#24 SWEDISH MATCH INDUSTRIES

 

I wrote several months ago about my mother-in-law bringing back a huge bag of Royal Warrant products for me after she took a work trip to England. I’ve mostly exhausted the list of what I got—with my entries on Heinz, Charbonnel etWalker, Robinson’s barley water, and Brasso metal polish to show for it—but there are still a few items left. The strangest is a box of Bryant & May matches. Swedish Match Industries has held a Royal Warrant from Her Majesty the Queen since 1972 as “Match Manufacturers.”

Matches have fallen out of fashion a bit, don’t you think? People don’t smoke cigarettes as much now as they used to, and if they do they’re much more likely to use lighters than to reach for a matchbook. We have one of those long-handled lighters that we use to light candles around our house, and other than that we don’t have much need for a device that can start a good quick fire. That’s why I was surprised by how taken I’ve become with my little box of Bryant & May matches. I admit I’m rationing them and I’ll be sad when they run out.

What would make one match better than another, or better than an American variety you could go get at Walgreens right this second? I’m happy to tell you. For starters (that’s a pun), these are the fastest-lighting matches I’ve ever seen. Ready, set, done. Anyone who’s ever gone through three or four of those cheap matchbook matches before successfully lighting a candle or a cigarette knows what I’m talking about. A match that doesn’t want to light is a pain in the ass. When these matches light up, they do it with so much gusto that I’m reminded of lighting a sparkler on the 4^thof July.* They sizzle and pop with the most satisfying sound, and each time I wonder for a split second if the match I’m holding is about to start shooting off little pink or green or blue fire stars. This week I’ve also been reminded of the ritual of lighting a match—of needing to be responsible and somewhat grown-up to do it and of doing something that you don’t usually do unless for a special occasion: a candle-lit Valentine’s dinner with someone you’re crazy about, lighting a bright wax number on a child’s birthday cake, or finding yourself a quick source of light should the power go out. I’m also really keen on the great smell they give off when you first light them. You don’t get that from a lighter.

Even if I like my matches, I admit I’m not so taken with the box they come in. The photograph on the front shows four people, all dressed in white, just sort of standing around outside near the ocean. Presumably they’re…having a barbecue? But you don’t know because you can’t see any food or anything like a grill or a spatula or a set of tongs, and ultimately it’s just sort of a tease. What are those people doing out there? I ask myself each time I look at the matches.

 

Even odder than this incomplete picture is a small red box containing a stick figure with a flame on its arm and neck. The text next to that reads: DANGER! FIRE KILLS CHILDREN.

Errr…yes. Yes, it does. This is one of the more obvious warnings I’ve read on a product in a long time. It’s almost as good as that warning you sometimes see on packages of peanuts that they were processed in a facility containing nuts.

But back to DANGER! FIRE KILLS CHILDREN. Everyone can agree that a child shouldn’t be playing with this box of matches. What’s maybe not so obvious when it comes to what harms children is, well, bad parenting. Take, for instance, the astounding amount of literature criticizing the parenting methods of Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip. Every biography I’ve read of the Queen or her children opines about their parenting skills. At first I completely ignored these sections of her biographies, specifically any criticism of her. So what if she left a very young baby with a nanny so she could tour the world? That’s what royals do, maybe. So what if they sent Prince Charles off to a boarding school in northern Scotland—Gordonstoun, which was the subject of an article last month that revealed anew just how much he hated the place—instead of to nearby Eton, so that he could make a man out of himself at the tender age of 13? What business is that of mine, right? So what if Philip was aloof and rarely present for Charles, so that Philip’s uncle and a close family friend—Dickie Mountbatten—stepped into this fatherly role, especially once Charles was in his 20s? Maybe I just don’t have the full story. But...I guess I’m starting to lose my nerve apologizing for these people.

If you can throw a rock and hit someone with a nasty story to tell about the Queen’s parenting, it’s comparatively harder to dig up anything about Bryant & May. The company dates back to the mid-1800s, when its factories in London and Australia supplied matches to the British Empire. The East End factory is most famous for the strike that took place there in 1888, led by its mostly female workers who demanded better working conditions. If you’re interested, Louise Raw’s 2009 book Striking a Match: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and Their Place in History is a fantastic read. 

Bryant & May underwent a series of mergers with other, competing matchmaking companies beginning in 1901, and full ownership of the company was taken by Swedish Match in 1987. The factories in London, Australia, Liverpool, and Northern Ireland (a photo of the former one in London, below, was taken by Fen Fahey), were closed down in the late 1970s/early 1980s. The company name is still registered by Swedish Match, but there’s not much more left of it. A unique collection of Bryant & May matches, as well as older fire-starting devices from around the world, can be found at the Science Museum in South Kensington.
 

It strikes me (that's another pun, and I'm sorry) that I'm not getting what I want this week, either from learning more about the royal family or from researching these matches that I love so much. The royal family just doesn’t often look good on paper; it’s flaws and foibles are so ugly and obvious. You don’t have to look very hard to bump into them. The Bryant & May company as it exists today is somewhat similar. Despite its long history, it’s now owned by a Swedish company that doesn’t make its matches domestically and that also produces a wide array of cigarettes and chewing tobacco. Neither of these stories is one I particularly want to tell.

Where to buy: I honestly think you can only buy these in the UK. If I'm wrong, I’d love to know.

*Is it in good taste for an American writing a blog about British royals to mention the 4^thof July? Maybe not.