The British don’t expect to be happy. On this small boot-shaped island miserableness is patriotic. The British are proudly miserable. In the depths of winter misery is a crackling fire in the pit of one’s gut. It’s the only way to survive. I thought digging out the scarves and gloves, plugging gaps under doors, double glazing windows, bleeding the radiators, test running the boiler, was preparing for winter but these remedies are cosmetic. The secret to preparing for winter in Britain is allowing the malaise to gently ebb into misery and letting it burn.
The mistake I made when I arrived in Britain was assuming the British would be slightly more used to Britain than someone who’d just arrived. It was a logical assumption to make that a person born and bred here would find the weather for instance a part of life. But no, the British are just as astonished at how vile the weather can be as someone fresh off the plane. No one gets used to it. The weather is actually moderate comparatively to other countries, never too hot, never too cold. But it’s the blinding sunshine that can come out of nowhere just as you pack away your sunglasses and step out in your thermals. The wind that can turn your brolly into a tangle of wires clinging to the rim of a bin like a massive spider resisting capture. The rain that never really gets going, just drizzle that murmurs in the background of every scene. The grey that pours into every crack. The damp that trickles into your bones and settles like a muddy puddle. Every winter the British are appalled at the dreariness of their surroundings and the degree of their ensuing misery but the thing is they don’t try and fight it.
The British embrace all forms of sickness too. They have a word that means sick but not sick. Poorly. Poorly usually lasts about 24 hours. Very rarely are you asked to elaborate on poorly. If in some strange circumstance you are asked to elaborate, poorly is a dodgy tandoori. It’s your entitlement as a citizen to feel poorly a few times a year. You just have to say the word and everyone files into line brows heavy with sympathy in silent compliance with a contract they must have agreed among themselves centuries ago. The winter is unpredictable and some days the sky feels so low you need to accept its weight and declare yourself poorly. A Londoner said to me one day with his face mushy with misery ‘poorly means blah’ trying to help me understand. I kind of got it. Blah is not an excuse for absence at work but poorly is.
Poorly often means a potential cold but so does coldy. Sore legs, aching bones might indeed be coldy but its best described as poorly, until the nose starts running. Poorly means I’m not quite right in myself. Whatever that quite means. It can mean ‘I want to be alone’ but of course this is too confrontational so poorly is a gentle retreat avoiding offence. It can be mental, physical or spiritual. It can be fatigue. Its power lies in its ability to engender sympathy without having to elaborate. Serious enough to cancel, not serious enough to go to the doctor. Bad enough to stay home, not bad enough to lie in bed all day. Could get worse probably won’t.
Poorly can mean indisposed which can mean anything at all but probably means can’t be bothered. Poorly can mean out of sorts which can mean anything and suggests you are usually in sorts whatever sorts are. Poorly can mean not up to par. Poorly can mean peaky, liverish, queasy, nauseous, off colour, under the weather, not up to snuff and crook. Poorly can mean funny, peculiar, crummy, lousy and rough. It can mean ropy and grotty, vulgar, queer and seedy. It describes every glorious colour in the rainbow of feeling like shit. It’s the perfect British adjective because it justifies a period of introspection impenetrable to outside enquiry. It’s a cave to wait out the thick internal fog of repression and usually, most of the time, nearly always an excuse to do nothing.
Oddly, very poorly is a completely different matter all-together. By placing very before poorly you’ve turned an ambiguous disposition into a life threatening situation. There is no confusion with very poorly. Call an ambulance. It means sick and probably dying.
I saw a TV show about ambulance drivers in Birmingham and when they described one of the many old ladies they found in a heap at the bottom of the stairs as very poorly I knew very poorly was a serious matter indeed. When I saw a man with oxygen strapped to his mouth described as very poorly, shortly after he rated his pain 11 out of 10 I knew the prefix of very took poorly to a red alert. Just by adding very to poorly.
Poorly meant not so good once upon a time. It’s a very old word that experienced resurgence in the late 20th century post WW2 which coincides with social change and an increase in options for British people including the right to be poorly. It coincides with film and television selling aspiration. It coincides with the science of psychiatry pathologising unhappiness and prescribing pills to treat it. The expectation to be happy is now so powerful you are prescribed drugs if you fall anywhere between miserable and happy. Americans love a pill. The British could inject a packet and still feel miserable because in Britain it’s not a condition, it’s human right.