When we began our project one thing that we struggled with was a substitution for olive oil. Olive oil is not commercially available in the UK… yet. We understand that may be set to change – At Huggit’s Farm,overlooking Romney Marsh in Kent, they have ambitions to produce British Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Strangely, we have also struggled finding pure British vegetable or sunflower oil so that leaves us with one alternative… rapeseed oil.

Before we started our project we had never used rapeseed oil in our cooking so were keen to see how it holds up in our cooking compared to our regular olive oil. Our first issue was where to buy it. In January we had difficultly finding any supermarket which actually stocked the stuff but something remarkable has happened since that time. Now all the major supermarkets now stock a healthy supply of rapeseed oil and our local Waitrose stocks no less than 5 different types including an own brand bottle.

Rapeseed oil does not come cheap though, it comes in at a similar price point as a premium extra virgin olive oil, so you certainly cannot get too liberal with the stuff but with half the amount of saturated fat it is a healthier option. It also has higher levels Omega 3, 6 and 9… whatever that means.

Rapeseed oil is billed in the culinary press as the next big thing and sales are up by 11.5 per cent on last year,  but I suspect most of that is down to our personal expenditure.

If you want to find out more about rapeseed oil the good people of Farrington’s Mellow Yellow cold pressed rapeseed oil are coming to our British Family Fayre event (This also makes them our favorite rapeseed oil producers!).

Press Release – for immediate distribution:

The British Family Fayre – A FREE Family Day Out Celebrating British Manufacturing & Production

The British Family Fayre is the ambitious brain child of James and Emily Bradshaw, who have hit the headlines consistently throughout the year for their project to survive, as a family, on only British goods and services.

The fayre, organised in just 3 months, brings together over 40 stalls by well known British brands around the country to celebrate just how great British manufacturing and farming is. The businesses themselves are coming to engage with families to tell their story in a fun and child friendly way. For example; Lush Cosmetics are giving a unique, hands-on and messy insight into making some of their products, Kings of Shaves will be giving the dads shaving demonstrations and the Derwent Pencil Company will be running workshops with world renowned children’s author and illustrator Shoo Rayner. Other workshops are provided by businesses from across the UK and in every sector of UK production, including; Cahoonas UK Ltd, Comins Tea House, Deltec Precision Audio, Doulton Drinking Water Filters, Ebac Ltd, Farrington’s Mellow Yellow, Gopack Ltd, Great British Sauce Co., Helen Gordon, Jacksons Fencing, Nelsons Brewery, Roadii Firegrills, Superstitchers , The Shave Doctor , Mr Singh’s Sauce, Tudor Oak , W Hamond & The Original Whitby Jet Shop.

As well as the interactive stalls there will also be a diverse range of entertainment from around the British Isles including; a welcome by Traditional Highland pipers, the 30+ strong members of the London Welsh Rugby Club Choir and an all British set by the phenomenal Rock Choir. The event is also supported by The National Farmers Union (NFU) who will be bringing their own fun, but educational, entertainment including animals and farm based activities aimed at entertaining the kids.

Additional to all of this, the event is all in a good cause and will be attended by The Prince’s Trust to celebrate 30 years helping young people in enterprise in the UK. The centre piece of this will be a live auction of products donated by British industry. This will include a British made Union flag signed by celebrities and eminent business people, such as Mayor of London – Boris Johnson.

With just a few weeks until the big day, they are still adding more to this fantastic line up. See the website to keep up to date – www.britishfamilyfayre.co.uk

Details:
British Family Fayre – 31^st August 2013 from 11am until 6pm.
Entrance Price – FREE!
Squerryes Court, Westerham, Kent, TN16 1SJ. (25 miles from London, Junction 5 or 6 of the M25)
Website – www.britishfamilyfayre.co.uk

About the Bradshaws and their one family campaign to help British manufacturing…

In January 2013 the Bradshaws, a normal British family from a small town in Kent, started their New Year’s resolution, which sparked an unexpected chain of events. They set themselves the challenge that for one year they would see if it was possible for a family to live entirely on British goods and services. This simple act has generated national headlines, features on TV and international media attention. The family blog about their adventures buying only British on their website; www.britishfamily.co.uk.

