Henry Hunt Gillet and M&S Jumper

Emily, Lucan and I have been buying only British made clothes now for 5 months and none of us can yet claim to have worn a completely British outfit. We have all come close. For example, I am missing British made undies which might not be an issue if I were tempted to go commando, but then I am also missing British made trousers – which in combination equates to a public order offence.

So far we have all had to supplement our British purchases with something from our original non-British stock. This is not because it is impossible for each of us to have a totally British wardrobe but more because our normal financial constraints mean that we cannot buy new clothes on a whim… however much we are tempted. This leads me to comment on the 3 common assumptions of buying British made clothes:

It costs a lot:

Liv Cardigan

It has to be admitted that, in our experience, British made clothing is generally more expensive than you may be used to on the high street, with the additional disadvantage of there being significantly less choice. Also, when you can’t try something on (as most of our purchases are online) it also makes buying something special really pretty tricky. That being said though we have picked up the odd bargain. For instance, I recently bought 3 long sleeve tops and a gillet from Henry Hunt. They were in their sale and I got all 4 items for less then £50. So it just goes to prove that there are British made bargains to be had, you just need to seek them out.

It is far better quality:

It also must be noted that the quality of the clothing we buy that is British made is significantly better than you would normally be used to. It has made us look far more at the quality of what we buy and far less at the quantity. However, the premise that British quality always being high has also had the rare occasion to be incorrect. I would say that the price of an item does not seem to be directly proportionate to the quality of it, as you would normally expect. For instance, I recently bought a pair of trainers made in the UK (RRP £90) and must admit that I was somewhat disappointed with the finish. On the flip side a simple fleece jumper bought for Lucan for £15 has been washed and worn more times than I can count and still looks brand new. For Britain’s manufacturing generally to continue to grow it is important that we continue to develop a reputation for fantastic quality.

You get better customer service

Silver Sense Pj’s

The final assumption about British made clothes is that you get better customer service. Again this, in general is very true. We have had beautiful hand written notes in some of the things we have bought and when we have spoken to the makers they have been keen to tell their story and share their passion. However, adversely we have also had some not so great service where, possibly because of the very small size, businesses have sometimes been slow in responding when we have had ordering issues. On the whole however knowing that when you call a British company you will get someone who cares about their product and cares that they are British made is a wonderful way to shop.

The issues that we have faced are very much in the minority and have in no way put us off buying British. They are issues we have all faced when buying either online or from smaller businesses, British or not. While British clothes are not easily available or vast in range they are, in my opinion, very well worth the time spent finding and waiting for them.

– James

About 3 weeks ago, when we thought the rain was here to stay, I was coming back home via the back roads of Westerham and what should I come across but a pot hole. It was full of water and I was doing no more than 30 (honest) but nevertheless that little rain filled pot hole was not as little as I thought. Seconds later, and a great big jolt, I had a big old puncture.

The very kind AA man came within 45 minutes and changed the tyre for the spare and we were at least on the road again but now only up to 50mph. With the prospect of being a slow coach for the rest of the year I needed to find a British made tyre and quick. It quickly became apparent that we were not going to find a British owned tyre company but thankfully we actually make a lot of tyres in this country. Michelin, Cooper, Avon and others all make tyres in this country. However, I now needed to find one company who make the one tyre I needed in the UK. After a week of searching and quite a lot of phone calls it seemed that it really was going to be pot luck whether the tyre I ended up buying was made in the UK or not. It therefore seemed sensible to opt for the brand which produces the most of the UK tyre quota, Michelin, who have 3 factories in the UK. This I will admit was my own conclusion from the research and the many phone call I made, so if it is wrong I am sure someone will tell me.

The tyre was ordered at our very friendly local independent garage and finally now it is fitted. I would rather have just bought a new tyre the day that the puncture happened and then been back on the road safely. When it comes to the safety of my family I like to think that I do my best and having to drive on the spare was not fun. So there we are, the rather sad story of the bust tyre and the 3 weeks it took to get it fixed.

Today was a very exciting day for us as today we did our first bit of official anything. The excitement centred around a small village in Kent called Cobham. It was here that an exciting new food festival called Munchies on the Meadow. We had been asked a month or so ago by the organisers Matt and Anthony if we would come along and open the fair for them. This was quite a surprise for us and a huge honour as it is not like we have any celebrity status or anything. We happily accepted the task and got ready for a brilliant weekend.

The day started really bright with a few spots of rain in the air. We headed out towards Cobham ready for a Munchie day. We arrived rather early and so went into the beautiful convenience store in the village which was a proper throw back to how stores might have been 50 years ago, with fresh bread out on display and local wares being shown off. After this we met up with Anthony and Matt and went into the fair to see some of the suppliers before we had to attend to our ‘official’ business. There was a great range of stalls that smelt and looked fabulous. We met up with some of the businesses that we have chatted to through Twitter and suddenly it was midday and time to open the fair.

