What it means to be English

Spectator

31-07-2025

How can you ever put your finger on the comfort, the joy, the absurdity, of being English? Not, perhaps, through some attempt at definition: but in a hundred moments linked by that invisible thread, Englishness. Such a moment occurred for me last Friday. The place was Kidderminster in Worcestershire, the occasion the re-opening of the heritage Severn Valley Railway to Bridgnorth in Shropshire, at the lovely station from which the line, formerly Great Western Railway (GWR) and closed by British Rail in the 1960s, runs.
Let's not be sentimental about Kidderminster. Described by Pevsner as 'uncommonly devoid of visual pleasure and architectural interest', the town has been smashed up by philistine planners. What was intended to be a complete ring road (but never completed) severs the fine St Mary's church from Church Street, at whose head the church was supposed to preside. Having wrecked the symmetry, the council, with unconscious irony, then named the ringway after the church.
But Kidderminster Town station is a jewel. The Severn Valley Railway (SVR), which has taken it over, named it that to distinguish it from Kidderminster's mainline station. A perfect reminder of a GWR station, with its period waiting room part of the King and Castle pub, was where we gathered for the reopening of the line.
Let me explain. There was once a branch line from Kidderminster all the way to Shrewsbury. Though it did serve passengers, the economics depended on freight from the coal mines along the route. Once these were defunct, British Railways planned closure. A group of railway enthusiasts raised the funds to buy the single-track line and its 'halts' (sweet little stations) as far as Bridgnorth, in stages, so the track was never ripped up. But the line had deteriorated badly, and the SVR (as the enthusiasts named their great project) laboured mightily to restore and maintain track, bridges, tunnel, signalling and stations, to build a magnificent engine house, to restore museum-piece carriages (first, second and third) and to run steam and diesel excursions. For the past 40 years they've run these along the 16 scenic miles of track from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth.
After lockdown they recommenced operations, but were struggling to get back the pre-lockdown crowds – and then, in January, disaster! After rain, a huge section of high embankment collapsed, leaving rails hanging in the air. To hand over the repair to contractors would have spelt financial ruin. In a Dunkirk-style operation, volunteers were mustered, people with civil engineering experience and retired rail employees. Britain's railway companies helped and some half a million pounds had to be raised… but within seven weeks, well ahead of schedule, the job was done.
And the world's most famous steam engine, the Flying Scotsman, was hired to showcase the reopening and haul a series of excursions for three days. Tickets sold out in three minutes. My partner, a trustee of the National Lottery Heritage Fund which has helped support the SVR, was invited, and I was with him. We joined an expectant crowd at Kidderminster Town, waiting to board.
Such an English scene! The scarlet-clad Kidderminster male choir were singing songs from the shows. Dreadful instant coffee flowed. The concourse was packed with a crazy mix of boy trainspotters, middle-aged train buffs, mums, grandmas and families on a day out, excited children. Locomotives whistled, the choir sang, there was an inaudible announcement on the loudspeakers, a barrier opened, and we surged towards the polished chestnut carriages, at their head the gigantic, glorious, shiny green Flying Scotsman hissing and steaming like some kind of friendly steel monster, impatient for action.
In the observation car we munched Danish pastries, custard tarts and savoury flans. The townspeople waving behind fences as we chuffed out of Kidderminster were no surprise, but I had hardly expected this to continue in open countryside. Yet all along the hillsides and meadows and woods as we whistled along the beautiful Severn Valley, there were spectators, picnickers, photographers, waiting for the Flying Scotsman to pass. As the loco belched, old-fashioned signals clunked down, and children squealed and waved, while at the halts uniformed Fat Controllers dutifully acknowledged our passage… until, with a deafening hiss of released steam, we pulled into Bridgnorth station.
Crowds awaited us. Crowds descended from the carriages. Crowds gawped from the bridge. Crowds held smartphones aloft to photograph the scene.
Then came the speeches. A welcome from the Mayor of Bridgnorth, 'a few words' from SVR organisers, some thoughtful reflections from a veteran volunteer. And finally – why not? – a Church of England vicar who, audible between hisses from the engine, spoke rather well, read a poem about concrete and steel, made a faintly disrespectful remark about politicians, then blessed the engine, carriages, passengers and volunteers.
No true Englishman sees any theological reason why a vicar should not bless a signal box; and if scripture doesn't specifically mention steam engines, they are undoubtedly implicit in the psalmist's rapture. What is religion for if not to exalt heritage? What could be a more luminous exemplar of faith than the SVR's willing shovels at that collapsed embankment? What can better surpass incense than the perfume of coal smoke and hot vapour with a little smut in the breeze? To see the celestial in spadework is divine and, as George Herbert did not quite write: A man that looks on steam/ On it may stay his eye/ Or if he pleaseth through it pass/ And there the Heaven espy.
That is what they meant, all those picknickers waiting to glimpse the Flying Scotsman. It is not English to say this, but it is the very essence of Englishness to know it.