50 things Britain gave the world

Throughout the centuries, Britain has led the world in all that is civilised, from culture to condiments and fast horses to the herbaceous border. Kate Green and Giles Kime make the case for our nation’s pre-eminent place on the world stage

Kate Green and Giles Kime argue that Britain has, for centuries, led the world in all that is civilised

The Downton Abbey effect

We not only invented the television itself, but, from Upstairs, Downstairs and The Pallisers to Pride and Prejudice and Poldark, we love it when producers raid the dressing-up box for breeches, tailcoats and periwigs. So, it seems, does the rest of the world; with a host of broodingly handsome actors (Messrs Firth, Turner and Redmayne) and actresses happy to strap themselves into circulation-constricting corsetry (Mesdames Thompson, Dench, Smith and Bonham Carter), we beat Hollywood hands down, not only with the classics, but also with pastiche that is hammier than a side of bacon.

Downton Abbey’s creator Julian Fellowes admitted he’s been startled at its incredible reach—it’s been sold to more than 200 territories worldwide (the Chinese audience was about 120 million) and overseas visitors pour into Highclere Castle (left), where it was filmed.

Cheddar cheese

The default cheese of the ploughman’s lunch, the 1970s drinks party (on a stick with pineapple) and the cheese-and-pickle sandwich is a major UK export (up 4% to 75,212 tons in 2016). Strangely, we import it as well (more than 4,000 tons) and the Irish are said to be panicking about Brexit because they can’t sell the stuff to any other country. The superior thing, however, is not the ubiquitous, sweaty, plastic-encased block, but West Country Farmhouse Cheddar, which has Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status from the EU. This must be made on dairy farms in Dorset, Cornwall, Somerset or Devon by ‘Cheddaring’—the stacking and turning, by hand, of slabs of curd—and left to stand for nine months to develop subtle flavours.

Hereford cattle

These conker-coloured cows have travelled thousands of miles from their pastoral county of origin during the past 200 years. There are more than five million pedigree cattle in 50-plus countries, from South America to the Russian Steppes, Israel and Japan. It’s remarkable how animals that originated in such precise regions— Welsh Mountain ponies, Suffolk sheep —have gone global.

Savile Row tailoring

Our continental neighbours might favour a simpler, less structured look and lighter cloths, but, in chillier climes, we prefer something that embraces the contours of our physique and irons out any failings. Like almost every aspect of British life, our tailoring is a tangled knot of nuance: our choice of tailors, lining, cloth and buttons says far more about us than a Linkedin profile ever could. A beautifully cut Huntsman suit—like Colefax & Fowler chintz and Trumper’s Bay Rum—waves the flag far more effectively than any earnest trade delegation could.

Actresses

Dame Helen Mirren’s 2015 Tony for playing The Queen in The Audience (above) on Broadway elevated her to the elite group that can boast acting’s ‘triple crown’ (of an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony). The only other British actresses to achieve the trio are Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith (see Downton Abbey), but the accolade reflects American demand for beautifully spoken English roses, from Vivien Leigh and Julie Andrews to Helena Bonham Carter. Kate Winslet, of whom an American critic wrote ‘Is Winslet the best Englishspeaking film actress of her generation?’ only has the Tony to bag.

Sloane Ranger style

The term might have been coined more than 30 years ago, but the sartorial spirit is alive and well. It’s a look that’s widely emulated: you’re as likely to spot the combination of waxed cotton, brown suede, quilted jacket, moleskin, cashmere, sticky-up collar, brogues, mid-calf skirt, Liberty-print shirt and studied insouciance on the Via Condotti or Boulevard St Germain as on the Fulham Road. Its survival is down to a capacity to swing with the prevailing sartorial mood, be it rock-star chic, hipster cool or the carefully plucked look of the Made in Chelsea generation.

The Bentley

If we’d wanted to swan around in low-slung luxury cars that look more at home at Le Mans than in Leamington Spa, we’d have created our own riposte to the Lamborghini. Instead, we made the Bentley, a direct descendent of the palanquin, which allows its cosseted occupants to step down from big, comfortable seats, unruffled by the vagaries of travel and, in the case of women, with modesty intact. Last year, UK car production was on a high—the third biggest in Europe—and some 85% of Bentleys made were exported; China and the USA, in particular, love them. In fact, we’re good at striking cars all round, giving the world the Mini and Land Rover before anyone else tinkered with them.

