The Angel of the North
I read somewhere that people who emigrate forever think of their homeland as it was in the year when they left. This means that my views on England will be frozen in a perpetual 1974, before Britpop, Tony Blair and CCTV cameras haunted the land.
So it’s always useful for me to update my knowledge about England and the English. The Guardian has a list of what it means to be English. Symbolic items on the list include the cuppa, the Spitfire and Stonehenge (my computer background is the Windows stock photo of this stone circle). I’m familiar with nearly all these icons. However, I had never heard of The Angel of the North – a gigantic statue (which looks more like a hang-glider than an angel) looming over the motorway near Gateshead in northern England. The sculptor who created this edifice goes by the very English name of Arthur Gormley and is quoted as saying:
“The confidence and precision with which Hartlepool Steel Fabrications undertook this work was inspiring and it was a pleasure to work with a company so creative and flexible. All the work has met with my highest expectations.”
A quote like this unites God and Mammon and is worthy of a long line of practical Englishmen going back to the Industrial Revolution. My favorite example, from my A-level English Literature studies, is Mr. Grandgrind of Charles Dickens’s ‘Hard Times’, where the town of Coketown is described as:
“… a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage.â€?
Celebrated in song by Ewan McColl:
I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed a girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
This dark Satanic mills aspect of Northern England contrasts with the White Cliffs of Dover and genteel aspects of the South. The visitor to any country needs to be aware of strong regional differences which exist within the borders of the nation. There’s a North / South divide in England, the USA, Japan, Italy and many other places.
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