Essays on England

Many consider Cricket to be at the heart of Englishness

Now if you ask what's special about today, April the twenty third, most people would be hard pushed to tell you - it's St George's Day.

A recent poll showed less than a third of us know that today is the occasion to celebrate England's patron saint.

But what is it about being English that we're celebrating?

Breakfast asked Peter Oborne from the Spectator and photographer Martin Parr to define what Englishness means to them.

To watch their comment films click on the video icon on the top right hand corner of this page.

Now, would you consider Shakespeare to epitomise England even more than her patron saint. Well it just so happens to be the famous bard's birthday today.

Breakfast's Paul Welsh debated the issue with Gregory Doran from the Royal Shakespeare Company and Dr Carol Rutter from Warwick University.

Gregory Doran said: Shakespeare tells great stories, his englishness resides in his love of this place, Warwickshire, he loved the season, and speaks 360 degrees from the heart.

Dr Carol Rutter said:Shakespeare is a great cultural brandtub which describes us. We all do death, betrayal...he is very good at inventing "others", the stranger from outside...

(You can watch this discussion if you click on the video icon on the top right hand corner of this page)

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What Peter Oborne, from the Spectator, said about Englishness:

"The english invented almost every sport which really matters in the world."

I know that one of the things about being English is to be self deprecating, but I'm going to start boasting now - the fact is that we the English invented almost every sport which really matters in the world. This week is the start of the county cricket season. And of course there's something so English isn't there about the smell of bat upon ball, of the mown grass and the sort of half hearted clapping of the spectators, and then next month is the world cup, and I know that we don't win the world cup very often, but boy we did invent the game of football and we're entitled to feel a sense of pride at this game which unites the whole world, actually was an English invention...

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And what Martin Parr made of the issue.

For me the quintessential English event is a small fete in somewhere like Dorset in a small village, it'll be the church fete, it'll be stalls laid out with tombola, raffles, selling plants, selling bric a brac. This to me is the very best of what England¿s about. In a beautiful sunny afternoon, or it could be raining, that would be very English, too, and you'd go along and you'd have tea and scones and cakes. Usually home made, cups of tea of course and maybe even an ice cream.

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