How to Be English (32 page)

But then it was appropriate that these traditions should have been brought here by Italians, because of the unbroken dramatic tradition stretching back to Roman mimes, followed by the characters of Renaissance theatre – Harlequin and Pantaloon, Pierrot and Columbine. In fact, when Francis Bacon talked about the tradition, he called it
pantomimi.

Pantomimes in England date back to Boxing Day 1717, at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, where the curtain raised on the first English panto,
Harlequin Executed
. It was the brainchild of the impresario John Rich, whose father has been forced out of Drury Lane and exhausted by rebuilding a new theatre around the corner, and decided to take them on with a ‘new Italian mimic scene (never performed before) between a Scaramouch, a Harlequin, a Country Farmer, his Wife and others'. Rich played the Harlequin himself, and we can imagine that the farmer's wife provided the basis for what eventually became the dame.

There is a conspiracy theory about this, which suggests that – under the influence of Rich – the Harlequin was the main pantomime character. Under the influence of Grimaldi, a century later, it was the Clown, but after Grimaldi's death in 1837 there was rather a shortage of clowns. There was therefore a need to find some other kind of comic turn. Thus the pantomime dame was born.

The conspiracy theory is only partly true because Grimaldi pioneered the dame himself, and – after his death – it took at least another generation for pantomime dames to emerge in their full glory. The first dame of modern times was James Rogers, who took the part of Widow Twankey in
Aladdin
at the Strand Theatre in 1861.

Widow Twankey is usually portrayed as the manager of a Chinese laundry, which allows endless opportunities to laugh at people's underclothes (a major English pastime). This was a role that Grimaldi himself had invented back in 1813, but it took half a century for it to emerge in all its ferocity.

Dan Leno, the famous Victorian comic, took the role of Widow Twankey in the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1890, playing opposite Marie Lloyd as principal boy, and pantomime dames have never been the same since. The camp element was introduced by the cabaret artist Douglas Byng, who pioneered the part playing Eliza in
Dick Whittington
at the New Theatre in Oxford in 1924, and carried on for about half a century. He used the slogan ‘Bawdy but British' and sang songs like ‘Sex Appeal Sarah', ‘Milly the Messy Old Mermaid' and ‘The Lass who Leaned against the Tower of Pisa'.

So here you are, old Douglas, a derelict at last.

Before your eyes what visions rise of your vermilion past.

Mad revelry beneath the stars, hot clasping by the lake.

You need not sigh, you can't deny, you've had your bit of cake.

Douglas Byng's epitaph, which he wrote himself, before he died in Brighton at the age of ninety-three

THE OLDEST LEGAL
code in existence, written by King Hammurabi in Babylon around 1750
BC
, included a condemnation about overpriced, watered-down beer. In fact, the one universal opinion in the history of brewing is that the beer isn't as good as it was.

This implies that pubs are especially English in more ways than one. They are havens of contemplative companionship, but the basic conservatism of beer-drinking – beer drinkers are always dreaming of a better yesterday – puts pubs on the front line of two very English disputes. These are between the doyens of Merrie England and the two forces dedicated to ruining their good time – the puritans and the profiteers.

Nor should we assume that the puritan approach just comes from the forces of control and narrow-mindedness that English culture seems to revel in. Landlords are some of the biggest reactionaries ever invented. ‘Shall I tell you why not?' a landlord told me recently when I asked for green tea. ‘Because we're a pub.'

Fair enough, perhaps. The great English busybodies objected to the idea that, throughout the Middle Ages, anyone could open a pub under English law, so – if it was disorderly – Henry VII gave magistrates the power to close them down. The stage was set for the peculiar licensing system we have today which dates back ironically to the days of Bloody Mary, so that ‘none after the first day of May next coming, shall be admitted or suffered to keep any common Ale-house or Tippling-house, but such as shall thereunto be admitted and allowed in open Sessions of the peace, or else by two Justices of the Peace'. You can hear, in those words of Renaissance legalese, the authentic voice of English bureaucracy.

There is an argument that the forces of control were redoubled by the arrival of James I from Scotland in 1603. It was certainly a concern under the Stuarts, but it was the Long Parliament of the 1640s – firmly under the control of the People – that first saw taxes on beer, ‘for their own good' according to one of the Victorian treatises on the subject.

Merrie England hit back, and there were riots over attempts to control gin-houses in the 1730s and the first limits to opening hours for pubs in the 1860s (oddly enough, arrests for being drunk and disorderly doubled after the first restrictions). But the puritans took the opportunity of the First World War to take decisive action on pubs, because they were worried about drinking affecting the working habits of munitions workers. As a result, the Defence of the Realm Act in 1914 allowed the government to set pub opening hours. The following year, they were set at 12 noon to 2.40 p.m. for lunch, and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. for supper.

But even that failed to undermine the pubs. In fact, the ritual of ‘last orders' and ‘Time, gentlemen, please!' went into the language – at least until it was swept away in 2005.

