Last updated 05:37, Friday, 05 September 2008

Never mind the daffodils, what about the pies? Surely there’s more to Cumbria than a soppy old poem about nodding spring flowers.

There is, of course – as there was always bound to have been. But sometimes you wouldn’t know it. According to Country Life magazine’s England County Guide, we’re all about daffs and very little else here.

Daffodils, it says, define the very essence of what makes a Cumbrian – along with a smattering of sticky toffee pudding to keep us sweet and guest appearances from Mrs Tiggywinkle when we’re feeling spiky. All a bit depressing, really.

Not that we’re supposed to get depressed, of course. An entirely separate study of the county’s merits and idiosyncrasies has put Cumbrians – most specifically those living in Carlisle and Allerdale – among the happiest in Britain. Right up there in the top 10 per cent of cheerios, we are.

All chirpy and smiley and uncomplaining. Laughing more heartily than Liverpudlians, in spite of Ken Dodd. Grinning from ear to ear. Unconcerned with the woes of the world. At least until some survey likens us to blessed bobbing daffodils again. Then we might be tempted to bristle... with reason.

Surveys – don’t you just hate them? Big lives boiled down to a couple of lines in a published report, all too often commissioned from researchers who have never visited the places they sum up as bunches of daffies, a Yorkshire pudding or a Cornish pasty.

As a Yorkshire lass, I’ll admit to being a bit pudding-like but as an adoptee of Cumbria, I can’t honestly say I warm easily to survey stereotypes of the Welsh national flower, a poet unhealthily close to his sister or a hedgehog... know what I mean? Stereotypes make me stereotypically uncomfortable. They’re offensive and misleading.

As an example, before setting up home and bedding down in Cumbria, I held a disturbingly worrying notion that men here spent weekends ambling around the fells in their thermal undies, looking for hugs with blokes similarly garbed in long johns.

Though more interesting than daffodils, it wasn’t the prettiest image of Cumbrian life – but what could a lass from Dewsbury know of Cumberland Wrestling?

The actuality was entirely different. In fact, not since I came here have I had occasion to encounter a man in his thermals – which may or may not need factoring into the happiness survey. But perhaps that’s another quandary altogether.

Happiness is subjective and never easily defined. At its purest and most joyful, it’s a fleeting thing, while in Edinburgh – according to the survey – it’s nonexistent.

How they must be feeling in that elegant Scottish city is anybody’s guess. They’ve been put at the bottom of the sunny, smiley, reasons to be cheerful league table. They’re the most miserable people in the whole of Great Britain – which must surely be hard.

Having only known one chap from Edinburgh well enough to make an informed judgement, I suppose I would have to describe him as never happier than when he’s tormented by his self-inflicted misfortune – which is pretty much all the time.

“Good Morning, Alan!”

“Is it?”

“How are you?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Up to much today?”

“Updating my CV. I hate this place.”

So far as I know he’s still in that place. Nowhere else could guarantee such consistently satisfying unhappiness, nor offer opportunity to glower across an office at the one he calls: “The woman who ruined my life!” His ex-wife. Keeping her close safeguards and secures his happy misery.

But not all Edinburghians can be like him. I refuse to believe it. Just as I refuse to believe all people in Carlisle are in a perpetual state of grinning, simpering, happiness, exchanging only pleasantries with all and sundry, whatever difficulties threaten to blight otherwise perfect lives.

They do say that anybody who is unnervingly happy too much of the time probably doesn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. Well, surveys can say what they like about Cumbrians but if there’s one thing north countrymen know when they see one, it’s a serious situation – on which every one of them will have no end of views. All of them voiced loudly and with the force of a Reiver’s war cry.

Maybe that’s the essence of being a Cumbrian – strength of opinion, self-sufficiency and having nothing to do with fancy ideas that cost a lot and promise little. Or maybe it really is the long johns that shape the character.

Whichever – the Cumbrians I’ve come to know are far cries from daffodils and hedgehogs. Strong, kind, funny, cheery, generous, opinionated, awkward; with a love of the landscapes, ale, roast dinners and pies able to promote and prolong happiness.

That’s more like it. Still a stereotype – but one for all seasons.