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‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house, not a creature was stirring... apart from the countless logistics firms frantically unpacking delayed shipping containers in order to fulfill months of back orders.
But, you don’t have to let the double whammy of global pandemic and farcical Brexit protocols ruin your holidays, you just need to look a bit closer to home for your stocking fillers.
Our Made in Britain gift guide celebrates the very best UK brands and the benefits buying local can bring you, from supporting charities, funding and encouraging the expansion of UK manufacturing, and the small bonus of guaranteed Christmas delivery. Check out our tech toys edit and our main Xmas guide for more Christmas gift ideas.
Cyber Monday has arrived and discounts on a wide range of tech and gadgetry are now live. The WIRED team has uncovered the top deals around right now. Here’s the best Cyber Monday deals.
You’ll be hard pushed to find any mainstream hi-fi made in the UK—speaker drivers, chipsets and the like are almost universally made elsewhere—but with the R5 MiE British brand Ruark has gone the extra mile to encourage and celebrate home-grown craftsmanship. The R5 is already an award-winning one-box system with CD player, DAB radio, Bluetooth, DLNA streaming and multi-room functionality, but this version's cabinet is hand built in a Suffolk workshop using FSC-approved timbers, veneers and materials, before having the electronics assembled in Ruark’s headquarters in Southend on Sea. Be quick (and generous), only 35 have been made.
Price: £2,000 | John Lewis
Made in Suffolk, this bag features Scottish water-resistant, hard-wearing, dry-waxed canvas that will age beautifully, while the canvas straps are from Sheffield and the clasps are heavy-grade metal. It’s a stylish everyday bag. (check out the rest of the range for duffles and larger capacity options) made all the more appealing by its lifetime warranty. Also, the company will buy back old bags when you get bored of them, and they donate 10 percent of the value of each product to The Outward Bound Trust, and 2.5 per cent to carbon offsetting.
Price: £175 | BearMade
A fantastic idea for those with wanderlust, or for that matter, a terrible sense of direction, you can now customise and print your own OS Map, complete with title, description and personal photo. Just enter a postcode or locations, choose the ratio, map size, and away you go. Superb value, extremely useful and thoughtful, but if you want to make a statement they’ll even print and frame a chosen map to hang on the wall, and each purchase receives a month subscription to the digital OS Maps app.
Price: Maps from £7; framed maps from £80 | Ordnance Survey
Designed and manufactured in Ballynahinch village in Northern Ireland—and before you ask, they guarantee free next day delivery before 2pm—this clever fitness tracker fits on Fido’s collar and tracks exercise, rest, distance, calories, and weight via the PitPat app. It’s no-frills, but the app recommends tailored exercise goals and feeding recommendations based on your dog’s breed, age, weight, and activity levels.
We admit this beautiful mechanical pencil is made from European steel, but the raw goods are expertly turned in Birmingham before being laser engraved, assembled and packaged in London. The 10mm diameter pencil is a joy to write with, while the retractable lead sleeve protects the graphite and eliminates any nib wobble. And nobody wants the nib wobbles at Christmas.
Price: £95 | Wingback
Steer Nan away from the Lynx Africa gift box and point her to LifeJacket, an SPF skincare brand, founded to help combat the rise of skin cancer in UK males (who are almost twice as likely to die of skin cancer than women). Their high-performance and year-round skin protection options are good value, but it’s Christmas, so you should go for the gift pack that features their Daily Protection Moisturiser and 50+ SPF Very High Sun Gel, which is ideal for winter sports.
Price: from £26 | LifeJacket
Inspired by the British Army Combat Field Jacket, Seven Layer's Detonator Parka pimps the Manchester-based brand's standard parkas and adds in a detachable breathable insulated lining from HD Wool, a manufacturer with more than 130 years heritage. The lightweight outer fabric is made from a blend of polyester and BCI cotton then finished with British Millerain's water-resistant finish.
Price: £650 | Seven Layer
We had absolutely no idea, but Top Trumps are printed in St Austell, while the instantly recognisable cases are made in Oxford. Our pick from this season’s releases has to be the 007 gadgets and vehicle collection, with 35 iconic pieces from throughout Bond history. Does the Aston Martin Vanquish trump the poisonous Parker pen, or does the Golden Gun beat them all? There’s only one way to find out.
Price: £10 | Top Trumps | Amazon | Zavvi
A sports tracker for those athletes who have outgrown smartwatch data and live for marginal gains, the Nova is a back-worn wearable that collects and collates running performance metrics that include power, cadence and pace, as well as measuring every aspect of your swim strokes. And, impressively, everything except the chip is made in the UK, although not for long, as they’re switching production of that to SMS Electronics in Nottingham.
Price: £199 | Incus
Retro style, historically accurate replica sports shirts hand stitched in Gateshead using all-British materials. They’ve got over 240 club options available from all over the planet, so your search for a gift for your Veneszuela-supporting aunty is finally over. And why have we included Sly Stallone’s fictitious football shirt from the 1981 John Huston film? Well, we’d only get grief if we chose a team, wouldn’t we?
Price: £50 | Toffs
There are dozens of noteworthy edible options for locally made Christmas goodies, but given the impending disaster awaiting British fisherfolk, we think chef Mitch Tonk’s selection of tinned fish is a worthy addition to any foodie’s socking. The catch is delivered to Rockfish’s HQ, a mere 17 metres from the quayside, where it’s processed and preserved ready for shipping. Go all in for the gift pack which includes Brixham cuttlefish, Lyme Bay mussels, Mounts Bay sardines and Brixham Bay mackerel. Want just one tin? Try the hand-steamed, chopped cuttlefish (Rockfish call it “Brixham Calamari”) braised in its own ink with tomatoes and herbs.
Price: From £5; South Coast Selection £24 | Rockfish
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
