There was fish and chips at the seaside... Saturday afternoons on the terraces... Yorkshire puddings... cinemas which still had usherettes... our sense of humour. But today the British bulldog sprit has been tamed. Our pubs have turned into bars, football has become a billionaire's plaything and our seaside resorts have been washed out. Even London's traditional red buses have been taken off the road.

Given both the dire financial climate and the appalling summer, it's little surprise that according to a recent World Values survey almost half of us – 49 per cent – would prefer to live somewhere else.

But are things really that bad or were those questioned just displaying another traditional British characteristic – the ability to moan. About everything. "It upsets me when I hear people who've never moved abroad running it down and not being proud of what they've got," says Sue John, who founded a website for ex-pats when they moved from England to North Carolina 10 years ago.

"Many Americans I meet love Britain. They think it's great – it's got a monarchy and so much history. So I'm very proud to be British and I always will be."

Cynics will of course point out that it's much easier to fly the flag at a safe distance and the accusations of rip-off Britain are certainly getting louder.

"Some move abroad because they've fallen in love, others like myself go for the adventure, but there are those who emigrate because they're fed up with life in Britain," says John, whose website www.britishexpats.co.uk is a one stop shop for those thinking about packing up. "However, once you're settled in another country and begin the humdrum life where you go to work, your kids go to school, you pay your mortgage and you do your housework, but you've got no family support around you, you'll think what am I doing this for?

"People moan about the NHS so much and don't realise how lucky they are to have it when so many countries don't. Yes, it may have it's problems and needs to be fixed. However, when you have a health issue and you don't have to worry about the costs, it makes such a difference.

"The grass isn't always greener – people think if they move abroad their problems will disappear and they don't."

The problems may be the same, but surely a little sunshine helps smooth the way? Not according to Iain Aitch, author of We're British, Innit. "One of the great things about this country is that we have weather," he says. "You go to somewhere like southern California and you have one type of weather and that's it, you're just waiting for an earthquake for a bit of excitement. But here we have all the different types – usually in one day so you can experience it all."

A champion for the quality of tea we drink to the survival of tinned tomatoes in a bed and breakfast fry ups, Aitch has also called for citizenship tests to be changed to better reflect society.

"It just doesn't celebrate what being British means," he says. "There's questions about ancient battles which even British-born and bred locals would struggle to answer. Instead we should be asking about mushy peas, bowler hats and gin and tonic.

"We are a nation who likes to take our own tea and marmalade abroad, we have an immovable sense of fair play and the ability to screech 'coo-eee' at the top of our lungs. All of those things we should be proud of.

"Politician Michael Fabricant recently found himself stopped by armed soldiers in Colombia who were suspicious about the packet of white powder he was carrying. Of course it wasn't cocaine, it was Coffee Mate and is the kind of encounter only a British Tory MP could find himself in.

"My own theory is all the gloomy commuters staring blankly out of trains are buses are actually incredibly happy.

"We like to moan but that's one of our national characteristics – that's what we like to do. We pretend we're having a bad time but we love this country, and we will be positive about it given the chance."