Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

We want to move to Sidmouth but could not sell our house this year so as of tomorrow it will be off the market and we will stay here in South Bucks for winter! This last week we spend 3 days in Dawlish (I remember one of the expats came from there but won't mention names ;)) and we so enjoyed that town and of course took a ferry over from Starcross village to Exmouth and enjoyed it there too! On driving back up M5 M4, my heart just was not into going back to the "rat race" I feel so much more at peace in Devon!

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

Rebs

The NHS, which is under attack by the Tories, was a great factor in drawing me back And the hope that Scotland would soon cease to be part of"The United Kingdom"

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

Jensmate I love your original post! And Lion in Winter it's funny that you should use this quote, as it reminds me of one I used recently in another British Expats thread:

Only the wanderer
Knows England's graces....

which is Ivor Gurney. Reading the quote you used, I thought it was also him, but interestingly it turns out to be Kipling from The English Flag, and it's about the widespread English culture/flag all across the world (in the days of Empire). And showing how only when you go to those places do you see the full influence of Englishness across the world, that it is much bigger than just England itself.

So I've learnt something from your quote! Not sure exactly how you meant it, but certainly I agree that it's very often only when we leave that we begin to appreciate England, or other countries of Britain. So much we take fro granted before we leave, and only see its value once we're gone!

I actually did realise how much I loved England before I left, and didn't plan to end up living in USA for almost three decades!

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

I've lived in England three times on different occasions. In London 1963/64 as a temporary immigrant from Australia, outside High Wycombe in 1975 while waiting for our son to be born and our Kombi van to be fitted out, and on the hill south of Bath in 1977 while figuring out where to go to next. Each of those times, and every visit since (on holiday from here and visiting our son at Boarding school in Derbyshire), has been sheer pleasure. I also drove my Mum around Britain on two occasions (1965 and 1976); she fell in love with the place, immigrated at the age of 70, and died in Hereford aged 86.

The Island's beauty is grossly underrated. It's variety - of regional cultures, scenery, and styles of living - beats anything that Europe has to offer, even France. What's not to love?

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

"Hate" is an unnecessarily harsh word, Aries. Scot47 is a very well-travelled man and (therefore) very well-educated. As such, he's entitled to his preferences, as we all are. It's rare for preferences to amount to hatred, surely. A word best avoided, I suggest.

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

Scotland could certainly stand alone. Could England ?

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

But can you imagine the negotiations that would follow any attempted break-up of the UK? They'd make the UK-EU negotiations look like a ten-seconds argument over how long to cook toast! Even without a revived independence movement from within the Shetlands, under the banner of "It's Shetlands' Oil!"... Yikes.

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

Going off tropic here (what a lovely original thread) but yes England could flourish in its own, we would not have to subsidise any of the UK countries, control our boarders for people we actually need/require (as the case in Australia) and still be able help others that truly need our help. More Scots live in England than the other way around and that must be for some reason be it work etc. Both my grandads were not English, one Scottish the other Welsh and they use to say they made a very good life in England, they were excepted like "they were locals" and made life long friends ...my Scottish grandad use to say..."Britain is a great country and its a shame some do not feel the same way'

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

I have never identified myself as " a Brit" maybe that is what this comes down to. How you feel about your own identity.

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

I am English first and very proud of that but we really cannot express our identity/ culture as in other UK countries are able to ...as we seem to have to be British first to keep the status quo and that's a shame in some ways.

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

What prevents you celebrating the reality of being English ?

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

Then of course there are those of us who have no option but to call ourselves "British". My wife and I are both British by virtue of our status as residents of a British colony, when the UK (not even "Britain"!) offered us UK citizenship ten years or so ago. My ancestral lines are English and Irish (from the days when Ireland was part of the domestic British Empire), and my wife was English and Scottish. My neutral accent tricks most Brits into thinking I'm English ("from somewhere down south", which is technically correct...), and I usually let it ride.

Re: Why did I not love this country before???????
 

Here is an analysis that is NOT of the type often read by most of us. A perspective fromn
Scotland

Scottish Review: Gerry Hassan