Two points,

(1) Yes, the Watersons have Irish and Gypsy forbears.

This is from the "Norma" page at the official Waterson:Carthy website:

"Both sides of Norma's family were musical and almost all of her extended family were accomplished musicians. Partly of Irish gipsy descent, like thousands of others they came to folk song through an early interest in jazz and skiffle."

I have, by the way, spoken extensively with Martin for an in-depth cover story profile I did on him about ten years ago, and spoken less extensively with both Norma and Eliza. Such details tend to come out more in directed interviews of that sort than in the more natural, friendly contact many of you have probably had with the family.

However, they have never really hidden their Gypsy ancestry; the last time I saw the Watersons (as opposed to Waterson:Carthy), in the early 1990s, they referred to it in their stage patter, and I believe it's even referred to in the 1965 film about them, called "Traveling for a Living."

(2) Diane, I wasn't in my last post referring to your remarks about Sid James specifically, but to your later post, in which you referred to the 1290 expulsion and said:

I still think referring to the 1290 expulsion as evidence of anything about modern England is off-base. If nothing else, England has evolved considerably since then! So, the English aristocracy in 1290 didn't consider the Jews to be English...most of them were native speakers of Norman French. Many modern English people wouldn't consider THEM English!

You also said: "While representatives of such backgrounds [i.e. Irish and Jewish] may live in in 'enlightened' England today and play an equal part in a diverse culture, they are not ethnically English, nor are they representative of English culture although they may contribute to it. This is a lazy description of a 'white' resident who may, rightly, feel insulted at being lumped in with the oppressor, and is a clear hangover of imperialism."

I suspect from this remark that you are more familiar with the case of the Irish in England (who may indeed consider themselves not to be English) than with English Jews. And I did say I didn't think you were intending to be anti-Semitic, because I saw from the above that you fear that English Jews may resent being considered English and you wish to respect that. I appreciate that impulse, but I don't think it's necessary.

The historical circumstances that led to Irish people and Jewish people coming to England were very different. Irish people went there, by and large, because they were already colonized, and thus could be used as an economic underclass within a colonial system. This led to a set of attitudes about England, to which you refer above.

The medieval Jews went to England for economic opportunity at a time when all of Europe was hostile to them, so one place was the same as any other. But the 19th and 20th Century Jewish immigrants went there because England was a relatively welcoming place where they had equal rights under civil law, and although they suffered some anti-semitism there (as they would anywhere) it was very mild compared to most other places. In other words, they felt (relatively) welcome, were able to assimilate rapidly, and now feel quite happy to be a subset of "English," just as most American Jews feel thoroughly "American."   

I have a large Jewish family in England, on both sides, and I can tell you that they consider themselves to be English, and consider their artistic endeavors to be part of English culture. In fact, as I said, they'd be insulted to be considered "non-English." (Sometimes, they take their Englishness TOO seriously. I still remember the outrage when I considered a year abroad at Oxford. My late cousin, who was of my grandfather's generation, thoroughly English, and in fact a Barrister who reminded everyone of Rumpole, told me quite seriously, "our family has always gone to Cambridge!" The American side of the family got a good laugh at how pretentious it sounded.)

By the way, I don't know if anyone here has seen Mike Leigh's play "Five Thousand Years," but it's about the confusion a Jewish family from London feels when one of their children actually begins to observe the Jewish religion. He is considered almost insane by the rest of the family, who are thoroughly assimilated middle-class English people who happen also to be Jewish.