I love the English, but I don't want to be one of them

Aug 10 2008 Elaine C. Smith

I HAD a strange conversation with one of the actors in rehearsals for Calendar Girls.

We open in Chichester soon and I was saying I'd love to see the countryside as I had never been there.

She said some of the villages were beautiful...typical English villages...and then she added: "Oh of course you might not like them cos you're a nationalist?"

I was stunned anyone would think that supporting independence would mean I hated England and the English so much that I couldn't appreciate a beautiful place. I go all over the world and manage to appreciate the beauty and culture, so why not England?

For the record, I love the English - though not all of them. We share many things morally, culturally, and have much that binds us together. But we are different - and celebrating those differences is part of believing in independence.

I love English theatre, comedy, drama, art...but don't tell me that it's mine. Our reference points are different.

That was why comics from south of the Border died on their arse up here - because we laugh at different things.

Now there may be a few eejits in the independence movement (and elsewhere) who believe everything wrong in Scotland is the fault of the English...but I ain't one of them. Many of our ills as a country are to do with, as Burns called them, the "parcel o' rogues" who have sold fellow Scots down the river for many a year.

My belief in independence has nothing to do with racist nonsense.

Singer Dick Gaughan said Scotland would never be grown up or free as long as we continued to look at ourselves through the eyes of another nation.

This all reminded me of the reaction I used to get in the 80s when I said I was a feminist. "Oh so you hate men then".

Eh naw, actually. I really like men (give or take a few) but they hold the power and women should be treated as equals and power and wealth shared.

That's where my belief in independence comes from too...a sense of justice and equality. I really like England but the domination by Westminster and a belief that nowhere exists apart from the southeast of the UK is something most Scots are frustrated by.

The notion that having things in common means everyone in these islands is British/English and go along with that dominant culture is not good enough.

A love and appreciation of England does not mean it belongs to me.