Two different countries

 WHO'S CHRIS WHITTY?

Yesterday I returned from my first trip to a different country since January last year.  We were in Manchester for a couple of days, the choice of destination determined by a wish to see the Grayson Perry Art Club exhibition.  That had come out of the two series on Channel 4, of six programmes each, using art to look at various aspects of the pandemic and resultant lockdowns and restrictions.  

For those who didn't see the series, there was different theme each week - Home, Family, Food and others - and visual art works created in response to these.  One would be from Perry himself, another from his wife Philippa, one from a celebrity guest (mostly comedians such as  Joe Lycett and Harry Hill), one from a professional artist (or artistic team in the case of the Singh Twins), and several from members of the public.  The best of the latter would be chosen as exhibits for a planned future exhibition.  This exhibition which we went to see.

It was extremely enjoyable, full of interest, and a reminder that art doesn't need to be perfect, or technically brilliant, to be worthwhile, a rule that applies just as much other art forms.  There was a lot to discuss afterwards, a lot of lessons about how many ways people have coped with the strains of the past eighteen months.  

But there was also, to me, one undercurrent to the show I found slightly irritating.  One image cropped up regularly, in Grayson's own works, and those of the celebrities and public.  The face of Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England.  But the show had placed a strong emphasis on wanting to represent the views and experiences of the British public.  So where was Jason Leitch?  Whitty has been a leading figure of the crisis in his own country, but irrelevant in the other constituent parts of the UK, or indeed Britain.  While I'd noticed this to some degree while watching the programmes, it was much more obvious when seen as one coherent exhibition.

I lived in England for thirty five years.  Much, of course, was the same as it had been back home.  But there were more than enough differences to make me realise I'd come to a different country.  One of those I noticed persistently across the decades.  An irritant at first, I eventually gave up correcting people and accepting that that was the way they were.  This was in the use of Britain/British as synonyms for England/English, and vice versa.  I couldn't say how many times I was told about how well England were doing in the Olympics, or asked if I'd seen the British football team playing a match.  

There was nothing malicious in this.  Nothing arrogant.  It was totally unconscious.  I once corrected my first wife over her misuse of the two terms, and that ended up in a row - she simply couldn't understand why she was wrong, that there was any real difference between England and Britain.  Surely they were the same?  But I have never heard anyone use Scotland/ Scottish in the same way, and I doubt if it happens in Wales either.  We have a much clearer understanding of our own national identities.  Whereas this confusion appears to be endemic to English culture.  And Grayson Perry is no exception.

Of course I write this from the perspective of someone who would like to see Scotland become independent.  Not from any hatred of England or the English - after so long living there most of my friends, and my wife, are English - but because we want to do things differently, and that we are clearly different nations.  Hard line unionists on social media often want to make out there is no difference between the cultures of England and Scotland.  But there are many, and this, for me, is the biggie.  We are Scottish, but also British.  To be English is, for most, to think that being British is the same thing.  Art Club is a sharp reminder that the differences are real.

Now, remind me again - who's Chris Whitty?