Who really cares

IT IS typical of the Scots. Here I am, trying to write a piece about St George's Day (sorry, when's that? I hear you ask) and all my Scottish colleague can do is start telling me about St Andrew. "He became Patron Saint of Scotland after the Battle of Bannockburn," she tells me with a triumphant smile, as if to rub it in that this was a battle that, yes, we lost.

Thank you Maxine. It's not quite the start I'm looking for when I begin my researches into St George's Day, but I soon found it's pretty much par for the course.

Ask a Scotsman, Irishman or Welshman about their patron saint and the odds are they will give you chapter and verse - along with an exaggerated story about what they did on the last St Andrew's, St Patrick's or St David's Day. Ask an Englishman about St George and you will probably get a look of ever-so-polite puzzlement. "Didn't he slay the dragon?" they will probably ask - always using that odd word slay, not kill, as though it's something they vaguely remember from some long-ago primary school lesson.

"Excuse me, do you know when St George's Day is?" I ask, pouncing upon poor Sid Dunhill as the 59-year-old from Haxby is harmlessly going about his business in York City Centre.

"Isn't it April 23?" he ventures, anxiously. Spot on, I reassure him. Do you know much about him? "I know he is our patron saint and we have the George Cross, which is the main part of the union flag. But I know very little about St George himself."

Perhaps Mary Frost will do better. She is peering innocently in to a shop window when I pounce.

"Isn't it on Monday?" she asks, scrutinising my face to see whether she has got the answer right in the manner of a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Yes, I assure her. Do you know who he was?

"I know he is the patron saint of England and slayed the dragon. I know he symbolises good against evil, but not much more than that."

Well, OK, that's already more than I knew before I embarked upon my research (I didn't know about the good and evil bit). But really, it's not that brilliant for a nation that prides itself on its national identity, its royal family and its unique currency, is it? Why are we all so modest when it comes to boasting about St George, by George?

It takes a mere stripling of 30 to really take up arms in defence of our national saint.

Jason Bonarius knows which day is St George's day, he knows George slayed the dragon, and he even knows it happened quite some time ago: "Say about the 12th century, before the crusades." He's only out by about 900 years, but it's a gutsy attempt. More importantly, he's willing to take up cudgels in defence of the saint and of patriotism.

"I am very patriotic," Jason, from Tang Hall, says. "The Irish always celebrate St Patrick's Day, so why shouldn't we celebrate St George's Day? I will be wearing the flag of St George on my back."

Quite why most of us - Jason excepted - insist on ignoring poor St George so much is a bit of a mystery. It may possibly have something to do with the fact that he wasn't actually an Englishman - and probably never even set foot in this green and pleasant land, come to that.

We are not even the only nation that claims him as our patron saint - we share that honour with Portugal, apparently, or so the ever-reliable Scouting Resources website informs me.

The truth is probably that not much is really known about St George. We have the Acta Santii Georgii (the Acts of St George) to blame for that, apparently (so one learned website insists) - or rather Pope Gelasius, who outlawed the Acts in 496 AD. Very inconsiderate of him.

From what little we do know it seems that St George may have been an officer in the Roman army during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian (245 - 313 AD).

Diocletian, so the story goes, had a bit of a downer on Christians, and would insist on putting them to death.

George, who held the rank of tribune (something like our present day colonel) complained personally to the emperor about the dreadful purges - and was tortured and then beheaded for his trouble. Presumably the legends about the dragon - which he slew to protect the daughter of the King of Libya, according to one story - grew up in the years after his martyrdom. Whatever, it seems likely we have the crusades to thank for St George becoming our patron saint. English crusaders first heard about him in the holy land, and were so inspired that carried the story home to England, says the Scouting Resources website.

He was officially adopted as England's patron saint in about 1348, during the reign of Edward III, when that king founded the Order of the Garter and placed it under George's patronage.

St George may have been a foreigner, and he may never even have heard of England, but that is no reason not to celebrate him and his day, says Syd Heppell, Yorkshireman and Englishman to his core and founder member of the Voluntary Association of Guides to the City of York.

Other countries have their own national days, he points out, and it is only right that there should be a day on which we celebrate Englishness.

"We don't necessarily have to call it St George's Day, we could just call it English day," he says.

"But we have this heritage and this history and I think we should celebrate it."

Richard Seed, the Archdeacon of York, says St George, who represents the triumph of good over evil, is still relevant today.

St George's Day is also important as a day around which the nation can unite, he says - and he will be remembered in church services up and down the land on his big day.

"I think it is important for a nation to have some sort of identity and feel proud and that's where a patron's festival comes in," says Archdeacon Seed.

Ironically, though, if we are really going to remember the saint who once stood up against the might of Rome in defence of persecuted Christianity, and the red cross which bears his name, it will be because of the new religion which took hold here and in much of the rest of the world during the 20th century - football.

The England football team's new strip, York City FC captain Steve Agnew points out proudly, has a red stripe down the shirt which recalls the cross of St George.

And he's quite confident that when City travel to Cardiff tomorrow chasing more points to take them further away from the league basement, there will be a few flags of St George waving in the stands to counter the legions of Welsh dragons.

Hopefully, St George will slay the dragon one more time.

Updated: 10:55 Thursday, April 19, 2001