Although my history teacher at Grammar School, one A J Frith, told me my surname derived from “the keeper of the bailey or ward of a castle”, he was clearly working on minimal data. In fact, although my Grandfather was “English”, he was genetically Irish (Aloysius Patrick Ward). My Grandmother Mary Mahon came from Mallow, just outside Cork. My mum was “English” but High Anglican, and not too far back the family name Mountain had been Anglicised from the French ‘Montagne’. My Dad always vehemently denied being Irish, but his parental genes prove he was. So I am half-Irish. There are fifty seven varieties in the other half, but half of me is pretty obviously Celtic. We also all have wavy hair and blue eyes, which (along with the temper and grudge bearing) is pretty much of a giveaway.
The Gaelic version of Ward derives from “Mac an Bhaird” (“son of the Bard”). A bard was a story teller, poet, and wandering minstrel. I’m a writer who plays guitar, currently close to having no fixed abode. The gift of the blarney on top gave me a well-paid career in advertising. I also have the dark Irish tendency to pits of depression, and a love affair with the bottle that has been at times a little too intense. And I support Manchester United. All this represents obviously supportive data.
It is only in the last twenty years, however, that – while thinking of myself as traditionally English in attitudes – I have begun to realise just how infinitely more important genes are than nationality. Sometimes it feels as if I am culturally English on the surface, but not too far below, my wiring is Irish.
I was never great at traditional maths or physics, for example. But geometry and algebra I find very easy, and the banal assumptions of physicists I feel confident about knocking down. I do not see numbers in my head in mono rows and columns: I see them three-dimensionally in colour. The same applies to historical dates and the days of the week: Monday drops in a slight incline to Wednesday, the same for Thursday and Friday, while Saturday and Sunday float about on a flat, watery surface.
I am suspicious of step by step science drawing conclusions from observation. I tend to have intuitions or leaps to what “feels like” the answer – and then have to work back to reassure myself it’s right based on the data. I’ve preached many times that observed behaviour leading to anthropological conclusions is the only safe way to plan societies safely; the twist is that, it’s not how I do it. As a market researcher interviewing people, I would sense they weren’t telling the truth….and then check the quantitative purchase data to see what supported the sense.
In short, a lot of how I work consists of instinctive, feeling-based sparks that set off sometimes daft, sometimes mistaken, but sometimes insightful conclusions. The other great advantage (if one has this gift) is that it is a much quicker way of getting to “the answer” – if indeed there is one.
This becomes invaluable when judging people. I rarely make mistakes about people: when I do, it tends to be an almighty clanger – but I haven’t produced many of them. It does, however, make for difficult relationships when there are no data to go on, only the feeling. This is because the great majority of Anglo-Saxons do not think in this way: they are almost scared of inspiration. They demand at all times to know what the evidence is.
The three countries I most adore in Europe are Greece, Portugal and Ireland. I’ve also had one domicile or another for over thirty years in Southern (almost Mediterranean) France. While I could never completely adopt the cultures of those countries, the Mediterranean philosophy has far more in common with Gaelic thought processes and social mores. When I discuss ‘life’ with ClubMed people, I find it so much easier to advance hypotheses, describe a feeling lyrically, express the excitement of discovery, and be what I’ve always instinctively felt I mainly am: someone who frequently refuses to accept either the fashionable, the contemporary, the logical, or the overly-rational. My pet-hate phrase in all the world is ‘settled science’ closely followed by ‘politically correct’. The mentality behind the two concepts is equally stupid, smug and fearful of the creative endeavour.
Discuss these sorts of things at an English drinks or lunch or supper, and the lack of interest is almost immediately apparent. The same is true in Germany. A wandering bard, you see, is seen by north Europeans as at best an eccentric, and at worst a dangerous brigand. To their mind, your outer-ward castle keeper in an infinitely more reliable chap.
Anglo-Saxons distrust intellectuals, painters, sculptors and poets, whereas the Gaelic and Mediterranean peoples celebrate and value them. The very recitation of poetry or song lyrics at a British dinner table is sufficient to evoke serial cringing in almost everyone present. But above all, the English especially hate passionate originality – in fact, anything they can dismiss as ‘silly’ or, even worse, “getting carried away”. Had Salvador Dali been born in Birmingham, I suspect he would’ve become a pack designer and illustrator for Cadburys – after decades of being told very forcefully that giraffes don’t burn and clocks do not bend over table edges. Had he attended the local private school, he would’ve been given 10,000 lines insisting “I must not draw galleons powered by butterflies”.
I have been exceptionally lucky in being allowed to mix in political, philosophical, writing, artistic, acting, social science and advertising circles from the age of eighteen. My business and earnings gave me the chance to be cosmopolitan, and observe different cultures at work professionally. But chiefly it made me think about how I think. How thinking begins, its manner of ambulation, and the directions in which it can travel will explain almost everything in the Universe in the end. I am glad of my Irish genes.
The Slog 