Colin Gray, an 81-year-old retiree, sits on the hardwood pew of his local church, struggling with the Telegraph crossword. The mid- spring light percolates through the stained glass window. It is Friday morning. This gentle soul, a church member all his days, clears his throat, takes off his glasses, and in the politest possible fashion lacerates Scotland.
At the next stall 65-year-old florist Hugh Goddard peeks out from under a hat festooned with roses."Let them go their own way," he said. "That would mean less Scottish MPs plus we wouldn't have to pay Scotland any money. All of these people in the last Labour government were all Scottish. So just let them do their damage up there. Besides, all the best Scots left Scotland: America's full of Scots, Canada's full of Scots, England's full of Scots. There can't be many left. The ones that stayed must enjoy the place, so let them have it."Signs of both countries are everywhere. The first pub you encounter after crossing the Border is The Elizabethan. There is a shop called The Sporran off the main street. As a sign of the area's economic limbo, both are boarded up. Faded union flags wave in the breeze, a hangover from the royal wedding.Two days before sharing a pew with Gray, we crossed the Border to Berwick-upon-Tweed. Just two miles from Scotland, it is England's most northerly town. By the admission of its own population, it is a strange place. Last changing hands in 1482, for centuries the town was a plaything for the Scottish and English armies. It gives it a split-personality. "The Scots see Berwick as England, and the English see us as Scottish," said Lorraine Dobson, who owns the Reivers Tryst cafe. "I'm English, but if the two countries played each other at football, I'd support Scotland."At dawn that morning we set off on a pilgrimage to discover whether our English cousins, proportionally the greatest part of Great Britain, had noticed or even cared about what was happening to the north of Hadrian's Wall. The goal was Tunbridge Wells, the well- heeled Kent spa town south of London, to read the barometer of what Middle England thinks about a freshly nationalist Scotland. Before conversing with Gray and his ilk, however, there was the rest of the country to canvas.Outside in the winding streets most people around the cathedral couldn't name Scotland's First Minister. Those that could were vague on what he stood for. Performance poet Jane Keats, sitting in The Yorkshire Terrier pub, spoke for many: "People don't have an opinion of him," she said, "They just see a large, jolly Scottish man who doesn't like English people."The church is King Charles The Martyr Anglican church. The town is Tunbridge Wells. The country is England. The view expressed is common."Up here you are isolated from down south, where they consider us as a separate country," she said. "And when you look up to Scotland and see how they are in charge of their own finances, and they haven't seemed to have made the same level of cuts as they have here, it makes people want to have more control."Early evening in York finds the city lolling in the heat. Bikes ring through the cobbled streets. French teenagers congregate outside the Gothic facade of York Minster. Evensong wafts from within.At Scotch Corner, Gary Towey and Nick Rogers emerge from their Mondeo, stretch, and take off their ties. Businessmen across the car park do likewise, many changing shirts sodden from driving in the heat.LEEDSAN early-evening drive west leads to Leeds. The suburb of Headingley perfectly matches former prime minister John Major's picture of Middle England, "the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers". As if to emphasise the area's cosy, cosseted, conservative nature a main thoroughfare is called Cardigan Road. A stone's throw from Yorkshire's county cricket ground is the Original Oak pub. The Celtic verses Hearts game goes on unwatched in the background.There is a Church of Scotland here, on the aptly named Wallace Green. An elderly gentleman in a tweed jacket sits outside. "It's a strange little town," he explains. "Half are rabid Scots and half rabid English. Half would secede to Scotland. They see things like free care for the elderly and wonder why they can't have it."Berwick-Upon-TweedEmma Hallington, 32, is holding a fudge doughnut outside the branch on the city's quayside. The impressive Sage and the Baltic buildings loom over the Tyne, signs of the area's bullish growth in recent decades. Hallington works for the local tourism agency. Her co-workers have been talking about Scotland's changing political scene in recent days. An independent Scotland, or at the very least a Scotland with increased autonomy, would make her fellow Geordies hungry for the same.DERBY"It means nowt to me, and most folks are rather apathetic," he said. "You'd be better giving independence to Yorkshire. They'd have a better chance of making a go of it."Steven Wakefield, 28, has been a tour guide at the minster for several years. He said he respected and had sympathy for what was happening in Scotland. "Anything that gives a sense of voice at a time of cuts, that gives a sense of empowerment, is good," he said. He also articulated a mournful tone common among many, particularly in the north. "I can understand why people voted SNP. But if Scotland became independent it would be a shame. I am proud to be British. Together we can have a great effect on the world and benefit from that. If possible, it would be good to find a middle road."People's attitudes here towards Scotland seems well-rehearsed. The SNP's landslide does not appear to have intensified feelings either way.yorkThat is, until Celtic manager Neil Lennon gets assaulted. Now everyone is talking about Scotland. "F**king Scots," mutters one, speaking for all. "They're so f**king backwards." News of a brave new Caledonian dawn has failed to advance this far south.NEWCASTLETwo days earlier and 400 miles to the north the DNA of Britain fundamentally changed. The new batch of MSPs were sworn into the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, including a record 69 from the Scottish Nationalist Party. A referendum on Scottish independence, and with it the existence of the United Kingdom, is inevitable.If the rest of the north of England had acknowledged in some way Scotland's changing politics, the Wednesday night drinkers here are perfectly insulated from it.Thursday begins with a 7am breakfast stop at a service station outside Derby. Nearby Swarkestone is as far as Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Jacobite forces advanced into England in 1745. And it is here, in the shadow of a KFC and Eddie Stobart trucks, that I encounter an English woman who has welcomed other political incursions from Scotland.Neither have been to Scotland. "It's like a foreign country to me," admitted Towey. Rogers offered a global take on the shifting politics in Scotland, not uncommon in the north of England. "If the Scots want independence they should have it," he said. "You look around the world at the moment and people fighting for independence in the likes of Libya and Syria, yet being oppressed. We shouldn't do that. If they want it, I'd support them in it."Wednesday is market day. Andrew Naysmith from Edinburgh has been travelling down to sell Scottish meat here for years. Lorne sausage sells four times faster than haggis. No-one has mentioned the Scottish election to him at all.Judy Lamb is a librarian from Oldham. "What really worries me if we separate from Scotland is we are never going to get a blinking Labour government in Westminster," she said, clutching her coffee. For years, the Scottish votes in Westminster have acted as a bulwark against a Conservative majority. That would evaporate with independence, something slowly dawning upon many Labour supporters in the north of England, according to Lamb. "People are concerned about it. Scotland not going Labour in the elections is quite worrying. If that happens in the UK elections then we're in trouble."Onwards to Yorkshire. Luminous fields of oilseed rape turn strips of the English countryside SNP yellow. Before the M1, William Wallace trudged this route as he marched on York.Before Yorkshire, however, lies Newcastle. Northumbria's biggest city is home to a shared love between the Geordies and the Scots: Greggs. There are twice as many branches of the Geordie high-street baker per head of population in Scotland as elsewhere in the UK.
Judy Lamb is a librarian from Oldham. "What really worries me if we separate from Scotland is we are never going to get a blinking Labour government in Westminster," she said, clutching her coffee. For years, the Scottish votes in Westminster have acted as a bulwark against a Conservative majority. That would evaporate with independence, something slowly dawning upon many Labour supporters in the north of England, according to Lamb. "People are concerned about it. Scotland not going Labour in the elections is quite worrying. If that happens in the UK elections then we're in trouble."
