Thanks to the diamond jubilee and the Olympics, there is much to celebrate about being British this year. But just how patriotic are we? Diana Pilkington reports

THE big jubilee weekend may be done and dusted, but much of the Union flag bunting that was strewn across the country in celebration is still fluttering in the breeze.

The Olympic torch was proudly paraded through the region last week and, with the Olympics getting under way next month, an overt display of national pride – not the most familiar sight in Britain – could be on course to last the summer.

According to a survey by sponsor British Airways, 38 per cent of Britons admit to feeling more patriotic since the Olympic torch landed on our soil, and more than 40 per cent have juggled their holiday plans to stay at home and watch the Games.

Former Olympic rower Sir Matthew Pinsent, who won his first Olympic gold medal at Barcelona in 1992, has seen our national pride soar since he first dipped an oar in the water.

“In the past two decades, there’s been a complete sea change in the way we think about our sport,” he says. “When I started my career, the default British position was ‘We’re not going to win’.

“We were madly in love with the underdog and would half support people, but then back them to lose in the semi-final. But throughout the 1990s and onwards, some really important things happened. Winning the Ashes and the Rugby World Cup has been significant, we’ve had consistent success in Formula One, Andy Murray seems capable of winning a Grand Slam, and we’ve had Olympic teams who have done really well time after time.

“We’ve gone from 36th on the medals table in 1996 to fourth place in 2008, so I think now the default position is not that we expect to lose, but that we take a great pride in people who do really well and we expect them to do well. We don’t necessarily expect them to win in the same way the Australians do, but there’s been a huge change.”

For Sir Matthew, who considers himself to be “massively” patriotic, getting the chance to compete for his country has always been one of his biggest spurs.

“First and foremost, you do it for yourself, and then probably for your crew-mates. But to have Great Britain on your vest is really significant.

There’s a reason they play the national anthem after you win the gold medal. That moment is life-changing.”

ALTHOUGH the four-times Olympic gold winner has never competed at home, he reckons being on home soil will make a big difference to the overall performance of the British team.

Not only do the familiar climate, food and facilities afford an advantage, but the competitors have the psychological benefit of having the crowd on their side – although Sir Matthew warns this can be also be a hindrance.

“The vast majority of athletes will be thinking, ‘This is my chance. I couldn’t ask for anything better than this – a home crowd and a home venue’. They should feel relaxed by it and just revel in it.

“But a small number will feel more pressure.

The household names, like Chris Hoy, Jessica Ennis, Victoria Pendleton and Tom Daley will be under a huge amount of pressure. But it doesn’t worry me because they’re used to having the national expectation on them. The really professional people try and bleed the emotion out of it as best they can.”

Although our athletes will no doubt be greeted by a sea of union flags and deafening roars if they take to the winner’s podium, social anthropologist Kate Fox says this overtly patriotic response is peculiar to the world of sport.

And, for the English in particular, major sporting events like the Olympics give this usually reserved nation an excuse to shed their inhibitions.

“Up to 80 per cent of us feel proud to be British at least some of the time,”

says Ms Fox. “But we’re normally a bit too inhibited, squeamishly embarrassed, or cynical to make a big gushy US-style flag-waving fuss about it, except when it comes to sport.

“Big sporting events such as the 2012 Games in London provide an antidote to our chronic inhibition and social handicaps. These events give us a temporary remission from our cynical Eeyore- ishness.

“But also I think both the Olympics and the diamond jubilee are like tribal festivals. They are periods of what anthropologists call ‘cultural remission’, where some of the usual social norms and rules, such as the unwritten rule which says overt demonstrative patriotism is frowned upon, are temporarily suspended.

“We behave in ways we wouldn’t normally behave, such as dancing in the streets, waving flags, cheering and indulging in other wildly disinhibited acts – even talking to strangers.”

ADD to this the communal energy, known as “collective effervescence”, that crowds experience when they clap and cheer together, and you get a temporarily unified group of people.

According to Ms Fox, both playing and watching sport is a way of tricking ourselves into social bonding. “I don’t think it’s an accident that nearly all of the most popular sports and games in the world originated in England. We either invented them or were the first to set down a set of official rules for them, even skiing.

“Games and sports are so important to us because, in my view, they’re a means to an end – the end being the sociable interaction and bonding that other cultures seem to achieve without all this fuss.”

Despite the excitement about the forthcoming Games, there has also been negative talk, with thousands grumbling over their failure to get tickets. Ironically, though, this could be seen as another positive effect of the Olympics.

“Moaning is probably the primary form of social bonding in this country, way ahead of sport,’’ says Ms Fox. “While some of us will be united by excitement over the Olympics, most of us are enjoying bonding over a good moan about it.

“If you whinge it gives you something in common with the person whingeing with you. So one way or another we’ll all enjoy it.”