There's always been something faintly nostalgic about garden centres, no doubt reflecting the average age of their clientele. If there is a garden centre buzzing with young people, its atmosphere heavy with drum ‘n’ bass, then I’ve yet to find it.
But this week’s visit to one such centre at Studley woke me from my existential angst, and took me back to places I haven’t been since the 1960s.
Piled up next to the check-out to tempt the unwary were boxes of biccies. The label read: “House of Lancaster. Twenty-five years of quality broken biscuits.”
Now there’s a marvellous concept in itself. Guaranteed quality (damaged) goods. An oxymoron, surely?
But with those two words I was back in Wolverhampton market in the early 60s, buying a big bag of broken biscuits. Being naturally suspicious of market traders, I always imagined that they had been damaged by hand the night before. Yet so reliant were the Uptons on them that I was in my 20s before I discovered that biscuits were meant to be circular.
Whilst I was regaling the cashier with tales of abject poverty in the Black Country, a chap stopped by with similar memories of Nottingham market. A chain of broken biscuits, connecting us across the years and across the Midlands.
When I got home, I went to the internet to find out more about this curious firm, and, as is usual in such cases, came out totally confused as to who owned whom. But since we’re dealing in oxymorons, it will come as no surprise that the House of Lancaster appears to be based on an industrial estate at Bloxwich in the West Midlands.
Forget all you’ve heard about the House of Lancaster, old John of Gaunt and Henry Bolingbroke, and look closer to Walsall. Come to think of it, they might have called them Bolingbroken biscuits.
As far as I can see, the biscuits themselves start life as Huntley & Palmers’ best. By what magical process they become a box of (quality) scraps I can only imagine. Teams of employees, all equipped with rolling-pins, hammering through the night.
Nice work if you can get it, if you see my point.
* Dr Chris Upton is smashing his bourbons at Newman University Birmingham
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