TODAY, 23rd April, is St George’s Day.

There’s nothing more English than St George’s day in Salisbury – with its Morris men, Mummers Plays and traditional entertainment, all celebrating our Englishness. However, St George, our patron saint, would fall baldy foul of today’s immigration and asylum tests, wouldn’t make it past airport immigration and would find himself summarily repatriated back to the middle-east whence he came. He’s an imposter!

Although the real St George is shrouded in historical mist, most scholars are agree that he was a Roman soldier, born in what is now Syria, to Greek, Christian parents. When the Emperor Diocletian demanded that all his soldiers should make a sacrifice to the Roman gods, George refused and was tortured and beheaded. Legend also has it that his death so inspired the Empress Alexandra, that she converted and subsequently shared his fate.

The dragon entered the story by accident. With little appreciation of Orthodox symbolism the Crusaders, who were not known for their cultural sensitivity, misunderstood the imagery portrayed in the many illustrations of the life of St George. They were gripped by the images of him overcoming evil through martyrdom represented by his slaying a mythical dragon with the young Empress Alexandra looking on and romanticised the story.

By the 14th century George had been adopted as England’s Patron Saint, a protector of the Royal Family and stories about his valour slaying dragons and rescuing innocent maidens become embedded in popular culture over the ensuing centuries.

I think there is something quite appropriate about our patron saint being a foreign soldier whose adoption came about through cultural misunderstanding and insensitivity. But however shadowy the route by which he came to our shores, England is now very much his home.

I am sure he would be smiling at the controversy that has surrounded our Salisbury celebrations this year – the threatened ban in the Market Square of England’s most popular dish – curry – because it wasn’t English enough!

It’s perhaps even more ironic that the controversy should surface here in Salisbury. Local archaeology shows that over the centuries, that Old Sarum became home to a series of tribes, cultures and invading peoples. They all decided (like many of us since) that Salisbury was a good place to live and made it their home.

St George and curry probably sum up what it is to be English. Both have their roots in other cultures; both have been adopted by us and transformed into something quite distinctive and different from their antecedents.

English culture has always been enriched and enlivened by influences and people from other shores. It’s what makes us distinctive and many of the things that we take for granted as essentially English, like St George, have arrived here, usually amidst some controversy from other countries and other cultures. Something to celebrate on Sunday!