Here, in the eye of an edgy urban housing scheme in the heart of England, the talk is of Scotland and separation and the glue that holds a kingdom together. The Claremont in Manchester's maligned Moss Side describes itself as a community pub (ideal for funerals and christenings) and soon I am buying raffle tickets for a local charity and hoping my purple Scottish notes will pass unremarked. A cheer resounds from a group of men watching football on the television, for this is Manchester City territory and the Blues have taken an early lead. In the smoking shelter, heated and garlanded with hanging baskets, bales of angry razorwire atop the outside wall hint at the civil strife that sporadically brings Moss Side to national attention.

Gerry, a veteran builder from nearby Stoke-on-Trent, who chases contracts all over Europe, speaks eloquently and passionately about the prospect of Scotland leaving the United Kingdom and gaining its independence. "Go for it, you deserve it and I'll support you all the way." But doesn't he resent not being given a voice in a debate the outcome of which may have a profound effect on his country? "It's not my country any more," he says. I brace myself for some racial and ethnic unpleasantness, but it doesn't happen.

"Standards have slipped in every sector of this land and our society is rotten," he adds. "London is sucking the life out of the rest of us. My hope is that if Scotland votes for independence that it will be a great example for the rest of England that exists outside London. Best of luck to you."

Every once in a while another City fan slips outside to snatch a few nervous draws. Their heroes are choking as they try to dispense with Sunderland and the title may be slipping away. This permits me to slake my appetite for my favourite of all England's dialects. "Citeh ah mekin 'eavy weathir of this lot," a seasoned sufferer exhales, gorgeously distending every vowel. Each drinker quietly and politely acknowledges this Glaswegian visitor and it's not long before my accent has reminded one or two of Rab C Nesbitt, "the Gohhvan pawyet", as the string-vested one is described in these elongated sounds. So who is this midweek Scots traveller and why has he come to their manor?

It's nearly 40 years since first I visited England, guesthouses in Morecambe and Southport providing slightly glamorous interludes in a childhood otherwise dominated by fortnights on the Ayrshire coast. These were days suffused with the warmth of friendly landlords who gently chided our unkempt Scottish cadences. On the way down my brother and I would play a game where we tried to count the number of English football teams on the motorway signs all the way down through the north-west. I'm sure we reached around 40. How could you not love this land?

Many more visits, mainly professional, have not diminished my fondness for England and its sunny and sturdy people. Down through the years England has provided drama, friendship, romance and work. It has been an easy country for me to love. It is both part of me and also something other at the same time. Not very long ago, I almost came to blows on her behalf in a pub off Edinburgh's Royal Mile as England exchanged penalty kicks with Argentina in another cruel World Cup. I cheered as England took an early lead, only to be met with hostility from two be-kilted and unlovely Tartan Army footsoldiers. "What are you doing supporting that lot?" they wanted to know. "What the fuck has it got to do with you," I replied as I was ushered away by an appalled colleague, before I started shouting for Harry and St George. So I have the battle honours, too.

Lately though, I have become increasingly persuaded by the yes campaign in the debate on Scotland's future and it has surprised and troubled me; one who has experienced enmity for my love of all things English. Why independence, I've been asked; why not, I find myself replying. And so, as I contemplate opting to support the break-up of a union which has not been unkind to me, it seems only fair and just that I give England one more throw of the dice. Hence this pub in the Moss Side and a journey down through the backbone of this remarkable kingdom. By the end of the night in the Claremont the unanimous verdict is one of support for Scottish independence, but there's more. Each of my four new friends insists that he has more in common with Scotland than with London and the south-east and each has a significant link to Scotland. Fran Accareo, a retired government worker, remembers 11 years living on the Scottish side of the Borders and can rhyme off the names of Scottish footballers with ease. Anthony recalls with disgust attending a jobcentre in London and alerting a stranger to the cigarettes he had just dropped. "Foke off you northern git," was the response for his trouble.

