When Vera Lynn sang about bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, the whole thing was a nonsense, or at least a colossal projection. The lyrics turn out to be by a New Yorker who had never set eyes on the Kent’s chalk coast, and didn’t realise that bluebirds are never seen outside North America. Still, without realising it, he had nailed a crucial point about the way Britain instinctively imagines itself in terms of its edges rather than its heartland, particularly in times of crisis.
In this remarkable book, as bracing as a smack in the face