I must admit, my speech was not very long and Lucan was rather eager to join in the action, but ‘with no further ado the show was open’. I could then relax and enjoy the day in the sun. James and some friends of ours decided that the Howards of Kent stall was the first one to visit. With the multicolour and many flavoured vodkas he was soon having a great time sampling and chatting.

Next up it was on to Big Tree Cider to taste some of Kent’s finest cider. This is was real cider with no added bubbles, sugar, yeast or preservatives. It was very strong in flavour and a superb use of Kentish apples.

Onward towards the Kent Chilli stand and wow what a chilli range they have! We bought some chilli chutney (the medium one) and it does this pack a flavour punch, not to mention the chilli one. They are even growing a chilli twice as hot as the infamous ghost chilli. The ghost chilli measures 1 million on the Scoville Scale and this new chilli will be 2 million! That’s a lot of water to quench that heat! Maybe a Chilli challenge is in order for the upcoming British Family Fayre?

There were so many amazing producers there that to name them all would require a mammoth post but all the stalls seemed to be having a great day and there was more than one very light car making its way home at the end of the day. We would like to thank Matt and Anthony for putting together such a great event and obviously for doing us the honour of letting us be a part of it all. We are sure that Munchies on the Meadow will be a regular event from now and will continue to get bigger and better.

– Emily

When you think of the stuff that Britain is known for producing the first thing that to comes to mind is unlikely to be electronic gadgets, but we have found that there is actually a reasonable amount of tech being produced within our shores. Did you know that we make; computers, tablets, media players, TV’s, washing machines, headphones, audio equipment and more???

It’s true! However, you will be forgiven for missing this fact. It would seem that these British guys do not have the same marketing budgets as the likes of Apple and Samsung. In fact, in my opinion as a professional marketeer of more than 10 years, the promotion of some of these businesses is downright ropy and I would love to give them a right royal kick up the proverbial out of frustation. But let this not take away from that fact that there is an electronics sector in Britain, however hidden away, that is borne of an obvious passion to produce techy-kit in this country.

Our latest discoveries include; MCH Media Box, Zoostorm computers and RHAheadphones.

The rather uninspiringly, named, MCH Media Box seems to be a fantastic little mp3/mp4 player in a neat and not unattractive package. I would actually love one of these and may invest in one so that I can have some tunes to listen to in the gym.

And what better way to listen to a British made media player than some British made headphones? RHA are making all sorts of headphones, with the added advantage of having some fantastic online reviews for quality and performance.

Then there is Zoostorm making a huge range of desktop and laptop computers and devices, including a rather natty looking tablet. We first heard about these when someone I was having a meeting with pulled one out before proudly announcing that it was made in the UK. What is more, he had a British engineered operating system on it too. Needless to say I was envious of this set up. My next computer will be a Zoostorm.

Alongside these are Cello TV’s (we have one in our bedroom), Ebac, Raspberry Pi and I am sure much much more.

What seems to be the irony with regard to some of these gadgets though is the fact that they are significantly cheaper than the more recognisable imports from South Korea, Japan and China. For example; a Zoostorm tablet is about £120, Chello TV’s start at less than £100 and MCH’s products start from £60.

Tempted by British electronics with a bargain price tag? I am!

Today is the day we are finally launching the website to start telling the world about The British Family Fayre. It has been a massive roller coaster to just get to this point and now the fun really begins!

The idea I think, was a joint one that started off as a simple invitation to some of the amazing people we have met and had contact with so far, to join us for a little party in our back garden. It would be our way of saying thank you for being so supportive and thank you for staying true to Britain. Then, as our ideas have a habit now of doing, the idea grew. Why not take over the green in Westerham for the day and let these super companies show how they make what they make and show the local public that there is more made in Britain than they thought.

This was where we started about 2 months ago with an open letter to the parish council to see if we would be allowed to follow through on our little scheme. Before we could meet with them we sent out a Tweet to our loyal twitter followers, to see if British businesses would actually want to come and show off how they make or produce things for the day. 24 hours later we had over 100 businesses both local and national wanting to come and join us!

As you can imagine this was far more than we had ever anticipated. As the meeting with the council loomed this meant the plans had to change and grow once again. The meeting was a real success apart from the small problem of space. We all agreed that the green was just not big enough to hold that number of stalls and that as it backs onto an A road it would not be very safe if a good crowd decided to turn out for the event. There is a large recreation ground very close to us where we hear the whoops and screams of the local football teams each Sunday and we thought as it is flat and large this would be the new perfect venue for the event. This was shot down though as they have a grant to level the pitches ready for the Winter season so the vast majority will be no-go zones for the Summer. Not good!

