"You," my great-aunt Margaret said to me, her eyes burning with self-righteous indignation, "are the reason your children will not live."Pause. "Ah."

By "you," she meant "America," actually. And although I may not be fully British by Aunt Margaret's standards anymore, I hadn't yet had to face the task of representing the whole of the United States.

"Why is that?" I asked, as evenly as possible.

"Because you are single-handedly responsible for the destruction of the environment."

Pause. "Ah."

I've often thought that British people are a bit more pessimistic than Americans. The majority of us Brits may not quite match up to Aunt Margaret's end-of-the-world-and-your-future-children glumness, but I think we are, on the whole, a bit less perky than our American counterparts.

The London bombings brought that home to me especially.
I was in Boston on Sept. 11, 2001 and arrived in London shortly after July 7, 2005, and so I had the advantage of being able to compare the two countries and the way they dealt with their respective horrific acts of terror.

The United States seemed to respond to the World Trade Center attacks with energy and determination. Let's clear up this mess; let's build a new tower; let's bomb Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, whatever; let's do whatever we have to do to show this is not going to get the better of us.

When London was attacked, however, the British public could not have been less excited. Eyewitness reports from the time talk of people quietly, despondently, obeying the orders of security officials, standing in lines or behind ribbons until they were told to do something else. Resoundingly the public sighed: Well, it was bound to happen eventually. Best just carry on as usual.

A look at the last few decades might help explain why Britain and her former colony came to have such vastly different personalities.
Many Americans find it difficult to understand quite how much the Second World War still lives in the British mentality. I remember as a schoolgirl being made to sit in a simulated bomb shelter to have the experience of an air raid; now and then we would have days where everyone in our school would dress up in clothes from that era, made to carry our pretend gasmasks with us everywhere we went.

Constantly in the British mind is the knowledge that once so much of our city, our beautiful city, lay in ruins; that for years upon years Londoners would arise from shelters and find their homes destroyed. Or, like my great-grandfather who went to work one day and found that his tea shop was the only building left standing on his street, city dwellers would have to ask themselves daily why it was that they were spared.

Then London suffered attacks from the IRA, which, although minor compared to World War II, still left a sore impression on the British mind. For more than sixty years London had the knowledge forced upon her that no matter how much we rebuilt, no matter how prosperous we managed to be, we were never safe from the horrible bombs.

This realization has never stopped wearing on the city. And though half a century has passed since Hitler first ordered his planes in the direction of our island, the gloom that accompanies constant attack has never really left us.

There are reports that on July 7 passengers on one underground train were instructed by a security guard not to leave their carriage, because there was a live wire between them and the platform. Well-drilled for fifty years in the necessity of wartime practicality, the passengers talked amongst themselves and decided to stay in the train until it was safe for them to leave.

Would Americans have done the same? Or would they, in all their energy and optimism, have rushed out of the train, looking for the fastest way out? And as a result, would they, perhaps, have found their death?
I love America for its buoyancy. Its heady, exhilarating ambition is the reason that I am here and not in England. But, when the bombs start falling, there's nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned stiff upper lip.