h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Recognise the following?

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"Subject: What's the English national anthem?
Posted Jun 19, 2000 by Lux Rothchop (if voting changed anything, they'd close the petrol stations until it changed back)
in reply to this post.
Post: 14


Many countries around the world haven't been independent all that long. I guess there's an attraction in having an official song to have a unifying effect on the population of a new country. It helps people identify with something distinctive about themselves. Hence no doubt why the Welsh anthem is in Welsh, when most of us are English-speaking.

Something which interests me is how an anthem emerges in a country which has no government to impose one. How exactly did Hen Wlad fy Nhadau emerge, rather than something else? Who chose it?

There must be some sort of sense of national identity among the population for an anthem to catch on, and maybe that's why England doesn't really have one as yet. Scotland's adoption of Flower of Scotland is very recent, and seems to have co-incided with enthusiasm for devolution. Some time in the mid-eighties, the football and rugby teams adopted it in place of "Scotland the Brave", and suddenly it was accepted as being the national anthem. At the time, there was no Scottish parliament - the choice seems to have been driven by the football crowds more than the politicians.

All of which suggests that maybe "Football's Coming Home" really *is* the English national anthem. Or at least will be soon..."

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Found it while wandering around.....
2 comments: -

Firstly, "It helps people identify with something distinctive about themselves. Hence no doubt why the Welsh anthem is in Welsh, when most of us are English-speaking."

Remember that when the anthem became so at the end of the last century about 50% of the people spoke Welsh officially and unofficially a lot more understood it or had an 'affinity' to it. Part of the reason why the Welsh were so accepting of it.



Secondly, "Something which interests me is how an anthem emerges in a country which has no government to impose one. How exactly did Hen Wlad fy Nhadau emerge, rather than something else? Who chose it?"

This is the beauty of Wales - WE chose it. It was written initially by father and son from Pontypridd for the National Eisteddfod. They submitted it as part of a folio of pieces of music and won. For some reason this piece was picked out and was sung in the years following. Eventually it appeared in programmes for various events as 'Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau', a song to be sung by everyone. Eventually, people started to refer to it as 'The National Anthem'.

With no official body to sanction it the people decided for themselves that they would accept it. Now that's democracy!



I may check out a fuller history and write an entry.

Hwyl!

Huw B

P.S. Halo Jones is fantastic. Can we ever convince Alan Moore to write chapters 4-9?

Thanks for that, Huw. I didn't know anything about the history of the song, and hadn't realised it went back so far. I'd guessed that it must have emerged rather than being written as a national anthem, though. If someone had just announced "Here's a national anthem for Wales", most people would have told him where to stick it, and we'd probably have ended up adopting Calon Lan or another of the popular hymns.

The process you describe sounds very similar to what happened in the 1980s in Scotland - the football and rugby supporters started singing it well before the officials adopted it.

Maybe there's a more general principal about countries that aren't independent. No "official" poet to write a national anthem, so the people have to do it for themselves. The end result seems to be better, from the few that I know (compare the Welsh, Scottish and French anthems with the British and German ones).

And yes, it would be kind of nice to have another book or two in the ballad of Halo Jones. But I quite like the way she just disappeared into space at the end of book 3. I guess Alan Moore might not want to write any more about her unless he could write something better than the first three books, and how likely is that?

Lux

The frightening thing about Alan Moore is that he probably could write something even better than the first 3 books!