Agatha Christie

Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone (1868) is considered to have launched the detective genre and Arthur Conan-doyle’s tortured brainbox, Sherlock Holmes, entered our lives in 1898, but it’s Christie who is synonymous with the country-house murders, vicarage poisonings, cottage psychopaths, nosy spinsters and finicky detectives that people can’t get enough of. The world’s best-selling author—about a billion books translated —sparked our unquenchable demand for (fictional) countryside crime and eccentric detectives: another film adaptation of

Murder on the Orient Express, with Kenneth Branagh following in Albert Finney’s celluloid footsteps (right) as Hercule Poirot (he’s also directing), will be released in November.

The 6 o’clock drink

‘The sun’s over the yardarm somewhere in the world’ has long been a very British excuse (originally at 11am on naval ships in the north Atlantic) for having a noggin/ tipple/tincture/snifter/just a quick one after work. We invented the perfect 6pm drinks, the gin and tonic (taken at 6pm every day, quinine was prescribed to prevent malaria in India and the gin made the bitter flavour of the ‘tonic’ more bearable) and the whisky and soda as well as, legend has it, the notion of gulping alcohol to give us ‘Dutch courage’, when British soldiers steadied their nerves with genever in the Thirty Years’ War. In 2016, British gin exports totalled £474 million and those of single-malt Scotch whisky £4 billion-plus.

Shakespeare

It’s been argued that the world’s most widely read and studied playwright is more appreciated by other cultures (see Michael Billington, page 156). Bollywood turned A Midsummer Night’s Dream into a chaotic Punjabi wedding in one of numerous film adaptations; Nelson Mandela read him in prison; the longest-running modern production of Hamlet (the most adapted play) was in Lithuania; Japan built a replica Globe theatre in Tokyo 10 years before London did; and the Folger Library in Washington DC, USA, has the largest collection of his folios. Most poignant was the 2014 performance of King Lear by children in a refugee camp on the Syrian border.

English

Somehow, one small country has become responsible for the world’s third most common language (after Mandarin and Spanish) and the one that’s most studied by foreigners. The vocabulary is influenced by German, French and Latin—and has besides gathered words from across the globe—but English has easily overtaken them to be the official language of nearly 60 sovereign states, of the United Nations, of sport and, somewhat ironically, of the EU. The less positive aspect is that it’s made us hopeless, lazy linguists, giving us a loutish reputation for barking requests loudly and slowly.

The Queen

In 64 years on the throne, Her Majesty has retained a mystique no modern communication medium can crack. Children everywhere grow up in the knowledge that, somewhere, there is a real queen who wears a crown, travels in a gilded coach, lives in a castle, gives little away and doesn’t post on Facebook. Her capacity to fulfill the role of favourite monarch with such lack of fuss is extraordinary and precious. Long may she reign!

Sport

We’re terribly good at inventing them— cricket, football, rugby, golf, croquet, badminton, lawn tennis (probably lawns, too), to name a few—and now we’re accomplished at taking it on the chin when regularly thrashed at our own games. We’ve just got to take it as a compliment.

Country-house style

We no longer rampage around the world appropriating the cultural treasures of others, but we’re still brilliant at absorbing the ideas of others. This innate ability crystalised in English country-house style: blue-and-white china, chintz and paisley were all artfully repackaged and peddled back around the globe, with the result that you’re as likely to see the distinctive mix in the Hamptons as in the Cotswolds.

Guns and rods

We invented driven shooting—the pioneering 1st Earl of Leicester was reputed to be able to drive birds into his billiard room at Holkham Hall—and remain the most desirable country in which to shoot driven grouse, pheasant or partridge, but what we actually export is fine gun-making. Once gun-making companies had perfected the hammerless, breech-loading side-by-side shotgun in the 1860s, the design couldn’t be bettered—the boxlock and sidelock actions they developed are still used in almost all double guns. Purdey & Sons, Westley Richards, Holland & Holland and Boss & Co still top many game shots’ wish lists and British-made fishing rods and reels— such as those crafted by Hardy in Alnwick, Northumberland, since 1872—are pretty popular abroad, too.

Condiments

It’s been said, rudely, that we invented condiments because our food was so boring. ‘This explains the sauces, the jellies and prepared extracts, the bottled sauces, the chutneys, the ketchups which populate the tables of this unfortunate people,’ wrote Alberto Denti in The Educated Gastronome

(1950). Still, such gastronomic nations as Italy, France, Japan and Switzerland are big importers of life’s necessities—colman’s Mustard and Lea & Perrins’ Worcestershire Sauce—and only a philistine would turn their nose up at horseradish with roast beef or mint sauce with Welsh lamb.