The last resort was to see whether the Squerreyes estate who own most of the land in Westerham would be able to accommodate us near the stunning house and in their grounds. After a few more meetings and a trip or two to the pub we had a date and a venue, and quite a spectacular one it was too.

However, just before we went on our Easter tour we were contacted by a very large events company who potentially wanted to help us to put the event on and take it to a whole new level, a London Level! The events the had managed in the past were huge and very well know and I will admit we were thrilled that someone saw so much potential in our idea. We waited until we returned from the South West and started the meetings process again. This was a very tense week as we started to try to think what it might look like in somewhere as amazing as Olympia or Earls Court. This was, however, not to be. We have said all along that this year is about discovery and learning about British products and manufacturing, we don’t get paid we just have an unforgettable year. Trying to take the British Fayre to such a massive arena was going to mean charging all the businesses huge rates to be their and this would really defeat the object of getting small and start up businesses into the limelight for a weekend.

Back to the drawing board and I will admit that now we were starting to panic. We had no official date, venue, website or anything else and it was edging towards the end of April. The prospect of getting an event from nothing to the amazing pictures in our heads in less than 4 months was daunting at best. We tweeted about our plight and asked if there was a local events company that might be able to help us and low and behold along came out knights in shining armour. Lincoln West is a relatively small, brilliantly local and relatively new events company, specialising in trade shows. They offered to meet us to see if there was anything that they could do to help. There was instant chemistry!

This was the 1st of a few meetings over the last 2 weeks and now we have the 3 things we did not have 2 weeks ago. The venue is to be Squerreyes Court, a stunning site with the house that has stood in the same place for the last 800 years and beautiful gardens and grounds galore. We will occupy the fields in front of the house and with that and the South Downs as a backdrop it should be really beautiful. The weekend we have chosen is 31st August and 1st September and now after a good few nights of burning the midnight oil, this is the website;

http://www.britishfamilyfayre.co.uk

We are so excited about the fact that this will now go ahead and hopefully be a completely unique event and something that will stay in the memory of all who join us. This really is where you come in…

If you have a business that manufactures in the UK we would love to hear from you by going to the website and completing an application form. We want the weekend to be a fabulous, fun, family day out with people using the things the make in all manner of whacky ways to entertain. We also want you to tell your story about why you still manufacture or produce in the UK. We want all who visit to go away and ask for British products when they shop. More than anything we want everyone to have fun and celebrate British goods and products.

If you are not a business owner then we would love you to register your interest for tickets on the website. This will hopefully give us an idea of whether we are catering for a hundred people or thousands of people and make sure that we can plan appropriately.

Thank you again to you all for supporting us so whole heartedly so far and we cannot wait to meet as many of you as possible when you join us at The British Family Fayre!

– Emily, James & Lucan X

We had a very busy weekend last week. On Saturday morning we visited our most local wine producers, Godstone vineyard. This meant us enjoying a glass of English wine well before the sun had reached over the yard arm, but what with the fine weather we felt very little guilt about it. After finally dragging our selves away from all the wine we went back home to do some more work in the garden. I recently knocked down a wall in our front garden (before it fell down) and in the afternoon finished off edging the lawn with the recycled bricks. This involved digging a small trench all around the lawn and laying the bricks into the trench in staggered hounds-tooth pattern. It was back breaking work but the final result was well worth it.

Sunday we took our usual morning stroll to the local farmers marketing in Westerham but were surprised to find the preparations for a Saint Georges day celebration going on (yes, 2 days early) so we hung around to join the party. It was all kicked off with a group of Morris Dancers which, while much maligned in popular culture, I genuinely enjoyed. They claimed to be dancing the North East style and the music was fantastic. There really is nothing more relaxing than sitting in the sun with bunting flapping, bells jingling and the good people of Westerham out enjoying themselves.

The farmers market looked fantastic on the green and seemed to have swelled with the addition of an olive stall (which is out of our remit this year) and a super local plant stall. The final spectacle was both old and new Aston Martins lined up on the High Street for all to inspect and ogle.

While we are on the subject of Saint George his official feast day is tomorrow, a day that is all to little celebrated. We are planning to raise a glass of English wine to our patron Saint. We hope that you can join us. All in all it was a pretty full on weekend but exactly the kind that we enjoy. We have had some great giggles with Lucan and are hoping that the sun is now here to stay so that the outside fun can continue.

– James

Having been to our local Waitrose this afternoon I thought it rather important to quickly update you on how the supermarkets are fairing as we go through our year eating, buying and living British.

