What no Englishmen (Where have all the Pommies Gone)

‘I would like to pose a question. Where oh where have all the English folk gone, long time passing, where have all the Pommies gone long time ago. Gone to Australia everyone, cause there are none here anymore??? Will they ever return? I don't think so?’

After 24 years, I once again landed at Heathrow, London. Feeling excited, I love the sights, sounds and the countless differences between the two countries.

I especially love the many and varied accents, listening to conversations where words and sentences are clipped, leaving me wondering if I have all the information or whether I heard correctly particularly when asking for directions. We moved through customs and immigration no poms, only European accents; maybe actual poms don’t work the night shift. We were bussed to the car hire building picked up our car and drove to the hotel, by the time we had arrived in our room, we had still not spoken to a real pom; I was beginning to get worried. After enjoying our first breakfast, we went back to our room having still not encountered any English folk, it had become obvious that all the staff were all from far-off lands. We used all manner of public transport, wandered around London and surrounds for a week before we stumbled across a proper Englishman, I kid you not; even the bastion of British upper class shopping and culture Harrods proved to have a lack of natives of the land. How disappointed was I? We were staying in Hounslow, so I expected 3rd and 4th generation Indians and Pakistanis. However, I was mistaken? Though many businesses are still owned by these folks, the majority are operated by eastern European's Pols, Bulgarians, Hungarians you get the picture. The Indians and Pakistanis have moved to more affluent suburbs. We had coffee in the Hounslow Starbucks, and every member of staff was Eastern European.

I was beginning to yearn for the country where surely we would encounter the true brits. After a week, we left London for the counties where to my joy, we found accents, peaked caps, tweed jackets and wellies.  People who were happy to talk about their little corner of the world while asking us about ours, in pubs, cafes and quaint villages along the way to where ever we were heading.

At last I felt as if I was actually in Britain. Though wherever we went, there was still many people from other lands, I was happy to find many whose families went back hundreds of years.

So to my original question ‘where have all the English folk gone?’ the answer is still Australia, and me thinks there are yet plenty to come.