1 October 03

Northern Climes

A contribution to the Ecotone Wiki’s biweekly topic, Ancestral Place.

When I first moved to the United States from England, I was astonished by how important it seemed to be to people where you came from. This is of almost no consequence in England, where far more importance is placed on the way you speak, the school you went to, your name—all the important class indicators.

There are lots of class indicators here too, but they’re different, more hidden. Having “come from” (i.e. having “people” who “came from”) England places you on a higher social rung than having “come from,” say, Serbia, or Ghana, or Armenia. Much higher. Having “come on” the Mayflower (the fact that most of the people on the Mayflower were barely literate is irrelevant) gives you the highest cachet of all. Since I do, in fact, have a Mayflower ancestor, despite my English accent, my Ancestral Place is sort of a guessing game (I get asked where I’m from at least once a week).

But it’s mostly Lancashire, it turns out. Both sides. From sheep farmers to mill owners to petty bourgeois shopkeepers. Lancashire is a wet, soggy place, much blackened by the ravages of the industrial revolution and neglect from the center of power in the south, which no doubt contributed to the spread of nonconformist sects. Its inhabitants are gritty, silent, phlegmatic, and excellent cricketers (a sport that requires infinite patience). Lancastrians are given to interesting turns of phrase when particularly inspired.

I hope I have some of the resilience they are known for.

Posted by at 09:14 PM in Nature and Place | Link |
  1. I didn’t realise you are from Lancashire! I live less than ten miles from Colne which is exactly as you describe: a soot blackened run down mill town with now only a few industries of an obscure nature. Actually it is a good place for walking – Pendle Hill with its white cotton grass and the continuation of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal going up and up over the Pennines!

    — Coup de Vent    1. October 2003, 23:08    Link
  2. I suppose ‘where we’re from’ is evident in our respective voices. Enjoyed hearing your British roots, which I suppose you will never lose, nor want to. I am often told “you don’t sound like you’re from Alabama” which I accept as an intended compliment of the back-handed sort; but the southernness of my spoken roots runs deep. Hope you find that Lancastrian resilience when you need to call on it!

    — fredf    1. October 2003, 23:40    Link
  3. You do. Have Lancastrian resilience. I’ve experienced it for the past, oh, ten years or so. And then there’s all that War of the Roses stuff way back in there somewhere, too.

    I, on the other hand (as you know), get, “I thought you said you’re from California. But you’re . . . SMART!” With what’s coming up here in the next week, I guess it’s better to be here than somewhere else, getting looked at funny.

    — Doc Rock    2. October 2003, 04:25    Link
  4. Just how big was the Mayflower? It’s always a little funny to hear people speak of their Mayflower heritage… there are so many people who’ve told me that they have ancestors who came on the Mayflower you would think it was an oil tanker or that no other ships ever came to the Americas! (it especially makes my right eyebrow lift when a black person tells me that they have ancestors from the Mayflower…)

    Not that I don’t believe you, Pica. Maybe this is an example of six degrees of separation. But I would like for someone once to tell me that they had ancestors who came across on the Nina! Or the Cutty Sark!

    — butuki    2. October 2003, 12:15    Link
  5. I think there were 134 passengers or something tiny. But these people, and their children, were vastly prolific. So yes, it’s meaningless (except it’s so interesting how very important it seems to be, in this culture, certainly in New England).

    — Pica    2. October 2003, 13:16    Link
  6. I didn’t know you were from Lancashire … must be quite a change for you from those northern climates to the sunny, dry part of California—about which you write so well!

    — maria    4. October 2003, 08:31    Link

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