Making sense of the Census!

"How many children did you say you had?"

I've filled my census form in. Fairly simple questions. However, I still think they've missed a trick. The religion question is far too vague. I put down "Christian" but they will have no clue as to what kind. I could be a backslider par excellence or a very devout churchgoer. No denominations mentioned other than a helpful suggestion that being Roman Catholic, Church of England, etc does constitute being Christian! If this is being used "to help plan and fund services for your community - services like transport, education and health" I would have thought knowing more about religious backgrounds would make sense. How many Anglicans want to start academies? Not sure, because we don't know how many there are. The health questions are vague too. Whilst prurience is to be abhorred here, a few more simple questions might help. And was I asked when I last went on a train, plain, boat or whatever? How can the census help out East Coast Mainline or Heathrow Airport?

Box 17 was "intentionally left blank". What for? Space on the page? Just to make us think? Which is what I did at Box 18. What is you main language? the form asked. If you say English then Box 19 has no relevance. But surely not all in Britain can say they speak English "very well"? I think we should have filled in Box 19 so the census compilers would get a better sense of how the English language is doing in England!

With all those questions and boxes I had visions of Michael Miles!

Posted in: census,National Register,statistics