Rob Rattenbury: The truth is I am a complete Anglophile

If it's British - old cars, food, beer - I love it. Photo / Getty Images

COMMENT:

Reading some of my columns, one could suppose that I do not have a lot of time for the United Kingdom. Nothing could be less true. I do have views on colonialism and the effect the British Empire had on otherwise contented and settled peoples when they decided that these peoples needed saving from themselves.

The truth is I am a complete Anglophile. I love everything British, the old cars, their food, the beer, the most wonderful railway system in the world and the rich history of the British Isles. I even, reluctantly, admire the British and Irish Lions rugby team and the English cricket team.

Having visited those distant isles of some of my forefathers, I can tell you that I feel more at home in England and Ireland than I do anywhere else in the world, including that big beautiful island to the west of us where the people are wonderful but struggle to beat us at sport.

Years ago I was standing in the High Street of a small village, Bushey, now part of the Watford conurbation north of London. Looking around me I felt at home for the first time in some weeks. We had been traipsing around Europe for six weeks or so worrying about getting our laundry done and where the next ATM was that would accept our ASB cards. We also, of course, saw, tasted and smelt the wonders of the Old World so it was not all a worry.

A couple of years ago we spent a few days in the west of England, Devon, tracing my father's family roots in villages around Okehampton. Many readers will know this journey, visiting graveyards and village churches, speaking to people in shops and pubs, being greeted with friendship and openness, and mostly, genuine interest. Cider is the drink of choice in that part of England and I can tell you it is not like the cider we buy in the supermarket in New Zealand. One glass with lunch is more than enough for the day.

British people are, on the whole, very friendly and open, at least in the small towns and villages we stalked. Not so in London but then Auckland and Wellington are not friendly places either.

I love the British and Irish sense of humour and irony, something Kiwis and Aussies easily get.

When visiting tourist sites in Britain or Ireland, it is humbling to look at and explore buildings that were in place before most Maori settling these isles. Some cathedrals took so long to build that generations of the same mason families worked on them for over a century. That's impressive.

The British and Irish countryside is some of the most beautiful I have seen. It is very different from New Zealand's bush, of course, but beautiful. Looking at the countryside of Devon and Dorset, I can see why my English forebears and others from these counties settled in Taranaki. Apart from the stonking great volcano in the middle of it, Taranaki's rolling countryside is very like Devon, even nowadays down to the boxthorn hedges edging paddocks - although I do not recall boxthorn in England, I think it is South African but could be wrong. From a distance, it all looks like hedgerows.

Brits love to ramble, or in New Zealand parlance, tramp across their countryside, and they are allowed to do this unfettered by boundaries and landowners. Their countryside is rugged and weather-beaten, dodgy to be in unless well-equipped, similar to here but wherever one travels one comes across large groups of ramblers or fell-walkers either out and about or in the local inns supping a wee ale or a tea. They all look very fit and have that far-away look in their eyes trampers seem to have in New Zealand.

The feeling of being at home in Britain and Ireland was strange as, apart from my wife's English cousins, we know no-one. I would like to think it was that feeling that Maori refer to as turangawaewae.

Was it this phenomenon or was it just suggested memory after a lifetime of reading British literature, watching British movies and television, eating British and Irish food, being married to the daughter of an Englishwoman?

I am a fourth-generation Pakeha whose ancestors came here from Ireland and England in the mid-19th century. I have no direct familial roots to Britain or Ireland any longer other than via family tree. Yet I regard both places as my home away from home and I feel warm and comfortable there. I seem to fit in until I speak but they seem to love Kiwis in that part of the world and, being the experts that Brits are with accents, can easily tell mine from my Aussie mates.