Chipping Norton, England

England my England

Where is England when one is completing forms that request nationality?

In my experience it is usually British, however I wasn’t born in Scotland, Wales or Ireland but England, therefore I am English and not British.

This may sound xenophobic but it isn’t, I just wish to reiterate my Englishness.

Rupert Brooke (1887 – 1915) wrote

  “The Soldier”

“If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by rivers, blessed by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English haven.

My comments regarding Englishness aside and whether I agree with Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq remember this each time a soldier dies and is brought back home. A part that made him / her unique has been snuffed out like a brief candle and left in a foreign country.