There are no specific numbers of how many shops selling British chocolates, sweets, food, and memorabilia exist in Canada but estimates are in the hundreds. They began in the 1970s, catering to a niche and small market. Back then, before the internet, British Sunday papers would arrive by Monday lunchtime and these were the best places to buy them. I remember rushing to a corner store downtown to grab the Sunday Times. That was back in 1987.
As online news developed and hard copy papers were less in demand, these relatively few shops branched out into food, and by the early 1990s it was obvious that the market for every type of British chocolate and biscuit (cookie) was there in abundance. From a handful of shops, the numbers multiplied. In Toronto, for example, there are at least a dozen, and in the suburbs and towns around the metropolis that number quadruples. I’ve travelled this county extensively and it’s amazing how even in quite remote areas they’ll be something available.
With names such as British Pride, Across the Pond, The Scottish Loft, Britshop, and A Taste of Britain, they thrive. The products on offer vary with the season but the constants are familiar: Mars, Flake, Double Decker, Twirl, Galaxy, Minstrels, Yorkie, and Fry’s Chocolate Cream in various flavours. But the menu goes well beyond that. Every type of British biscuits, often from Marks and Spencer, sweets (candies), bottles of Fairy Liquid, Imperial Leather Soap, Coronation Street and EastEnders mugs, football scarves and hats, tea towels picturing various royals, books about the Lake District or assorted British detectives, and even in this digital age a plethora of Downton Abbey, Doc Martin, and Carry On film DVDs. Do people still watch DVDs?
Fox’s Glacier Mints, actually much less common in Britain, and Dolly Mixtures , also much harder to find in the UK, are never out of stock. I mean what I say about the greater availability here than in Britain; when I’m back in London I simply can’t find some of the things that are readily available in Canada.
But why the success? Canada is far from as British as it once was— two generations of immigration have changed the nature and tastes of this country—and while we’re still a monarchy, and have the Union Jack on several of our provincial flags, the pull and influence of US culture and commercialism is difficult to resist. If we’re honest, we like to cling to certain British characteristics because we don’t want to be American, and quite right too.
It’s partly Brits and the children of Brits still longing for things they’d likely never buy if they were in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, or Manchester, but most of those queuing up for their Branston pickle have little if any connection to a country they’ve often never even visited. In other words, there’s profit in imagination as well as nostalgia. I’ve seen this time and time again, and it’s utterly charming.
It’s comfort shopping for some, Anglophilia for others, especially Americans who flood the branches just over the border in Niagara and see Canada as the closest thing to Dibley that they’re likely to find. Spend a Saturday at the Shaw Festival and you see these lovely people spending their lovely dollars on lovely British-styled products. God bless America!
For someone like me, who has now lived away from Britain for most of his life, it’s almost a form of regression. I’d never have visited these places 20 years ago, but as I age, I grab lifelines from a happy past.
My wife: “Are you seriously going to buy those absurdly expensive cookies” — (she’s Canadian)—“just because they’re in a tin?”
Me: “Yes, but the tin has a lovely picture of a Cotswold church on the front.”
She nods her head knowingly and wisely. Yes, she understands.
While contemporary Brits frequently look to the foreign for glamour or thrill, those living 3000 miles away, British or otherwise and young or old, see the UK as offering something special and unique. And yes, they even buy Marmite and claim to enjoy it. Rule Britannia may be a thing of the past but rule Britannia’s exports lives on.
I know that some people see all this as imperialism, colonialism, or something regressive. I treat that attitude the same way I do American chocolate — reject it as sub-standard and unpleasant. The British thing is harmless, fun, tasty, and even politically positive. Who could not want a country based on All Creatures Great and Small?
