I have just read a wonderful article in The Engineer about John Elliott, the founder of Ebac, which describes him as the Anti-Dyson. This is both a comical but astute comparison. If you wish to read the full article please do so here (you will not be disappointed):

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/interviews/ebac-founder-john-elliott/1017460.article

We have had the opportunity to meet the man himself on a number of occasions, not least at our British Family Fayre event at which Ebac Ltd exhibited. He is, as described in the article “a straight-talking, no-nonsense northerner” and a wonderfully outspoken critic of the state of British manufacturing. He also has some suggestions to sort the issues with UK industry that are sometimes, well… out-there. However, I loved this comparison between Mr Elliott and Mr Dyson because there is a real truth to that.

John Elliot is all about making good quality but basic white-goods and selling them at a reasonable price. He makes his stuff in the UK, pays his staff a fair wage and his company makes a reasonable profit. James Dyson sells premium priced, design-led, products to British consumers that are made in the Far East at, what must be assumed, considerably more profit than had he paid British workers. Despite this Mr Dyson earlier this year, without any sense of irony, called for the UK government to do more to protect British manufacturing. Contrast this with the fact that Mr Elliott has recently given is business away to a foundation that protects the jobs of his employees forever. I know which of these two entrepreneurs I would rather listen to when it comes to sorting out British manufacturing.

The article closes by saying suggesting that British manufacturing would likely be far better off if there were more like John Elliott, and never a truer word was said.

– James

As the winters seem to have drawn in rather quickly we have, as I’m sure you have too, been turning out the hats and scarves to keep warm. Sadly much of the knitwear we have found on the high street is not made here despite the fact that we are great wool producers. I decided that I would therefore try my hand at knitting, something my maternal Granny tried for many years to get me into. She sadly never quite passed on the enthusiasm she had in quite the same way my paternal Granny passed on the sewing bug so it has always been that which I have felt ‘good at’.

However with the demand for a hat for Lucan at school coming home in his book bag, now seemed as good a time as ever to give it a go. I had tried a few years ago to make a scarf for James (not massively successfully I might add) so I had large 10mm knitting needles in the loft. After a trip to a fantastic local shop to source the wool and a rather nifty book about knitting and crocheting hats, it was time to give it a go. The internet, as always, was the ever reliable source of videos to help me get started and after about 3 attempts of knitting and undoing it all I finally made my first ever wearable bobble hat!

Lucan seems quite taken and I am now in the process of making one for James (the same colour minus the bobble) and one eventually for myself in cream (bobble undecided). It has been wonderful to start to learn a new craft and I must admit I see now what my Granny was trying to show me all those years ago. While rather fiddly at times, the speed that you can create a fully formed and functioning garment is rather exciting. Give it a go but make sure you hunt out British wool 😉

If however you aren’t quite so crafty minded there are some lovely bobble hats to be found at Fieldlife, a super kids brand of durable wearable clothing all made here in the UK.

-Emily

Looking out of the window at Bradshaw towers this morning failed to fill us with enthusiasm to seize the day, such was the uninspiring nature of the distinctly autumnal day. However, not wishing to waste a weekend we racked out brains for fun and free things for a family to in Kent. We were about to give up on the day when MrsB began talking about her latest shopping trip. She happened to mention that she nearly bought some chestnuts but was forced to put them back when she found they were shipped in from Portugal. She even looked at the tinned alternative and found these to be grown in France. This is when the idea stuck… lets go and find some chestnuts ourselves.

This evening we have already roasted a good handful on our open fire, using one of our British made Netherton Foundery pans (perfect for the job), and enjoyed them immensely. MrsB has ambitions to make marron glace and I also plan to pickle some. This will allow us to enjoy them throughout the winter.The three of us wrapped up in our woolly hats, scarves and wellies and hit the woods. It was not long before we found a veritable treasure trove of plump ripe chestnuts all over the place. It seems obvious that we are close to the tail end of the chestnut season but that did not stop us collecting over 2kg of the blighters.

It is obviously a shame that the supermarkets are failing to stock this fantastic winter classic grown in Britain but for the ease of collection and the quantity you can find you might as well forage your own. Just mind your fingers on those prickly shells.

All in all it turned into a really fun day.

If anyone has any interesting suggestions for using Chestnuts please leave a comment.

– James

Below you will find a Pintrest board of British made Christmas gift ideas that we come across. If you want your items listed please leave a comment below. Remember to check back regularly as we will try to keep this updated with things we find.

Best of luck buying British this Christmas!!

After the hurricanes that battered the South of England over the weekend blew over we finally plucked up courage enough to venture forth from our self made bunker. Quickly deciding that we would indeed live to see another day we decided to go and visit Shepherd Neame, a well known brewery in Faversham, Kent, and meet Moray Neame to discuss putting together a hasty Christmas celebration.

