I was driving the car yesterday, family in tow, when I looked over to the passenger seat and saw James with his arm stuffed up his top frantically scratching. I asked what the issue was and he replied that his new jumper from John Lewis was really itchy. I have recently bought a wool top too which has also caused me to itch. This sparked a conversation about how we both recalled the pain of itchy woollen jumpers as kids but had not really had that sensation since we were really young… until recently.

We can only put this down to the fact that for the last 20 years we have worn predominantly imported wool/cotton blends rather than pure British wool. The course texture of James’ new jumper certainly brought back memories of the Christmas jumpers his granny would buy him as a kid and so would spend every Christmas day red raw.  In fact, rather than it being an irritant, he  finds something strangely nostalgic  about the itch of his new jumper. I on the other-hand, am not so fond of it.

Sometimes the itch of a new jumper new or old is something you just have to put up with but it might be that now it’s getting colder and wetter that we can survive by adding layers underneath.

– Emily

Since day one of our project to buy only British many people have asked us if we were doing it because we had a book deal. We have to admit that, naive as it may sound, it never crossed our minds. However, we are now at a point where we have so much knowledge to share and new skills learnt that perhaps it is not such a crazy idea?!

We have had an opportunity recently to speak to a few people interested in making a British Family book a reality and while we are a long way from having a publishing deal, we have hit the typewriter. In fact we have written a synopsis, a first chapter and just about planned the rest of it. Not bad for 2 weeks work!

The book essentially explores what British manufacturing and farming is now using historical references, practical guides and recipes. It is basically the sort of book that we would like to buy and read… whether anyone else will be interested is a different matter.

So, the next stage of this process is getting a publisher interested. I suspect that the odds are against us with this but it is becoming apparent that one family with enough passion can do just about anything. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, we will keep you updated as to the progress of this monsterpiece… and should it ever see the light of day we will dedicate it to you. 😉

– James & Emily

Spot the irony in this picture… answers on a postcard

Another one of life’s essential is no longer made in the UK. We were recently surprised to find out that the humble household match is no longer produced on these shores. This is a particular tragedy as the the manufacture of this simple product has arguably been one of the most influential in shaping the society in which we now live.

Like many of the best things in life the friction match was invented in Britain by English chemist John Walker, from Stockton-on-Tees in 1827. However, these early products were prone to turning into fireballs and considered so dangerous that they were eventually banned in some countries. It took a Scot, Sir Issac Holden, to go some way to making them somewhat safer. In around 1829 he created the Lucifer match, which went on to be first mass manufactured in the USA but was later produced in the UK.

By the mid- nineteenth century match manufacture became common place in the Britian, most famously by the Bryant and May factory based in Bow, East London. Bryant and May now only exists as a brand name and is currently owned by a Swedish match maker (along with most of the old British brands). However, Bryant and May will always have it’s place in British history due to the London matchgirls strike of 1888. Details of this story are rather grisly – the women working at the factory were prone to developing severe health complications due to their contact with the ingredient white phosphorous. The resulting condition, known as phossy jaw caused disfiguring and painful facial abscesses that literally rotted their lower jaw away (hope you are not eating dinner while reading this).

An artists impression of how we will look this winter.

1,400 went on strike and their success resulted in a enhanced workers rights and was a significant boon for the burgeoning women’s rights movement. Indeed, Massers Bryant and May were, by all accounts, rather unsavoury and despicable employers but the story does emphasise the role that manufacturing, good or bad, has had in shaping Britain.

Forward 150 years and a normal British family no longer has a simple means to produce fire and will be scrabbling around their back garden for two bits of flint to knock together to light their fire this winter.

The last bastion of British match manufacture, and our potential saviour from 50,000 years of regression, is Octavius Hunt from Britsol, founded in 1870, who still make a wind and waterproof matches suitable for camping and other outdoor pursuits.

We have had quite a marvellous day! In short we visited The Best of Britannia 2013 in Farringdon, London and met up once again with some of our friends who joined us at The British Family Fayre and plenty more new friends besides.

Lucan was beyond excited at going on a train (I know simple things with 3 year olds) and then when we changed onto another train it was all just too much, that was just getting there! We met the lovely Anthony, one of the shows organisers and started out to immerse ourselves in the four whole floors of British goodies.

We decided to start on the top floor of the show as Lucan was determined to climb every stair in the place. Up there we met up with one of our old friends ‘Hey Joe’. We had a lovely chat and were pleased that they seemed to be really enjoying themselves. Their display looked beautiful against the industrial Victorian interiors. We moved on to a newer friend, Elizabeth Beckett, whose gorgeous peppermint foot cream has done wonders for Mr B’s rather cheesy feet recently. She too seemed to be enjoying the very chilled out atmosphere and her set up too really resonated with the space. Another new friend for the day was Ellie from EcoKitty, a lovely lady who is mad for all things about cats. She has created a recycled cardboard playhouse for cats and hand makes all sorts of super catnip toys to go with them. As we have neglected the lovely Patch recently we felt that this would be a treat for her and we weren’t wrong, she’s hardly been out of it since we got home!

Down a floor and we bumped into Sarah from Yull Shoes who was there enjoying a day out and then into Helen Gordon, another friend from The BFF. She had some gorgeous new pyjamas which just called to us for Lucan with dragons and knights all over them. Needless to say he was thrilled when he unwrapped them at home and is sleeping snugly in them this evening. On to Vickers Bicycles, one really for Mr B, who I literally had to drag away before he started flashing the cash on their stunning two wheeled contraptions.