When we did our first shop in the same supermarket way back in January we found one everyday essential completely missing, oil. There was not a single bottle that we could legitimately buy and stay British. However since then we have found countless producers of rapeseed oil who grow and extract in the UK. You can imagine my hesitance in going back today in desperate need of oil for the next week.

This is what faced me (picture left) and I was so excited that I had to take a picture. Faced with a choice of 5 different oils was a real treat and allowed me to, for once, have a choice. This is not however where the new British additions finished. I found British produced pasta flour (which will be used up pretty soon) and even British sugar both Waitrose branded, and going round I am sure that I noticed a wider range of British products with good labels.

Is this a sign of the times or am I just over optimistic? Has anyone else noticed more British grown or produced items in their local supermarket? If they’re not there ask for them the more that people do the more pressure they will be under to stock them.

Feedback as always very gratefully received.

– Emily

I recently went to put Lucan to bed and noticed that his head touched both the headboard and foot board of his cot simultaneously – This was my first clue that the boy may need a new bed.

He has been in his IKEA [spit on the floor] convertible cot/bed since he was born and, while it marked another emotional mile stone that our boy is growing up, we knew that it was never going to last him until he was ready to move out of home.

We have been a little cash strapped since the extravagance of our Easter holidays so when the offer of Emily’s old bed, currently stored in the in-laws loft was presented we snapped it up. However, this solution left us still in need of a mattress. So, the search was on. Happily it did not take us too long to find Silentnight, famous for their duckling and hippo characters and one of the best known British manufactures of quality mattresses. We ordered it online through mattressman.co.uk, a great site with really clear product origins and it arrived a couple of days later.

Lucan was very excited to get his new bed and his first night’s sleep was marked with a nice long lay-in. There is one issue though. The bed has loose spindles in the headboard which when turned create an ear piercing squeak throughout the house. Helpfully, Granddad showed Lucan this trick because it was apparently something that Emily used to do, to their constant annoyance.

So, Lucan now has a new big boy bed and we have 30 minutes of incessant squeaking every evening while trying to watch the Hairy Bikers Best of British.

– James

As I have a rather big birthday this year where I will be entering my 3rd decade I thought that it might be a good time to start trying to banish a bit of the baby blubber.  I’m also hoping that it will mean that I can have something suitably stunning to wear to whatever birthday celebrations get organised. Now I have been on all sorts of diets in my time but one that members of my family have had great success with recently is the 5:2 diet, where you eat normally on 5 days a week and then slim your calorie intake down to 500 calories for 2 non-consecutive days a week.

I have nominated my ‘fasting’ days as Tuesday’s and Thursday’s as they are my most busy at school and I thought that would help me to not think about being hungry. Well, today being Tuesday was my first of these days and with trying to eat only 500 calories of British food I will admit that right now I am pretty ravenous. The diet is rather restrictive when there is not a wide selection of British vegetables available at the moment. That said I think as the year goes on and the garden starts to get going there should be plenty of all British diet friendly foods readily available.

On my first day I have however managed to get to dinner time with 202 calories to spare so a British boiled egg and a Ryvita are on the menu. Tomorrow will be back to normal eating which I am really looking forward to. However, I must admit that so far it has not been anywhere near as hard as I thought and the advice like chewing your food properly and drinking plenty of water have meant that I’ve not really noticed being hungry, until now when its time to eat again 🙂

I will let you know how I get on 🙂

-Emily

We are now over 3 months into buying only British goods and our larder is getting more and more sparse. Many of the things that you would normally associate with any store cupboard are now, quite sadly, absent from our larder. We have a small amount of whole wheat spaghetti and one tin of chopped tomatoes left along with a couple of tins of chickpeas among our non-British stock.

This has led me towards thinking about what we become used to eating as a family and how our tastes are quite quickly changing. It would be very fair to state that before this year we were a family dependent on pasta and anything with a tomato sauce. We are having to cut this dependency and find other forms of starch to fill us up in the evening. Neither of us are great fans of potatoes (in non-chip form) but we are having to get through more than we used to. This is where we are stuck for the moment as Spring is springing very late and the variety of vegetables is not huge, and is the same as it has been for the last 3 months.

It would seem that while the produce is better quality and cheaper, getting used to a narrower range of foods is not perhaps as easy as I had thought. I have found myself drawn back toward my Nigel Slater cookbook, where he documents a year of eating through the seasons. Also James and I are loving the new Hairy Bikers Best of British tour on BBC 2 at the moment and are hoping that they will give us inspiration to diversify our meals.

In the meantime James has taken up the cooking baton (and pinny) to try his hand at pasta making so that we are not quite so far from what we are used to. I have planted 3 trays of tomato seeds today so that hopefully by the end of July we will have enough tomatoes to store some of our own. We will let you know how the pasta operation goes.

Happy weekend, whatever you are up to 🙂

– Emily