The following day I am in Cheltenham, as it's hard to think of a more dramatic contrast to Moss Side and Manchester than here, the core of the Cotswolds. Not that I had any clue what the Cotswolds was until last year, but how many Scots did? Yet it didn't stop us fashioning a vision of what we thought a place called the Cotswolds ought to look like. In this there were thatched cottages, retired colonels and friendly vicars, cricket on the green, ales named after characters from The Hobbit. Nearby there is a place called Chipping Norton which I thought was the name of one of Bertie Wooster's feckless chums until I discovered that Jeremy Clarkson lived there, and I only knew that because he's a pal of David Cameron, confidant of Rebekah Brooks and prime minister of Great Britain. Camberwick Green and Trumpton were modelled on the Cotswolds, weren't they?

In a nice boutique hotel just past the new (and soon to be defaced) Banksy, a bike of Essex boys are preparing for a stag weekend on this the last day of the races. Many of them sport Adidas trainers and hooded leisurewear with no hint of self-consciousness whatsoever. I expect them to start singing Blur's Park Life any minute now. But there's no aggression and some wry smiles at the Scot in their midst. They're in a hurry to be on their way but express dismay at the prospect of losing Scotland. "You'll regret it mate, and so will we." Holly, the hotel manageress, is more effusive. "I'd hate to see Scotland leave," she says. "Everyone I know has a Scottish friend. And what would happen to the union jack?" Indeed Holly seems more exercised by losing the blue from her iconic flag than anything else. And then this: "I'd have expected the Welsh to go their own way – they hate us – but not the Scots; we have so much in common with you. Please don't go."

Outside one of those pub/hotels that we must all call gastro now, perched on a hill north of the town, it is possible to see almost the entire county of Gloucestershire in a 180º sweep. I'm drinking something warm and cloudy called Jouster's, or is it Lancelot? As the photographer snaps away at this Scot on his English odyssey, our urbane and witty Syrian host proffers his own view on Scottish independence. "It would be unwise," he says. "Where I come from we say that two hands are always better than one." Happily, I refrain from making any injudicious comments about geopolitics in the Middle East.

It seems, though, that no discussion about Scotland's future can take place without reference to London. In these conversations, the capital, curiously, becomes a separate entity, a state apart from either Scotland or England. There may be around 400,000 English people reckoned to be working at any given time in Scotland but there are 750,000 Scots estimated to be living and working in England, most of them in London, the dark star which supposedly shuts off light to the other regions of Britain. This has become an abiding narrative of the yes campaign for Scottish independence and one which is enthusiastically followed by England's northern peoples. And didn't a report appear in last Thursday's news that house prices in London had risen by an average of £68,000 in the past 12 months, almost twice the average annual wage in England's capital? But then how do you explain Tower Hamlets or Hackney? The people in these places must be sorely exercised when, yet again, they hear another gentrified academic or journo telling the world how rich is this city.

And so, in a cafe near Westminster, I sought the views of those who will have a foot in either camp at the yes vote on 18 September. These are the young Scots who have been beating a path here in numbers almost as great as in the last great Scottish work migration in the early 1980s during Margaret Thatcher's squeezing of the regions. John Paul Charles, a PR executive from Glasgow, has lived in London for nearly four years. "I love living and working here," he says. "And I just hope that Scotland votes no in September. I'm at home here and the Londoners have always made me feel welcome. But I've noticed that pro-independence feeling in Scotland has hardened during my recent visits back. I just think it would be very sad as we have so much in common and it could be a long, slow slog for Scotland after yes. Half of my university class came here to work and they'd all say the same."

In only three days travelling through England there has been more quiet common sense and genuine affection for Scotland and the Scots than has been evident during the 12 months of spurious horror stories that have characterised the no campaign. The north won't stand in our way if it's to be yes and will wish us Godspeed. In the south, they don't want us ever to leave, but are calm at the prospect. And for me, well … there will always be a corner of my soul which will be forever England, no matter what my nation decides.