Down again and by this time Lucan had given up and gone to sleep, which was just as well as there was lots to see (and buy) on floor number 1. I was particularly drawn to a stand with beautiful and very classy women’s clothes. The owner of the stand Libby London (go on Google them you won’t be disappointed) was lovely and encouraged me to try on a black jumper dress which was a steal and so was the next purchase of the day. We moved across the room to see Susannah Hall Tailors. Susannah is another friend who we have tweeted endlessly with but have never met so it was great to catch up and see more of her wares as her auction item was brilliantly received at the fayre. We also had a good chat with Rob from Comins Tea House about how things were going and got some great feedback about the BFF – apparently people have been travelling from all over the UK to go and visit them because of their attendance at our event .

One more floor and this was the one for Lucan with two Morgan’s and the favourite of the day a bright orange Ginetta. He was allowed in the two Morgan’s but sadly not the Ginetta, much to his frustration. Petrol head clearly is an understatement as far as our son is concerned. To help him deal with the pain of being separated from the orange car we went to the Romney Marsh Wool stand where he chose a really cute lamb made from their own sheep skin as his first British soft toy of the year. This was promptly named ‘Nanny’ and the bond was made.

We returned home tired but having had a truly British day out and pleased as punch with our new purchases. Who said shopping British was hard? 😉

The next not to be missed date on the British manufacturing calender has to be the British Family Fayre in 2014 (www.britishfamilyfayre.co.uk)… see you there!

– Emily

This is a rather sensitive subject but here we go:

We fortunately found British made toilet roll early on, but did not realise how lucky we were. Waitrose own brand toilet roll (and kitchen rolls) are the only British made brand that we can find. Andrex, owned by American firm Kimberly-Clark, say on their packs “made in the UK and Europe”, which is not good enough for us and a little cryptic.

Life without this everyday essential would have been unthinkable. So, once again Waitrose have come to our rescue… but it does make me wonder (more than is healthy) who makes their toilet paper for them and do they produce for any other brand? If these questions begin to keep me up at night I might be forced to give Waitrose a call.

Earlier this week we announced, on Twitter, our plans for the British Family Fayre 2014. After much consideration and debate we decided, despite the stress, to go ahead and organise the event again next year. The date we have chosen is the 30th August 2014.

Our plan is to make it at least twice the size of the 2013 event. This gives us the challenge of getting  more than 120 businesses represented and about 8000 people there on the day. Ambitious? We would say so!

In another change to the previous year we would like to extend the event into the evening with a concert and other entertainment. We are not sure how this will look at present but we will keep you posted.

Our announcement was met with enthusiasm from our followers on Twitter and indeed a number of businesses have already begun signing up. If you feel you have something that you can bring to the event please get in touch.

See the updated website for the event here: www.britishfamilyfayre.co.uk

If there are two things we get asked above anything else they are “why don’t you have a comprehensive directory of British made goods?” or “can you add my British business to your list of British suppliers?”.

We get at least one email a day along these lines, sometimes many more! From the beginning we have tried to maintain a list of goods that we use, and indeed these are THE most popular pages on our website. Far more than our home page or blog (rather frustratingly!)

Despite all of this pressure we have relented. There are other directories out there and some of them are very good, but people keep insisting that we create one too. So, if for no other reason than to stop the barrage of emails… we are proud to announce the release of our own directory of British made goods!

We have called it the Britipedia and is available here: www.britipedia.co.uk

So that the admin does not become a living hell (another reason we did not want to go down this route) we have made it so that British manufactures and producers can submit their own listings. Listing your British business is totally FREE and we have no plans to change this. Another neat (and unique feature) is that consumers can review the businesses listed.

We have added some businesses to the directory to get stuff started (mainly the businesses from the British Family Fayre) but growth of this new website is now down to you!

Enjoy… and let this be an end to all the emails 😉

We posted on Twitter last weekend about our mishap in turning up to an open day at Pilgrim Harps in South Godstone a week early. That really left me feeling like a bit of a twit. However better to be early than late! So we returned this weekend, on the correct day, to experience all that they had to offer.

I played the harp in my first year of teaching (over 7 years ago now) and hired my harp from Pilgrim. It was a beautiful Clarsach harp and I loved it very very much but just couldn’t afford to keep hiring it. It was, therefore, lovely to get back behind one with Lucan on my lap to have another play, and while I am absolutely no virtuoso I can get a very rough tune out of one still.

We watched one of the harpists in action in the marquee and then made a visit to the shed where they are all made. Their fundamentals as a company are – flawless design, perfect materials and immaculate craftsmanship. This was absolutely reflected in the passion from the staff on hand to talk mainly to James (as I was chasing around after Lucan) about how the harps are manufactured completely from scratch in one location. This is so wonderful for us to see and hear as we have struggled with finding many musical instruments manufactured in the UK.

I must admit there was a small part of me that thought I will just go for it and buy the beautiful little harp that Lucan an I played but truthfully, at nearly £2000 second hand, it is an extravagance too far at the moment. This will be one to save up for, for definite!

While they are a tiny little business it is good to know that they are still going strong after 23 years. It was a lovely morning out and great to show Lucan one of my passions 🙂

-Emily