Just as the first few daffodils were bursting open, the beginning of March was heralded, as always, by St David’s Day – a day dedicated to the patron saint of Wales. For members of the Welsh community, it’s a day of parades, concerts and celebrations of Welsh culture, with many a daffodil or leek pinned to lapels. Later this month, it’s the turn of the Irish, with St Patrick’s Day on 17th March providing the perfect opportunity for a knees-up at a shamrock-bedecked pub, pint of Guiness in hand. Although Scotland’s St Andrew’s Day falls at the end of November, Burns’ Night celebrations and ceilidhs in January showcased Scottish culture with fervour. I’m sure Robbie Burns would be proud.
So where does that leave England? In my experience, St George’s Day has always felt like a damp squib compared to the other patron saints’ days. Happening on the 23rd April each year, I’ve found that it gets lost amidst the whirlwind of Easter and the anticipation of May’s two bank holidays. Some years, the day passes by unnoticed, with the only reminder being a decorated Google logo.
Currently, it’s not a bank holiday – something which has sparked much debate among parliamentarians. An Early Day Motion tabled on 15th March 2010 suggests that ‘a Bank Holiday on St George’s Day would be a great opportunity for all English people regardless of colour or religion to recognise what binds them together’ and that ‘there is growing demand in England for a day of national celebration’. The motion also highlights the presence of or appetite for bank holidays in the other British nations, and even goes so far as to suggest that ‘there is a danger that England could be left behind without an opportunity to celebrate its rich culture and heritage’. Eight years later, Jeremy Corbyn reinvigorated the debate, proposing bank holidays for all patron saint days to ‘show our pride and celebrate our country’s tradition of fairness, inclusivity and social justice’.
Rallying sentiments indeed. The UK does have the fewest number of public holidays of all the G20 and EU countries, so these measures would bring us in line with them. But if you asked me to envisage a day properly celebrating English traditions and culture, I’d be a bit stumped. Would we have tea on tap? Make jokes about the weather? Attend Shakespeare recitals? It all seems a bit trivial. And when you consider that St George hailed from what is now modern-day Turkey and never visited England after all, the whole concept of a patron saint to mark English culture seems slightly incoherent.
While national sports teams do their utmost to enshrine affiliation to ‘England’, the results of the 2021 census questions on national identity are striking. In 2011, 57.5% of the English and Welsh population described themselves as ‘English only’, but this plummeted to 14.9% in 2021. In contrast, the percentage of people identifying as ‘British only’ increased from 19.1% to 54.8% in the same period. When we combine this with the ever-diversifying ethnic make-up of England – which only adds to the richness of our culture – it’s hardly surprising that our feelings of national identity are chopping and changing.
Indeed, there’s much to unite us, with the Very British Problems brand capturing British experiences with painful accuracy, such as pretending you haven’t seen the plate of biscuits being passed around or performing the “right” + thigh slap combination to indicate that it’s time to go. Perhaps it’s because of these shared experiences that reinforcing uniquely national identities doesn’t sit quite right at the minute. I’m all for a day dedicated to tea-drinking and weather-watching, but not at the expense of our shared identities and diverse communities.