In the end, it appears to be the other battle which is finally corroding the pubs. The iron grip which the breweries held over the pub trade was loosened in the 1980s, only to be replaced by the monopolistic grip of the pub companies, which overvalued the properties in the boom years, got into unrepayable debt, and have been trying to extract it from their customers and their poor licensees ever since. Hence the darkened, shuttered pubs, especially in the cities. By 1823, there had been getting on for 49,000 pubs in England and Wales, or one for every 260 people. Now it is more like one for every 1,000 people.

But then the puritans were not completely wrong either. There is some disturbing link between the English and alcohol, which has been recognised across Europe at least since the twelfth century – where a surviving guidebook describes each nationality: the English, they say, are always drunk – and have ‘tails'.

What the tails meant is anyone's guess, but the drunkenness remains. Perhaps it doesn't matter compared to the tankard and the open fire, and the traditional companionship of pub life, and the old pub signs creaking in the wind outside – witness to 1,000 years of history (one historian, Samuel Wildman, argued that the sign of the ‘Black Horse' went back to King Arthur's day).

There remains something about an authentic English pub – if you can find them after wading through the fake beams and horse brasses, the books and pictures bought in bulk from house clearances. They are still deeply conservative places, as witnessed by the story told in 1972 by the writer Ben Davis about watching a woman eating lunch without having bought a drink. ‘Can I have a glass of water then?' she said. ‘What do you want?' said the landlord. ‘A fucking wash or something?'

Oldest pubs:

Old Ferryboat Inn, Holywell, Cambridgeshire (560)

Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, St Albans (eighth century)

Bingley Arms, Bardsey (905)

Nag's Head, Burntwood (1086)

Ye Olde Salutation Inn, Nottingham (1240)

Adam and Eve, Norwich (1249)

Ye Olde Man and Scythe, Bolton (1251)

Eagle and Child, Stow-in-the-Wold (thirteenth century)

George Inn, Norton St Philip (fourteenth century)

New Inn, Gloucester (about 1450)

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, Nottingham (disputed)

 

Her face all bowsy

Comely crinkled

Like a roast pig's ear

Bristled with hair.

Description of alewife Elinour Rumming of Leatherhead, by poet John Skelton, 1508

THERE IS SOMETHING
about roly-poly pudding that conjures up the winter in England, the strange metallic taste of school dinners and the sweet warmth of custard. Ah yes, the comfort of black and white television and Formica tables – it all comes wafting back.

There is a reason why roly-poly pudding is a winter dish. It is because it uses up the surplus fruits and jams from the summer. It also fits neatly into the need for warmth and stodge as the evenings have drawn in and the season of mist and mellow fruitfulness has given way to cold.

It belongs with the other great English puddings, spotted dick and sticky toffee pudding, which survive in rather old-fashioned cafes and restaurants, but which disappeared from many English dinner tables sometime in the 1970s. This kind of monstrosity always rather scared other nations – what was all this stodge about? – and it horrified the French because of its sheer weight. It horrified some Americans because of its defiance of everything that is politically correct in the way of healthy food.

Roly-poly puddings stretch back into the dawn of English puddings, which began as savoury concoctions in the medieval period, and evolved via Bakewell tarts to become the great sweet plate-fillers of the nineteenth century. Jam roly-poly pudding, as Mrs Beeton called it, probably emerged two centuries ago, with a combination of jam and large quantities of suet.

Suet is a key ingredient. So Atora suet went on sale at the end of the nineteenth century and still sells 2,400 tonnes a year. What isn't so easy to manage these days is the steaming. Most people pop them in the oven for baking. The puddings also no longer find themselves wrapped in old shirt-sleeves, which explains the less palatable name of Dead Man's Arm.

The most famous roly-poly pudding comes in Beatrix Potter's book
The Tale of Samuel Whiskers
(1908), which was first published with the title
The Roly-Poly Pudding
, so central was it to the plot. Samuel Whiskers was the name of the Potter pet rat, much lamented, which had died some years before. Whiskers and his compatriots take Tom Kitten hostage and roll him up in pastry. He is rescued in the nick of time by the carpenter. It would have been a terrible, and yet tremendously English fate.

Baked roly-poly recipe:

Preheat the oven to 200ºC / gas mark 6 and line a baking tray with baking paper. In a large bowl, mix together 250 g plain flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 pinch salt and 2 tablespoons caster sugar. Stir in 125 g shredded suet and enough water to create a soft, but not sticky dough. Use a floured surface to roll dough into a 30 x 20 cm oblong shape. Brush with 4 tablespoons of jam, leaving a 1–2 cm border all around. Brush the border with egg wash made from an egg beaten with a tablespoon of milk. Roll the dough into a loose roll, starting at the short side. Pinch the ends to seal. Transfer to prepared baking tray seam side down. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in the oven for 35–40 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Serve hot with custard.