Now for someone not familiar with my beautiful belle England, the term Middle England would not mean much.
In actual fact, though Middle England could be taken to mean the geographical middle of England which is now called the Midlands, its rightful place of 'honour among terms' comes from the sociological allusions it casts.The irony is I probably might have aligned myself alongside the Middle England had I not come to live here!
BBC's Home Editor, Mark Easton puts it like this - "Middle England, one supposes, is a comfortable place, neither rich nor poor. Conservative. Law-abiding. Decent. It is in the middle."
The aspiring lower middle class and middle class Daily Mail readers who holiday at Centreparcs whilst in the UK and in the south of France and Switzerland for their European fix; who come from hard-working stock and don't take kindly on the benefit recipients, and most importantly are almost homogeneously white middle class British in whose ranks no minority might find a place. Well, as mentioned earlier--these are just some of the sociological allusions to the term. And like all allusions and generalisations there are exceptions galore to every statement.
You may be wondering why I said I may have aligned myself alongside middle England had I not come to live here. Honestly they are nice people. They are polite, courteous and the epitome of 'Englishness'. They are the people who have made speaking without words into an art form in itself. And the unspoken, as we all know, speaks the loudest.
Having got used to the forthrightness of the Yorkshire man (and woman) and the absolute down to earth easy camaraderie of the Irish-English descendants in North Lincs, Middle England seemed to be an entire world away that communicated in a totally different language - a language I knew I could grow to learn, but one which I wasn't keen to.
Middle England provides a lot of stereotypes for the global love affair with England--most of our favourate characters from childhood lived in Middle England. Next time you see Miss Marple or read Christies' novels, remember that there is a 'place' called Middle England, a place where the sun will never set and where the world will never be put quite right again!
In actual fact, though Middle England could be taken to mean the geographical middle of England which is now called the Midlands, its rightful place of 'honour among terms' comes from the sociological allusions it casts.The irony is I probably might have aligned myself alongside the Middle England had I not come to live here!
BBC's Home Editor, Mark Easton puts it like this - "Middle England, one supposes, is a comfortable place, neither rich nor poor. Conservative. Law-abiding. Decent. It is in the middle."
You may be wondering why I said I may have aligned myself alongside middle England had I not come to live here. Honestly they are nice people. They are polite, courteous and the epitome of 'Englishness'. They are the people who have made speaking without words into an art form in itself. And the unspoken, as we all know, speaks the loudest.
Having got used to the forthrightness of the Yorkshire man (and woman) and the absolute down to earth easy camaraderie of the Irish-English descendants in North Lincs, Middle England seemed to be an entire world away that communicated in a totally different language - a language I knew I could grow to learn, but one which I wasn't keen to.
Middle England provides a lot of stereotypes for the global love affair with England--most of our favourate characters from childhood lived in Middle England. Next time you see Miss Marple or read Christies' novels, remember that there is a 'place' called Middle England, a place where the sun will never set and where the world will never be put quite right again!
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