The British Family would like to thank Lincoln West for their assistance in organising this great day. 

James (34), Emily(29) and Lucan(3) are available for interview and comment as are the businesses and organisations involved. They appeal to the members of the press to help them make this event go off with a bang.

Contact: James Bradshaw – jbradshaw@london.com

Free press photos and resources are available for download here: 

Download a pdf copy of this release here: PressRelease_BFFayrePromo

-END-

We were featured on ITN news on 29th July 2013.

This is a recording of that feature. Apologies for the quality of this recording.

It is interesting how the media attention towards our project to only buy British seems to come in waves, and it feels like we are bang in the centre of another press maelstrom. We are constantly surprised by the level of attention but, what is more, we have struggled to  keep a our wardrobe looking fresh. The cost of buying British clothes means that we are generally wearing the same stuff in most of the TV and newspapers we do.

Anyway, we thought it would be nice to talk you through our ensemble as featured in The Sunday Times this past weekend:

Emily:

Jumper – Liv

Skirt – Home made by Emily

Shoes (not pictured) – Yull

James:

Top – Henry Hunt base layer

Trousers – These are not British made. Basically, we are struggling to find/afford British made trousers.

Belt (not pictured)- Made by James

Shoes (not pictured)- Barker leather slip-ons

Socks (not pictured) – Marko Johns

Underpants (mercifully not pictured) – Cahoonas

Lucan:

Top – Fieldlife long sleeve T-shirt

Shorts – Alpha Betty

Shoes – Daisy Roots Union Jack slippers

If you missed the piece in the Sunday Times you can read it (and our other press) on our press page here.

About a week ago my mum offered me the chance to go with them to the Sainsbury’s Games Anniversary at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Stadium in Stratford, London. The chance to sit in such an amazing venue and watch a night of superb athletics, including the worlds fastest man, one year on from the incredible opening ceremony, was something that was not going to be turned down. So having said goodbye to two thirds of the British Family and left them to their boys night together I headed out with my mum, dad and sister towards Stratford. I was, I admit, rather worried that it would be hard to stick to our challenge in such a commercial environment especially when we were having dinner within the stadium. I needn’t have worried though as there was a super selection and one clearly signed van selling British burgers and sausages, so that one was for me. Sadly no British drinks even with the fantastic selection that we know is out there but my lovely dad bought me a drink so I didn’t feel left out 😀

The evening was spectacular and the athletics was amazing to watch but nothing really was going to beat the feeling of being in such a special place watching Usain Bolt disappearing down the 100m track.

A very special night and one that won’t be forgotten easily.

– Emily

Here we are with the Flying Colours flag!!!

You may be glad to know that our preparations for the British Family Fayre are hotting up. We are getting increasingly nervous that there is so much still to do but we are ultimately looking forward to it all. However, as if to make life a little more challenging for us, we also hope to raise some money for charity on the day. We have recently teamed up the The Prince’s Trust, a fantastic organisations that is celebrating 30 years this year supporting young entrepreneurs in Britain. This is obviously a charity that is very relevant to what we are doing and we are proud to be in a position to be able to support them.

One of the ideas that we had to raise funds for The Prince’s Trust was a charity auction. Through our call on twitter we already have 10 lots and some potentially very special items from one or two manufacturers. One idea that we did have was to get a Union Flag signed by some eminent business people, farmers and celebrities. The Princes Trust are even making enquiries with HRH himself to see is he will add his John Hancock… but this is a very long shot especially as he now has grandfatherly duties to deal with!

So as well as blogging, campaigning for British manufacturing,  organising an event for upwards of 5000 people, organising a charity auction and wrangling a 3 year old, we now have collecting signatures from the rich and famous.

As this point we must thank Andy at Flying Colours for his generous donation of a British made Union Flag on which we are to collect these signatures. Flying Colours are the royal warrant holders, so when you see a flag flying proudly on Buck-house, chances are that it is made by these guys. So we certainly have a good base on which to start our collecting… just one problem… we have not got a clue where to start on this one.

Besides HRH we would love to have Jamie Oliver, Mary Portas, Sir Alan Sugar, David Cameron, Boris Johnson – generally people like that come and sign our flag so that we can auction it off and raise a good amount for this great charity.