Animal charity

Two years after what is thought to be the first animal-welfare law—relating to cattle welfare and, later, bear-baiting and cockfighting—was passed, a group of men sitting in a London coffee shop in 1824 founded the RSPCA to help pit ponies and cab horses. It helped establish Britain’s reputation as a nation of animal lovers and spawned an imitation society in America. Many more international charities were started by Britons, such as the Born Free Foundation, the RSPB, the Brooke, SPANA, the WWF, Greyhounds in Need and World Horse Welfare. We’d like to think we still lead the world in animal welfare, but it’s a sad indictment that we’re so far in front of many countries (partly because we actually follow established EU laws) and, in terms of agricultural trade, that’s considered to make us uncompetitive.

The English garden

Our Renaissance and earlier gardens shared with our Continental cousins a formal approach to garden design and a fondness for topiary and formality that goes back to the Romans. But, from the early 18th-century, a seismic shift occurred: English gardens moved into a more freespirited realm. The English Landscape Garden (which reached its zenith with Capability Brown) became—and remains—our leading cultural gift to the world. Der Englischer Garten and Le Jardin Anglais are terms everyone on the Continent understood (and many Continental landowners adopted, creating ‘natural’ parks of their own). Later, our enthusiasm for the hundreds of new plant species brought back by 19th-century explorers inspired levels of floral creativity that led to another kind of English garden export: the herbaceous border, epitomised by those at Bramdean House in Hampshire, where summer flowers are amassed in carefully planned scenes of abundance and beauty.

The graceful apology

Far from requiring humility, the ability to apologise requires heaps of self-confidence (viz. Boris Johnson, above). Given the many lapses in our judicial system and colonial past, we need sufficient bluster to apologise for virtually anything, without turning a hair (and sounding as if we mean it). We know that, when you eat humble pie, it’s best not to explain, as demonstrated by Hugh Grant after his infamous trip down Sunset Boulevard in 1995, when he coolly proclaimed on television: ‘You know in life what’s a good thing to do and what’s a bad thing. I did a bad thing and there you have it.’ Enough said.

David Attenborough

His discreet, murmuring tones make everything seem all right with the world, even if his subliminal message is often that, in the natural world, it isn’t. At 91, Sir David remains the ultimate wildlife presenter— who can forget him throwing away the script as he unexpectedly eyeballed a large female gorilla?—one of few people who can truly be described as irreplaceable. His films are made using groundbreaking techniques and infinite patience—in Life on Earth (1979), watched by 500 million people, one cameraman lost days of his life waiting for a frog to spit out the young it was incubating in its mouth. The first Planet Earth (2006) series was sold to 130 countries.

The Jack Russell

The small, sturdy terrier with the big personality has exploded out of its original stronghold in north Devon—where it was bred by the eponymous 19thcentury hunting parson—to take over the world. There are now irrepressible, short-legged brown-and-white dogs taking over households and stable yards and capturing hearts all over Europe, Australasia and North America—two were recently spotted skittering inquisitively over the marble floor of an upmarket delicatessen in Lugano, Switzerland. The Jack Russell finally gained official Kennel Club recognition in 2015.

Real ale

The tavern was a Roman import, even if we developed the pub’s egalitarian atmosphere, and beer—in the generic sense— has its roots in ancient Mesopotamia, but real ale is something that we’ve made our own, concocting it lovingly in casks from malted barley, hops and yeast and refusing to serve it at teeth-shattering temperatures. Cask-conditioned ale is popping up around the USA and the Southern Hemisphere, even though it must be said that warm, hand-pumped real ale is as rare on foreign shores as a man in a linen suit carrying a copy of Wisden.

The English foxhound

This animal, a speedier version of the Gascon hound given by Henry IV of France to James I and thence to the 1st Duke of Beaufort, has been as carefully bred and recorded as any, with bloodlines expanding into North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand as emigrating field sportsmen took packs of hounds with them. In 1650, one Robert Brooke, who had been appointed a member of the Privy Council of Maryland, sailed his hounds across the Atlantic; their descendants were used by George Washington to breed the American foxhound. Hitler banned foxhunting in Germany and the Netherlands followed suit, but, in other countries, this very British tradition continues unfettered by politics.

