Is your preference to gorge on fish and chips or roast dinners? Are you generally potty about pets, wildlife and nature? Do you go bonkers over Christmas?
Humorously and in a novel way through a series of original maps, author Helen McKenzie has the answers – well, dozens of answers, actually – in her new book, Utterly British Maps. The whole idea is, let’s admit it, utterly British.
‘Maps!’ you exclaim.
Yes. What better way to show something so intangible?
I shall explain.
Seven broad headings, ‘Place’, ‘Heritage & History’, ‘Food & Drink’, ‘Plants & Animals’ ‘Weather’, ‘Transport’ and ‘Lifestyle & Hobbies’ marshal the material. Within each, a series of unique maps illustrates and plots how the answers to weighty questions vary across Britain – favourite crisp flavour, cream or jam first on scones, how people pronounce ‘scone’*, where the scariest haunted places are. Others map, for example, the oldest pubs, where the rainiest places are, and the quirkiest museums. (I describe in detail the different sections of ‘Place’ later on.)
(*Spoiler alert: some entire counties pronounce it rhyming with stone.)
The subtitle on the back cover explains Helen McKenzie’s aim in a proverbial nutshell: ‘Maps of Oddly British Things’.
Before being asked to review Utterly British Maps, I couldn’t have imagined how much fascinating information can be conveyed in what is effectively an Ordnance Survey™ map of Britishness.
In fact, this engaging addition to the National Trust books list answers all sorts of questions you didn’t know you wanted the answers to, but now you have them, you’ll be raring to slip them into your next pub quiz – and what could be more utterly British than that?
‘What’s in a (place) name?’ and derrières
In English, if we can decently shorten a word, we will – think bro(ther), sec(ond), abs, apps and dozens of others. That goes for place names, too. So, under ‘Places’, Utterly British Maps tells us about Donny, Skeggy and Skunny for Doncaster, Skegness and Scunthorpe. That section also maps some of the satirical town nicknames the inhabitants dream up utterly Britishly tongue-in-cheek: Ponte Carlo for Pontefract, Amazingstoke for Basingstoke, and Scarbados for… well, you can surely guess. One topical one which particularly made me titter was Hove, actually – what someone living in that ‘refained’ district might say when asked if they live in neighbouring Brighton. Hipswich made me crack a smile, too.
Place names ending in -bottom are practically guaranteed to raise a snigger too, so I won’t mention among the almost 400 place names ending with that word are Loose Bottom, Happy Bottom or Betty Mundy’s Bottom. The mind boggles. (Incidentally, that rhetorical trope of saying you’re not going to mention something and then mentioning it is apophasis, as exemplified in Abraham Lincoln’s ‘I will not say that he wilfully misquotes, but he does fail to quote accurately.’)
Modern English is a palimpsest of languages, or a layer cake if you prefer, one language, for instance, Norman French, overlaying Old English – though far from entirely effacing it. Similarly, place names illustrate the successive waves of conquest and migration that have marked these islands. These historic processes are deftly conveyed by maps showing the distribution of twelve key place name elements, from inver-, inner- (Scots Gaelic: ‘river mouth or confluence’) to -ham (Old English: ‘farm, homestead’) and –thorpe (Old Norse: ‘secondary settlement’).
The ‘Place’ chapter also includes gazetteer information about darkest spots – stargazers’ delight – fewest people, weird place names, lighthouses and piers.
And talking of those eternal symbols of the British seaside leads me to Question 1: Where is Britain’s longest pier?
Heritage and history
Place names, er, obviously, denote physical places. And the National Trust has in its caring hands more than 500 places to visit, not to mention 896 miles of coast in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – around 10 per cent of the total coastline. It’s fitting, therefore, that Utterly British Maps, in the section ‘Notable National Trust places’, highlights some of the jewels in the Trust’s crown. It also tells you which Trust site tops the league table for number of scones lovingly dispensed.
Yum yum!
As the book perceptively notes, enjoying a scone at an NT property is integral to the whole NT experience. Among Trust properties, the largest number of scones served is, apparently, at Calke Abbey in Derbyshire.
Which leads seamlessly to my Question 2: Which did the late Queen Elizabeth II put on her scone first? Jam or cream?
‘Food & Drink’ maps out some of Britain’s eating habits. Here I can only give you a taster – metaphorically, of course, but almost literally: I was ravenous by the time I’d finished that chapter.
For instance, what’s your favourite topping on chips? Gravy? Cheese? Curry sauce? The maps pinpoint where those niche abominations – 😉 – occur.
Three iconic crisp tastes are mapped: ready salted, salt & vinegar, and cheese & onion. I know my favourite. What’s yours?
But who knew that across vast swaths of the Highlands and in much of Wales, cheese & onion wins. There’s no accounting for taste. Or is this simply a reflection of the Celtic Fringe?
And you could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather when I read that 71 per cent of British people home-bake once a week. (I suspect my inner baker will never be woken from his Rip Van Winkle slumber.)
Lastly under this rubric – and don’t you love how we use a word for ‘heading’ derived from the red (Latin ruber) lettering used for headings in mediaeval manuscripts – comes a mapping of local baked dishes: the nationally known Bakewell tart, Dundee cake, or Abernethy biscuits; and more localised ones you might not know such as Yorkshire Curd Tart, Whitby’s Fat Rascals™, Bedfordshire Clangers or Gypsy Tart from Sheppey.
Whatever the weather
And now for question 3: What’s the highest wind speed ever recorded in Britain?
How could we prove our utterly British credentials if we didn’t obsess about the weather?
It’s been calculated we spend four and a half months of our lives talking about it. No kidding!
Under this heading, the book tells us which coastlines welcome the most summer sunshine and where the sunniest beaches are; on the gloomier side, where the rainiest and windiest places lie. Not to mention chances of a white Christmas and how many months of the year count as ‘shorts weather’. If you’ve visited or lived in Scotland, it will come as no surprise that in large areas of the Highlands people wear shorts for more months of the year than in many other climes.
There isn’t room here to expatiate on all the riches contained under the different headings of this book, chock-full of information you hadn’t realised you quietly need. Armed with it, you can amaze friends and family, plop intriguing questions into your local pub quiz, or simply bask in the glory of your newly acquired knowledge and wisdom.
All in all, with its unique and original approach, this beautifully presented hardback volume, priced at a modest £9.99, punches well above its weight.
- Longest pier? Not just in Britain, but in the world, Southend’s pier at 2,140 m (7,019 ft or 1.33 miles).
- The Late Queen Elizabeth II’s preference scone wise? Jam first.
- Highest windspeed? At the summit of Cairn Gorm in the Scottish Highlands. In 1968 winds were recorded up to 278 kph (173 mph) – equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane!
By Jeremy Butterfield
Jeremy Butterfield is the former Editor-in-Chief of Collins Dictionaries, and editor of the fourth, revised edition of Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
