Page 35 - ModernParadiseFLIPBOOKcomplete

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climate, the well-defined seasons and the fertile soil, along with lush grass, plentiful

timber, deep seams of coal and excellent stone. Geography, in effect, was destiny. It
was not native guile that fed and watered our crops, but an unusual combination of
topographical forces, notably the warm Gulf Stream, which even in this northerly
latitude delivered the temperate winters that shaped our agricultural tradition.”

Winder might have mentioned fish. Barry Cunliffe explains how being on the
continental shelf creates shallow seas which the sun can penetrate; the shelf itself
becomes blanketed with nutrient-rich sediments. This creates perfect conditions for

the growth of plankton, enhanced by the Gulf Stream bringing warm Caribbean water
across the Atlantic, dissipating around Iceland and Greenland. Plankton provides food
for the shoals of fish that thrive in shallow seas which in turn have helped feed the
British and Irish throughout their history.

Winder quotes like-minded historian David Landes, that geography “tells us an
unpleasant truth, that nature, like life, is unfair, unequal in its favours.” We’ve heard

this before, of course: echoing Gildas and Bede, it’s the old Goldilocks story, of Britain
as a promised land.

Winder then raises a possible objection: “This is not to say that we were wholly
different from our neighbours. Indeed there were many similarities. We had the same
sort of rain as Wales, the same lush grass as Ireland, an intricate coast rather like
Scotland’s, and rivers that were not so different from those of France and Germany.
We had the same low marshes as Holland, the same stone quarries as Italy and Spain,

and timber forests that resembled those in Scandinavia. Our bird life migrated hither
and thither, our soil supported many of the same crops as continental Europe, and we
were not the only place to send fishing boats out to sea.”

Quite. But he counters this objection: “Slight variations, magnified over time, produce
profound differences. And in England’s case – indeed, in all these cases – it was the

idiosyncratic way in which all these elements combined that produced the singular
effect.” Which is? “We are land of sheep, wheat and apples, not goats, rice and vines.
Oak and beech, not palm and olive. We had little choice in the matter; it was in our
nature.”

Winder argues his case entertainingly. He is fond of traditional English sayings. For
example, ones derived from the sea - any port in a storm, don’t make waves. Or from
the weather - one swallow doesn’t make a summer, it never rains but it pours, always
put something away for a rainy day, every cloud has a silver lining, winter of

discontent. Or to do with sheep – we must separate the sheep from the goats,