The time

‘World time starts here’ pronounces the official website for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). In other words, the time of day anywhere in the world relates to British time. GMT (the average time the sun crosses the Greenwich meridian and is at its highest point) was put into practice here in 1847 to avoid chaotic and annoying disparities in train timetables; it was adopted internationally in 1884.

The BBC World Service

When it began, in 1932, George V said it was for ‘men and women, so cut off by the snow, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them’. Terry Waite, taken hostage in Beirut in 1987, said it was what kept him ‘mentally and spiritually alive’ during five years in captivity. The world’s largest service broadcasts, from central London, an eclectic range of subjects in 28 languages, including Pidgin and Punjabi, and is listened to by more than 200 million people a day.

The jigsaw

In 1767, an engraver and mapmaker called John Spilsbury invented the jigsaw. The picture on it was a map of the world and it was used for geography lessons. Puzzles may have once been a gentle pastime for convalescents and families on rainy Sunday afternoons before the invention of the Playstation, but they’re still popular. Unsurprisingly, the virtual jigsaw puzzle, which can be solved on a smartphone, has arrived; online company jigsawpuzzle.co.uk claims to be the biggest supplier in Europe, keeping more than 10,000 designs in stock. Now, who’s got the corner pieces?

Lutyens

Sir Edwin Lutyens’s supernatural ability to distill all that is best about architectural styles, from medieval to mughal, meant that his work travelled well: to Madrid, Saskatchewan, Delhi and beyond, demonstrating that there’s no reason why creativity should be hidebound by tradition or location. Lutyens’s fortunes were inextricably linked to those of COUNTRY LIFE— founder Edward Hudson, Lutyens’s champion-in-chief, commissioned him to design our former offices in Covent Garden.

The historical novel

Sir Walter Scott was coy about Waverley, a love story set in the Jacobite rising, and published it anonymously in 1814. The novel wasn’t considered a serious genre and Scott was nervous of public reaction, but the first edition of what is said to be the first historical novel in English sold out in two days. A disgruntled Jane Austen said he should stick to poetry, writing: ‘Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones.’ Material for authors is infinite, as exemplified by Dame Hilary Mantel’s global domination following two brilliant books on Thomas Cromwell—the TV rights for Wolf Hall have been sold to France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Fin-land, Australia and the USA, among other countries, and Sir Mark Rylance, the mesmerising actor who played him, catapulted to stardom.

The Sixteen

In 1979, Harry Christophers (sixth from

left), a former lay vicar at Westminster Abbey, founded The Sixteen (with 16 friends), and, since then, his ensemble has become a byword for exquisite standards of magically blended, technically dexterous and emotive choral singing. The group has sung all over the world—it performs in a Benedictine abbey by the Danube this week—has made 140-plus recordings, won numerous awards and supports young singers. It not only keeps our liturgical tradition and the works of British composers, from Byrd to Britten, alive overseas, but also through an annual choral pilgrimage of churches and cathedrals at home.

Penicillin

It isn’t only genius and persistence that are required to take a giant leap in the world of science—you also need self-promotion. Penicillin is the revolutionary lifesaver that almost never was. Alexander Fleming (right) was no showman and, initially, his discovery was ignored by his peers. It wasn’t until the Second World War that American scientists discovered a means of mass-producing the drug, dramatically improving survival rates among military casualties.

The skiing holiday

Obviously, we didn’t invent skiing—it’s believed that China beat Scandinavia on that one—but we were the first to get the hang of doing it as a winter holiday, when Johannes Badrutt, owner of the Kulm Hotel in St Moritz, Switzerland, challenged a group of English climbers to return in the winter of 1864, persuading them the valley would be just as beautiful in snow. In 1903, Sir Henry Lunn sold the first ski package holiday, to Adelboden in Switzerland. Even though alpine slopes now echo with Russian and South African accents, and countries from Japan to Bulgaria market skiing trips, the idea of the chalet holiday, in which hearty gap-year girls (and, sometimes, boys) boil eggs, bake cakes and make your bed, has remained peculiarly British.

