Edwin Pottle - The Writing Drone: County flags

When I was at school in the 1960s, we had a large printed poster on the classroom wall. The poster was entitled Flags of the World.

There were the local ones, the Commonwealth (the pink bits), Europe and worldwide. A strange way to classify things, but probably just as good as alphabetical.

Even at that early age, I got the idea in my head that people liked to have some common symbol of belonging and this was true both for civilians and the military.

I was educated in an ancient establishment in Kent. Occasionally we would go to watch the county cricket matches in Canterbury. This was probably the only time that I saw the Kent county flag, or Invicta as it was known.

Well, I've clearly been on a different planet for the last 45 years. In Lincoln this week I noticed county flags on shops and other buildings too. Rows of them. The same must be true in other counties too - I'll be looking now.

I had assumed that there must have been a national strategy that followed the resurgance of regional identity. For example, through heritage trails, those awful brown road signs and perhaps county councils wanting to increase car parking revenue.

Not a bit of it. I've found to my horror that some of the county flags were developed following some sort of missionary zeal in local radio stations. It seems that the BBC featured too.

It gets worse. It appears that the scourge of the highway, the caravan fraternity feel let down if they haven't a local flag to hoist at rallies. Poor souls.

So I've looked into this a bit more. I've found a company that sells county flags and displays the whole range. There are some real horrors. Here's my list of the tackiest.

3rd is Derbyshire