This trip has reminded me, we’re very much a country divided

As I prepare to return to the US after my whistle-stop tour of the UK – busily sticking Covid PCR tests up my nose, sealing them and posting them off; bundling up my wedding shoes to take to my final bridal gown fitting in Manhattan; organising whether or not my cat in New York has his favourite food, while also leaving my cat in the UK in the care of my mum – I’m amazed by how quickly I managed to become a Little Englander again.

In the US, you get used to talking about the whole of the United Kingdom in broad strokes, talking about Brexit as a nationwide phenomenon and “British culture” as if we have any semblance of a monolithic identity. But, of course, as this trip has reminded me, I should know better. Even within England, we’re very much a country divided, one where north and south have a bitter rivalry that goes back much further than America has ever even existed.

To illustrate this divide, it’s probably best to summarise some arguments I’ve had with my dad in Newcastle while I’ve been here. They include: whether or not chicken should be kept in the fridge (no, according to him, because a bit of bacteria is “good for you” and “anyway, do you think I had a fridge when I was growing up?”); why my postmodern wedding cake looks like “a piece of cement” and I’d be better off buying three tray cakes from Asda; why anyone who owns a dishwasher has become a slave to modernity, robots, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and capitalism; and why I should run a meat raffle at my wedding (it’s what it sounds like. Side note: I’m a vegetarian.)

As my fiance and I sat in a Yorkshire pub doing some wedmin (yes, I’m the kind of person who says “wedmin” now) last week, E turned to me and asked what a sparkler was. I had to confess that, despite being an officially recognised Geordie, I had no idea. The source of the question was a poster on the wall of the pub that read: “If you want extra head on your beer, just ask us and we’ll sort it. If you want your beer poured without a sparkler, just tell us and we’ll make fun of you for drinking like a southerner.” No sooner had I admitted that I wasn’t sure what a sparkler was than a man at the opposite table had leaned over to say: “I can’t believe you don’t know about sparklers. They’re metal things you put on the end of the spout in the pub to give your beer extra flavour. They don’t have them in the south. A friend of mine even travels with his own personal sparkler when he has to visit southern cities.”

The idea of someone ordering a beer and then producing his own piece of equipment for use by the barman would send any Londoner into spasms of terror. But in Yorkshire, a beer without a sparkler was clearly no beer at all.

Although I confess I’ve never been personally offended by the size of the head on my beer (probably because I stick to cider), I do have my own petty problems with the way things are done in the south. I’ll never get my head around calling your tea – or dinner, at a stretch – “supper”, or eating it after eight o’clock. Even more egregious, I can’t accept the quality of the fish and chips any further south than Northumberland (bar coastal regions like Cornwall) or the fact that they don’t offer you scraps when you get them.

I once requested scraps from a fish and chip shop in London and my bemused father-in-law returned from his trip with an entire box of batter. “The man behind the counter didn’t know what I was on about,” he said, proudly, “but I got him to do it anyway.” Being from South Africa, he doesn’t get himself involved with intra-England politics: he simply walks in and ask for what he wants. That kind of can-do attitude, luckily, gets you places in London – and in its own way, it’s very American too. Onward to New York City.