Any advice or links would be greatly appreciated. Also any further ideas of who we might get to sign would be great.

And if we do not ask enough of you: if any British manufacturers read this, we are looking for more product donations to add to our auction. Your donations will be listed on our website and be auctioned off on the 31st August to raise money for The Princes Trust. Please get in contact.

The Bradshaws

We mentioned in our last post that for Lucan’s 3rd birthday we made him a swing set. When we mentioned this we received a number of requests to see a picture of this mighty construction project. So here goes, along with an explanation of how we did it:

We perhaps could have bought Lucan a wooden British made swing set, but with prices in the high hundreds it would have been a little extravagant (especially as I am still looking for gainful employment. See here) So, being reasonably handy, and having plenty of time on my hands, I decided that I could fabricate one pretty easily… and at less than a quater the price of the of-the-shelf versions.

I sourced British seasoned posts and decking board from a local timber merchants and searched online and found Osborne Fasteners Limited for all of the main bolts. The construction itself was really easy, just cumbersome when doing it by myself. I started by digging the holes for the posts and setting them in postcrete. Then it was simply connecting the posts with 200mm 10m bolts. We had an old TP branded swing and slide and simply dismantled these and appropriated them into the new construction. I decked the platform of the main fort and finished with a couple of Union Jacks.

The result is one that Lucan loves and it means that he is outdoors more than ever.

I think in total the materials cost us about £200 and took me about 2 days to construct. The closest we could find in an similar off-the-shelf option (which you still had to postcrete and bolt together) was about £800. Not a bad saving and guaranteed British!

I have plans to build a second tier to it at some point and maybe expand it around the large oak tree but this might be next summer.

– James

It was Lucan’s 3rd Birthday on Sunday and the preparations had been on-going for a couple of weeks. The first struggle was to find him an appropriate gift. We knew that finding a toy made in the UK was going to be impossible so we decided to make him one. We bought seasoned British timber from a local merchant and built a tree-house and swing set, complete with up-cycled slide. The construction took 2 days of digging, sawing and hammering but it is fair to say that the results were worth it. He loves it.

We were a little nervous about the party preparations and to add to the pressure we decided to shop at Sainsbury’s for all of the goodies. Sainsbo’s have been making a big deal about their Britishness and sustainability policies recently. So,  while it is a supermarket that we do not frequent all that often we thought that this event would be a good test of if they were walking-the-walk or just talking-the-talk.

With all of the great weather we decided on a BBQ for family, friends and neighbours. The first thing on the shopping list was meat… and lots of it. The issue here, with Sainsbury’s, is that they do not sign up to the Red Tractor Assurance scheme. So, while their meat is labelled with the Union Jack, what you do not get  is the same level of confidence and clarity regarding animal welfare standards. However, we still bought chicken, beef, pork belly and pork sausages for the barbie.

Before we left for the supermarket we had to call Premier Foods to see if their Harleys jelly is made in the UK. Thankfully they confirmed it was. After all, what is a 3rd birthday without jelly and ice cream?? I had an interesting chat with the customer service guy who was able to confirm that most of the Premier Foods brands are made in the UK, including Sharwoods, Oxo and Batchelors brand names. Handy information for us!

Ultimately we struggled, in Sainsbury’s, with some of the things not made in Britain that we knew that we could find in Waitrose. For example we know that there is a very good chance that anything own brand in Waitrose will be made in the UK. Not so with Sainsbury’s. However, we did have a couple of surprises. For instance; we managed to buy paper plates and plastic cups all made in Britain. What is more is that they were the cheap essentials range, so again we were able to make some savings buying British.

The day was balmy to say the least and with neighbours, friends and family I think that the lack of balloons and anything themed couldn’t have been further from people’s minds. As the day warmed up the adults (well most of them) crowded around the TV to watch the phenomenal Andy Murrey become the Wimbledon champion. The kids stripped off and splashed in the paddling pool. A fantastic afternoon was had by all and what is even better to know is that the British economy profited from Lucan being a year older. Hopefully we can continue, as the years go by, to avoid the commercialism and dare I say plastic element of birthdays and just give Lucan so cracking days to remember like this one.