Mohammad beating out Jack?

Whatever happened to Percy?

Maybe it all went to shit when Tiny Tim sang THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND at the Isles of Wight in 1970, then again integration is the ultimate price of imperialism. You go, conquer, leave, and bring a little bit back with you.

Not just the curries.

Of course there’ll always be one place that’s always England and that’s the Falklands.

THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND

I give you a toast, ladies and gentlemen.

I give you a toast, ladies and gentlemen.

May this fair dear land we love so well

In dignity and freedom dwell.

Though worlds may change and go awry

While there is still one voice to cry – - –

There’ll always be an England

While there’s a country lane,

Wherever there’s a cottage small

Beside a field of grain.

There’ll always be an England

While there’s a busy street,

Wherever there’s a turning wheel,

A million marching feet.

Red, white and blue; what does it mean to you?

Surely you’re proud, shout it aloud,

“Britons, awake!”

The Empire too, we can depend on you.

Freedom remains. These are the chains

Nothing can break.

There’ll always be an England,

And England shall be free

If England means as much to you

As England means to me.

And to me.

Half my blood is English. The other half Irish. They are at civil war, but one thing in my heart remains true.

Free Northern Ireland.