The joy of real beer

England. Despite being a Scotsman, partly brought up in Ulster, I have taken so much Englishness for granted over so many years. So do most Englishmen, to at least as great an extent as the inhabitants of any other major country. But I hope that I am just enough of a historian to enquire about this for-grantedness, and to wonder how it happened.

I had chosen a good place to ruminate. We were sitting in the garden of the Mayfly pub near Stockbridge in Hampshire, watching the river Test glide by almost saucily. I have occasionally tried – and failed – to catch a trout on such a chalk stream, and have indeed been given sceptical instructions on the subject by Jeremy Paxman: sceptical because he was certain that my heavy footfall would always frustrate my efforts. ‘Fear not,’ said the gentle, saucily-taunting Test. ‘Although our fish-maidens may be safe, you can always enjoy the sun and a jolly good pint of beer.’