You're So English

You’re So English

You’re so English

You can’t escape from your past

With your William Shakespeare and your Winston Churchill

Your standing-in-queues and terribly strong tea

Your fish-and-chip suppers, your roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding

And your stiff upper lips, it’s so easy to see

 

You’re so English

It’s pointless pretending you’re not

With your Wimbledon tennis fortnight and your Cliff Richard

Your Bobby Charlton and your Dame Vera Lynn

Your HP Sauce and your Mother of Parliaments

It’s hard to know where to begin

 

You’re so English

You can’t avoid what’s obvious

With your Beatrix Potter and your Blackpool Tower

Your buckets and spades at the seaside

Your kiss-me-slowly hats and what-the-butler-saw

Your rock, amusement arcades and much more besides

 

You’re so English

It stands out for a mile

Your Elgar, and your Pomp & Circumstance at the Proms

Your jellied eels and your marmalade on your toast

Your Jerusalem and your Rule Britannia

And your lifeboats all round the coast

 

You’re so English

It’s so simple to see

With your cricket matches on the village green, and your football

Your pork pies and your pints of best bitter

Your National Parks and your walkers and Ramblers

And your beaches piled up with their litter

 

You’re so English

You’ve got nothing to hide

With your Folk Music and Morris Dancers with hankies and sticks

Your crumpets and scones with jam & cream at High Tea

Your libraries and National Health Service

And your public schools, who else could it be?

 

You’re so English

It’s as plain as the nose on your face

With your Beatles, your Rolling Stones and your Who

Your Anglican High Church each and every Sunday

Your Royal Family, and your God Save The Queen

Then Corrie and Eastenders on Monday

 

You’re so English

The case is completely conclusive

With your steam engines and Cockney Rhyming Slang

Your copies of The Beano and your branches of Greggs

Your York Minster and your Tower of London

PG Tips at breakfast and soldiers to dip into your eggs

 

You’re so English

It’s as plain as a pikestaff

With your Clapham Junctions and your Accrington Stanleys

Your Chipping Sodburys and your new town Milton Keynes

Your cream sherry trifle and your Full English breakfast

Your bangers and mash, served with helpings of beans

 

You’re so English

What more proof do you need?

With your Florence Nightingale, and your Sir Christopher Wren

Your art galleries, your castles and your museums with shops at the exit

With your independent spirit and your splendid isolation

Now you can sail into the sunset, because you all voted for Brexit

 Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2022