THAT WAS ENGLAND, THAT WAS !

Nowadays we, at least most of us, are fairly careful in our use of terminology when referring to "these islands". It's England for that country, Britain for the Island, and UK for the state.

But it was not always so. In my day England was shorthand for all of the above. For example, the Queen was "Queen of England". I never heard the expression Queen of the UK in my life, yet that is what she was. And more besides, as testified to by her father's title on the above 1942 thrupenny bit from my mother's wedding day.

Of course, the other bits were slowly slipping away, some of them inspired by the example of Irish independence. And today the British monarchy is down to the UK itself, a few British Commonwealth countries and a few tax-dodging overseas territories.

For me the Queen will always be Queen of England and her son King of Same.

There was also another usage in operation in Gordon Brewster's time and right through to mine. This was the Roman Catholic view of "Pagan England" the source of all of Ireland's woes.

Once the British had left after Irish independence, nationalists, or at least a significant proportion of them, assumed that they would take their dirty ways with them and Ireland would be distilled into a pure and holy nation state.

However, Brewster's cartoons give lie to that misplaced expectation as he ruthlessly pillories the flow of dirty literature from pagan England.

Just a brief personal story. It was my referring to England, when I was actually in Wales, that led to me getting my first Welsh lesson from the Welsh attendant on the Irish Mail as we sped towards London.

And while I'm into terminology I should point out that "pagan" is a misnomer. We have had the decency to label Communism "Atheistic Communism" yet we give the English credit for a belief in a clatter of Gods they have never heard of nor could name in a fit.

Funny world.