We had contact with Moray, part of the Neame brewing dynasty, some time ago when we were first orgnaising the British Family Fayre. Due to circumstance they were not able to attend but Moray was delightful to speak to so I thought I would get in contact with a little idea that we had been throwing around recently.

We announced some time ago that we would like to organise a pop-up restaurant. Support was indeed there from businesses and public. In fact I suspect we could have booked it out twice over. However, we have decided that this is a bridge too far for us and instead will look at doing this in 2014 now. We would however still like to mark the end of our year so we have decided to set our sights on something a little simpler to organise, and if the popular phrase is to be believed a piss-up in a brewery would seem to fit the bill. Moray, has been very accommodating offering their fantastic facilities and even some beer for free. So, I suppose we have no excuse.

The plan is to make this a small shin-dig for those that have really supported us over the last 12 months. We hope to invite loads of
manufactures and producers down to share their products with us in an evening of truly British revelry. We also hope to shake a bucket or two for The Prince’s Trust and raise a few quid for them again.

The evening will be ticketed but free to attend. There will be a strict number of tickets available and so once they are gone they are
gone. It will be held on the evening of Friday, 13th December. So, if you are are interested in attending please do get in touch.

More details coming soon…

We are used to seeing goods proudly proclaiming their Britishness that, in reality, have very little to do with British manufacturing but because we are ordinarily so careful we never thought that we would fall for one of these cunning marketing ploys. However, yesterday we made a very big mistake in our project to buy only British and it is fair to say that were were more than a little upset by it!

Yesterday we went to Homebase to look for some supplies to do some much needed DIY on our house.  While there we saw some Minky ironing boards that proudly announcing that they are the “UK’s No.1 Manufacturer” along with a prominent Union Flag and complete with Royal warrant. We decided on a handy table-top version and continued with the rest of our shopping. It was actually only a moment ago that  James brought it over to inspect it before we unwrapped it that we saw the woefully tiny words ‘Made in China’ discreetly placed as a footnote to the barcode.

Thankfully we have the receipt so needless to say it will be making a swift return to Homebase tomorrow. A near miss possibly but a genuine mistake and one that shows the power of the warrant and a Union flag. We will promise to read all labels carefully from now on but it really does show how difficult and confusing buying British can be, even for seasoned professionals like us 😉

It is also worth mentioning that in this same shopping trip we also bought some properly British Farrow and Ball paint!

– Emily

Many of you have seen the inside of our house through the pictures and filming we have had done in our home. We are not ashamed to say that like many homes up and down the UK, our house is nowhere near ‘finished’. We moved in nearly a year ago having had some major structural work done and never really got a chance to get much really finished. Don’t get me wrong we are happy and comfortable in our house but the lack of proper floor covering and missing wallpaper, paint and skirting in areas leave it looking a lot less loved than it really is.

With all this said I raised the subject of starting to plan the works still needing to be done with James this morning. I must admit I was not expecting a positive response but that is just what I got so we sat down to work out what needed doing and how much roughly it might cost. I will say that we will have to do everything quite slowly as we are determined to give back to our Victorian house as much period charm as we can, not something that comes cheap, British made or not.

The list we have come up with looks like this;

• Cover living room/dining room floor – possibly with either wood or tiles
• Cover the hall floor with tiles – Victorian pattern preferred
• Prepare and paint outside masonry work
• Either complete wallpapering in dining room or paint remaining wall
• Complete skirting all around house
• Paint woodwork all around house
• Re-grout kitchen floor
• Complete painting in Lucan’s bedroom
• Refresh paint in remaining rooms

This as you can see is quite a list and will take a good number of months to get through. We will document the British made products we find as we go through alongside our regular posts. As always we are hoping that everyone following our journey will help us out with finding any British made products that we may need for any of the above tasks. Even the little things we are starting to do are making our house more and more beautiful and making it truly British is the best part of all!

– Emily

It is not often that that our Twitter and Facebook following do not come up trumps in helping us find British made products quickly. However, when we put a call our for a UK made padlock this had our 6000+ community stumped.

I am a little paranoid about my 6 month old British built Triumph Explorer motorcycle going walkies. While we do not live in a high crime area and it is kept in a safe location with a disk lock it does not stop those nagging concerns. So, I decided to take take preventative action.

Almax make heavy duty security chains (http://www.almax-security-chains.co.uk/) and I was made aware of these guys some months ago, but a chain is useless without some means of securing it. After some independent research and a few phone calls I came up trumps. Banham make a number of their heavy duty locks here in the UK and they are rather helpfully stamped “MADE IN BRITAIN”. http://www.banham.co.uk/locks/padlocks/

However, it would seem that there is still a pretty healthy number of lock makers still out there including: Reece, B&G and Squire.

The Almax chain and the Banham P2005 padlock, in combination, are likely to be a fantastic deterrent to even the most determined thief but at a total cost close to £200 it is not a cheap solution.

– James