Robert Shore - Bang in the Middle

A J OURNEY T HROUGH THE M IDLANDS T HE M OST U NDERRATED P LACE ON E ARTH

So there we were, sprawled across the floor of our living room in South London, happily building a Lego Pharaohs Quest Flying Mummy Attack, when Hector dropped The Big Question.

Dad?

Hmm?

Where are you from?

Hector had been asking a lot of questions lately partly because, at five years of age, he was in the middle of the classic why/where/when stage of child development, and partly because his school topic for the term was About Ourselves.

Im from England, I said confidently. Your mother is from France and I am from England.

I think he needs a little more detail than that, my wife said, entering the room to deliver her line and then immediately exiting again, like an actor with a walk-on part in a French farce.

Okay, if its more detail you want, I steadied myself, Im from Mansfield.

Oh, mused Hector. Wheres that?

You know, where Grandma and Grandad live. Its in the Midlands.

Oh, he mused again. Whats the Miglands?

Dont you want to finish the biplane so we can start launching our flying attacks on the mummy? I said, trying to change the subject. A father likes to be able to answer his sons questions with authority, and I wasnt sure that I had anything very definite to tell him on the subject of my origins.

Miss Kate says she wants parents to come in and tell us about where theyre from, Hector persisted. Do you want to come to school and tell us about the Miglands?

I could just imagine the scene: a parade of parents from Bosnia, Bologna and Baghdad, all with amazing tales to tell to boggle the imaginations of a class of wide-eyed five-year-olds, and then me, bringing up the rear of this exotic, multi-lingual procession, turning bright red with embarrassment as I desperately tried to think of something interesting to say on the subject of Mansfield and the Midlands.

My wife is a Parisian, so on his mothers side Hectors heritage is rich: berets and haute couture, baguettes and haute cuisine, moody philosophers in black polo necks, and a general all-round je ne sais quoi. As cultural legacies go, you cant ask for better. My contribution is thinner. Mansfield was named the sixth and ninth worst place to live in Britain, respectively, in the 2005 and 2007 editions of Channel 4s popular The Best and Worst Places to Live in the UK show.

As for the Midlands well, as a badge of identity, its not like coming from the North, is it? Few people would know where to draw the boundary lines that separate the coastline-free Midlands from the North and South of England, those two monolithic and self-mythologising geographical constructs that sit above and below it on the national map. Just as importantly, whereas most people could attempt at least rudimentary definitions of the North and South as cultural entities flat caps versus posh accents, or, in the terms of Guy Ritchies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Southern fairies versus Northern monkeys very few would find much to say about the Midlands identity. And that includes Midlanders.

I grew up in the Midlands, but I cant remember anyone ever referring to themselves or me as a Midlander there was a distinct lack of what you might call Midland consciousness. When I then went south to university, I was perceived as a Northerner, principally because I pronounced the word class with a short a. Youre quite well-spoken, I was assured by one of my Home Counties-scented, RP-channelling peers, but youve got funny vowels. Might you be from the North, old boy? Since I didnt much fancy spending the next three years propping up the bar with the colleges real Northerners, mithering on about dinner being the meal you eat in tmiddle of tday, lad, and how Southerners couldnt take their drink, I grew self-conscious about my pronunciation and avoided making any unnecessary references to grass, glass or taking a bath in my conversation.

Even in this great Age of Identity Politics, coming from the Midlands is tantamount to coming from nowhere in particular. You can be a Professional Northerner (its a crowded field, but there always seems to be room for fresh recruits), but a Professional Midlander? The very word Midlands is rarely employed outside specialised or technical contexts. It occurs most frequently in weather and travel reports (there are a lot of roads in the Midlands). Beyond that, it pops up in the camp idiom of a certain vintage: in his letters, the (London-born) classical actor John Gielgud refers to the zone between his legs and midriff as the Midlands. We all come from there at a biological level, of course, but in a geographical context theres little social cachet in announcing yourself as hailing from the nations meat-and-two-veg.

* * *

I decided to do what I have done so many times before at moments of crisis in my life. I called my mother.

(Sound of a phone ringing out. The receiver is eventually lifted and a small intense woman, audibly gurning, speaks.)

Hello?

Hi, Mum. Its your second-born.

Ey up mi duck. My mother is hardly a strong dialect-speaker, but she does enjoy slipping into the local argot from time to time. Can I call you back later? I dont really have time to talk at the moment.

Then why did you pick up the phone?

In case it was something important.

I went into my hurt-silence routine, honed over decades.

Come on, she chivvied me. What can I do you for? Spit it out.

Mum, theres a question I need to ask you.

I love you and your brother both equally. Ive told you before.

Not that.

Oh good, I was getting a bit tired of it.

Mum, what does it mean to be a Midlander?

Now it was her turn to go silent.

Mum?

I dont know, she said, noisily chewing her lip. Ive never thought of it before.

Well, would you think about it now, please?

All right, keep your hair on Well, I suppose it means were neither one thing nor the other not Northern, not Southern. Were just a bit middling.

And that was all she could think of to say. In one respect the stoical acceptance of ones own inconsequentiality it was a thoroughly Midland sort of response. On the other, it was baffling, since my mother is anything but middle-of-the-road. Quite the opposite, in fact: shes one of the most extreme characters Ive ever known. Thats a Midland paradox.

At that moment I realised that something important life-changing, even was happening to me: I was reconnecting with my Inner Midlander. This sort of thing happens to Northerners all the time, of course. Its easy for them because there are so many clichs about Northern identity that they can tap into. But if youre a Midlander? Instinctively, as well as in point of strict bio-geographical fact, I had always known I was one, of course, but I had no idea what that might signify in a wider sense. What is a Midlander?

Right, I said, putting the phone down and turning to my son with unwonted firmness of purpose. You wanted to know where I am from, Hector. I say to you now that I dont really know. Not geographically, obviously show me a map and I will unerringly pin the tail of a donkey to the precise point on it where Mansfield lies. Its just above Nottingham and a bit up and to the right from Derby. But in a broader sense culturally, philosophically Ive no idea what it means to be a Midlander. So I must find out.