The internet

What have we done? Without an internet to search, Sergey Brin and Larry Page couldn’t have invented Google, the smartphone wouldn’t have been smart (don’t forget, we invented the real phone as well) and Mark Zuckerberg wouldn’t have had reason to drop out of Harvard to start Facebook. However, Sir Tim Berners-lee, the self-effacing Englishman who created the World Wide Web, isn’t to be found strutting his stuff in Palo Alto or joining the gold rush for driverless technology: he’s engaged in work with the World Wide Web Foundation, which co-ordinates efforts to further his invention’s potential to benefit humanity—beyond Instagram, ordering pizzas and general showing-off.

Bridge

It would be more accurate to say that we started the fashionable amusement of whist (also known as triumph, trump, ruff, slam, ruff and honours, whisk and swabbers), a civilised Society pastime accompanied by polite refreshment that eventually evolved into bridge. The Turks have been credited with actually inventing bridge and it was American Henry Vanderbilt who developed the contract-bridge game we know today.

The stamp

In 1680, William Dockwra and Robert Murray established the London Penny Post, a ‘stamped’, pre-paid mail-delivery system within the City of London. It must have been something of a luxury—when the Penny Black was launched in 1840, it covered delivery anywhere in the British Isles. The idea spread quickly; early adopters included the Swiss canton of Zurich and Brazil; seven years later, the first official American stamps were issued.

Afternoon tea

Anna, Duchess of Bedford, a lifelong friend of Queen Victoria, identified the yawning gap between luncheon and dinner, complaining that it gave her a ‘sinking feeling’. History doesn’t relate whether this was precipitated by hunger or boredom, but her solution was a solitary cup of Darjeeling and a light snack. She invited friends to join her and the phenomenon was born. Cornish clotted cream, an essential ingredient of a satisfying tea and one of our great exports, currently has EU PDO status.

The flushing loo

Elizabethan courtier and poet Sir John Harrington installed the first flushing WC at his house in Kelston, Somerset, but British reluctance to acknowledge the existence of bodily functions meant that it wasn’t until 250 years later—by which stage, Sir Joseph Bazalgette had handily designed London’s sewage system—that Thomas Crapper, the son of a Chelsea plumber, promoted sanitary plumbing as an alternative to chamber pots. He was granted a Royal Warrant in the 1880s, when his firm installed 30 flushing loos for Prince Edward (later Edward VII) at Sandringham. With his imprimatur came huge commercial success—a royal flush, you could say.

The sandwich

Wherever you stand on the originator of the sandwich—some claim it was an ancient Jewish sage, Hillel the Elder—there’s no doubt that John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich did as much for this simple gastronomic innovation as the 1st Duke of Wellington did for waterproof footwear. Juggling his role as First Lord of the Admiralty with womanising and gambling meant the Earl had to multi-task: eating a piece of meat between two slices of bread allowed him to refuel while playing cards and the habit took off.

The train

When the British quelled their fears about high-speed travel, they recognised its infinite possibilities, not only as an opportunity to whistle from Liverpool to Manchester at the breakneck speed of 15 miles an hour, but as a workhorse of the Industrial Revolution. Overseas, railways brought previously inaccessible areas of Africa and India within reach. More than two centuries after George Stephenson designed his first Blucher, in 1814, the principle of gloriously untrammeled travel remains as attractive as ever. Somewhat humiliatingly, however, it tends to work better in other countries.

The Pony Club

It was started in 1929 as a branch of the Institute of the Horse, ‘for the purpose of interesting young people in riding and sport’—good, clean, wholesome fun—the idea being that each hunt had a branch. The annual Pony Club camp, often with cavalry officers as instructors, was a mix of deadly serious preparation for tests and opportunities for larking around unfettered by health and safety. British membership peaked at 43,000 in the early 1980s (it’s now about 30,000) and there are some 15 clubs in Europe, plus more in Dubai, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, several East African countries and Australia, which boasts some 55,000 members.

Boarding schools

We might pride ourselves on creating these academic and sporting powerhouses, but, really, they’re just another example of invention borne out of necessity. Initially established to educate paupers (Eton) and choristers (King’s Rochester), they proliferated in the 19th century as handy repositories for children whose fathers had been posted to the four corners of the Empire. Despite left-wing resentment and the denunciation of those who loathed their schooldays, their renown is spreading like the margarine pupils no longer have to eat; streams of foreign customers are prepared to swap sky-high fees for excellent education. The British public school has gone global: there’s a Harrow in Bangkok, a Haileybury in Kazakhstan, a Marlborough in Malaysia and a Wellington College in Shanghai.

