Last week it was my pleasure to escort a couple of American friends, not only around the tourist sights, but to lesser known pleasures such as the Full English Breakfast, the joys of tea drinking, country walks, educating them in the art and science of enjoying a quiet pint in a crowded pub, and introduction to curry. It was fun, as always, seeing my homeland through the eyes of people who don't know it, and reminded me of just how lucky I am and, to be honest, how beautiful the place actually is.
The first couple of days went about as expected - a lot of fun and laughing, the sheer pleasure of planning the routes so we'd turn a corner and suddenly there was something amazing to see and watching their jaws drop (Coming upon Saint Paul's when you are not expecting it tends to short circuit people's brains) and the trepidation as they tried black pudding and learned what real bacon tastes like. Then on Day 3, we went to Canterbury.
"It's only 50 miles away. Why are we leaving so early?" This from Ron, who had slightly over indulged in pub the night before and was discovering first hand how painful a real ale hangover can be. "You'll see."
England's roads were here long before cars, and property rights are complex, to say the least. The motorway we took, our equivalent of an interstate, is the old coaching road to Dover and is roughly as wide as a typical street in a Phoenix suburb. It has one straight flat section that is longer than two miles, the rest is hills and corners. Add in a million or so vehicles trying to get into London just on that road and another quarter million or so trying to get out, and they soon discovered why driving is a dreaded chore over here rather than an expression of freedom and the average in town speed is south of 7 miles per hour.
It got us talking about the little things that add up to huge differences in the two countries. Odd things, mostly. Like how clean the streets are and how quiet people are. The fact that the country is pretty much laid out with people in mind, not cars. Footpaths across private land which anyone may use. Pulling in to a petrol station for fuel and filling up before paying, something I don't think twice about - that lead to a long discussion which basically boiled down to "we trust people over here" and me getting totally indignant at the thought of not being trusted. Then there was the joy of ID's.
See, we don't have them. There is no ID requirement in the UK. Sure, you need a driving license to drive, which nearly a 6th the population don't bother with, but you don't need to carry it with you. If you get pulled by the police, you give your name and they check your license on the spot by computer. Buying alcohol or cigarettes? If you look old enough, you are old enough. Makes it simple for the shop keepers, and they'll accept someone elses word if they are in doubt. There is a voluntary scheme of ID for those lucky souls who look young but are of legal age, but the uptake is low. About the only people who regularly have a form of ID with them are the retired - the free bus pass counts, I suppose.
So, next time you read about our "Big Brother" surveillance state, you might want to consider that we are actually freer than you.