Classy, fast horses

Racing horses is nothing new—the Ancient Greeks enjoyed a day out the chariot races —but it was Henry VIII and Charles I who initiated discerning horse breeding, James I who spotted Newmarket’s potential, Charles II who overturned Oliver Cromwell’s joyless ban on the sport and Queen Anne who thought Ascot Heath suitable for a racecourse. Of course, the UK bloodstock industry now faces stiff competition, yet its legacy is astounding: DNA from the Darley Arabian, one of three foundation Thoroughbred sires imported in the 18th century, can be found in 95% of racehorses today via the undefeated Eclipse (painted by Stubbs, left); the Grand National is watched by more than 600 million people; and 14 million-plus guineas, mainly from Qatari or Luxembourg, covered the three top lots alone at Tattersalls’s Craven Breeze Up sale in April.

The toothbrush

This simple yet essential item was created by a convict. William Addis, a rag trader, was in jail in the 1770s when, to relieve the tedium—and, presumably, the revoltingness of his fellow prisoners’ breath—he saved a bone from a meal and wove bristles through it. On his release, he set up what became Wisdom Toothbrushes Ltd; the company, which remained in his family until 1996, is the UK’S largest toothbrush manufacturer and exports about one-third of its products.

The white wedding

Wedding dresses could be red, blue, yellow or even black before Queen Victoria precipitated an almost overnight change, following her marriage to Prince Albert on February 10, 1840 (right). The new nuptial fashion wasn’t only about looking demure—before the advent of dry cleaning, high-maintenance colours such as white were a status symbol, indicating that you could afford to pay someone to scrub them.

The Scout movement

This year, representatives of the world’s scouting fraternity will descend on Baku in Azerbaijan for the 41st World Scout Conference. The movement was a global phenomenon from the word go; within months of Robert Badenpowell penning Scouting for

Boys in 1908 (sales of 150 million to date), troops spread around the world like wildfire—or perhaps that should be campfire.

The lawnmower

As the cradle of cricket, tennis parties and the fête, it was only natural that we should create a machine to produce carpet-like green swards on which every blade of grass is trimmed to within an inch of its life and every unfortunate daisy done away with. However, it was the Americans who really ran with the idea—or, rather, sat on it: they created the hybrid with a tractor on which you can rest your posterior while enjoying a beer from the thoughtfully positioned drinks holder. Until 1847, chocolate was only consumed in liquid form. Then, J. S. Fry & Sons decided to mix cocoa powder with cocoa butter and sugar and the rest is history. Apart from the very expensive Swiss or Belgian stuff, nobody does it better than us, still.

Jeeves

The French invented the butler, the Americans modernised him and the Swiss claim to have the best ones, but the image of the butler as an unruffled, if slightly smug, PA who always knows the answer and smoothly extracts his hapless employer from scrapes is down to P. G. Wodehouse’s creation. Why else would an international problem-solving website be known as Ask Jeeves?

The bar of chocolate

Tweed

You’d think that tweed, which was originally intended to protect crofters against inclement Highland weather, might be a tad warm for Mediterranean climes, however, not only did Coco Chanel, who had borrowed a jacket from her admirer, the Duke of Westminster, realise its potential for chic, but less hairy versions are proving extremely popular with aristocratic Southern Europeans, the sort of people who, annoyingly, never seem to perspire. Only this spring, Harris Tweed Hebrides, which exports two-thirds of its products into 66 countries, has announced plans to expand into Spain, where the elegant King has been a great advertisement for the material.

The Beatles

It’s a strange phenomenon that, wherever you are in the world, the music blaring from the taxi radio will have English lyrics. The Fab Four were a firm fixture in Hamburg’s Indra and Kaiserkeller clubs long before they appeared at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, their reach unhindered by the fact that the lyrics to Love Me Do and She

Loves You would have been lost on many of the fans flocking to gigs in Tokyo and the Philippines (where the lads caused a furore by snubbing Imelda Marcos). With record sales of 600 million, they became the first rock band to achieve worldwide appeal. Their secret? Doing what the British do so well: artfully absorbing influences from other cultures.

The department store

As a nation of shopkeepers, it’s perhaps inevitable that we should have given birth to what is believed to be the world’s first department store: Bennetts, a institution in Derby that opened its doors in 1734 and which still trades today. With the Industrial Revolution, bazaars and department stores became a way of life. And when we aren’t filling our baskets, we like nothing better than to indulge our retail fantasies on television, from Are You Being Served? to Open All Hours.