FACTORALY - CHRISTMAS: DAY 5 - CRACKERS

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

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Merry Christmas, Simon. Merry Christmas, Bruce. Welcome to Factorial, everyone. Yes, hello, everyone. This is a special because we are going to be giving you 12 in 12 days, because there are 12 days of Christmas. Indeed, instead of the usual one a week, you get one every single day for the whole 12 days of Christmas. But because it's one a day, they're obviously not as long as they normally are. Indeed. So these are going to be relatively short, relatively punchy, quick little snippets of festive, Christmassy, informative fun.

Yeah, of course we're going to take a subject every day. Yes. But the subjects will be Christmas relevant. Indeed. So that's the plot. Let's get on with it. Off we go. So Simon, what is today's Christmas special about? Crackers. And that's just us.

Undercrackers or any... Prawn crackers? No, specifically, in keeping with the theme, Christmas crackers. Christmas crackers, of course. Yes. As invented by... Tom Smith. Tom Smith.

Yes. This is quite different to an awful lot of other Christmas traditions, which are a mishmash of different traditions and different elements from different cultures over the years. This is one that can actually be identified as, yep, it was invented by this person on this date. Yep. It's quite definite.

Londoner. Londoner. Good on him. That's what we want. So this fellow, Tom Smith, who lived in London, he was a baker and confectioner. He made wedding cakes and sweets and things. He had a shop in Clerkenwell. And he was sort of doing all right. You know, he had a good business going um he visited paris in 1840 and um saw

bonbons for the first time french bonbon sweets there's sweets that are in wrappers like in a twisted paper exactly yes exactly that and he really liked the idea of these sweets in these these colorful wrappers um and he brought the idea back to to london and he started selling bonbons in the christmas of that year 1840 and and you can sort of you know begin to see the idea of the cracker formulating because that that sort of twisted wrapper shape is vaguely cracker-esque yes but they were they were sort of changed and developed over the years he started by just putting little mottos and love notes into his bonbons so that shape with a little bit of paper stuffed inside it that's you know one element of it um legend has it that he was sitting at home one evening near the fire and a coal

slipped and went pop yes and it woke him up from a semi-sleep and he thought to himself, oh, that's a good idea. I should put a popping noise into my sweets. Yes. And that sort of explosion is made by gunpowder and friction. Yes. Two things that otherwise you probably don't want to put together. The family ran the business long after Tom passed away. Yeah. They were going for ages. I think they're still going, aren't they? I think they are.

I'm not sure they're still owned by the family, but the company's definitely still going. Yeah. I heard a lovely story, because you used to be able to commission Tom Smith to make crackers for you. They got commissioned to make a six-foot-t cracker for Kings Cross station and that actually worked really and they also got commissioned to to do to make some crackers that sounded like machine guns okay so a series

of small bangs yes and after I think this was during the first world war and I think this was during the First World War. And I think that they afterwards repurposed the snaps and put them back into crackers. Brilliant. And I talked about special orders. This is one of my favorite stories of Christmas. I love this story, although it's a bit sad. So one of the special orders they had is a gentleman sent Tom Smith in 1927 a ten shilling note and a diamond engagement ring and a letter saying, could you please make a cracker so that I can propose to the person I'm going out with? So they said, this guy's forgotten to put his address on the letter, but he sent us a diamond ring and 10 shillings. So what we need to do is just,

we'll just put it in the safe for the time being. And I'm sure he'll still go, where's my cracker at some point. And then they can find out who he is and make the cracker out for him. Except he never got in touch with them. Really? And right until today,

in the safe at Tom Smith, there is that diamond engagement ring and a ten shilling note. No. Oh, that's, as you say, beautiful and horrific. Yes. There's some poor girl who didn't get proposed to because of something. Yes. Who knows why he didn't put the address? Who knows why he didn't get back in touch? How very odd. Yes. Weird. There is a public fountain in Finsbury Square in London, which was quite close to Tom Smith's original factory. Yes.

Which is a memorial, I believe, to to his mother if I remember rightly which he had erected upon her death and quite unmistakably this fountain has little engraved Christmas crackers around it Oh how sweet They sound like a really nice company

They do, they sound quite pleasant I'm glad they're still going Yeah, absolutely, Well done, Tom Smith. Apparently, according to some estimates in the UK, more than 100 million Christmas crackers are sold each year. Wow. And it's, you know, because they're one use only, you're going to come back and buy more the next year, aren't you?

You are. And you were saying the original Christmas crackers had like poems and quotes and things. Yes. I'm not sure at what point they started having jokes and terribly cheap plastic little toys and trinkets and things. But yeah. Okay. So what's your favourite cracker joke?

Oh, what's the difference between a snowman and a snowwoman? I don't know. what's the difference between a snowman and a snowwoman? I don't know. What's the difference between a snowman and a snowwoman? Snowballs. Do you have a favourite? I do. Go on. What lies at the bottom of the sea in quakes?

I don't know. What does lie at the bottom of the sea in quake? A nervous wreck. Wow. lie at the bottom of the sea in quake a nervous wreck wow that's part of the point of a christmas cracker joke isn't it they have to be bad they have to be something that you can all unify around and and grow i thought i think there's a brief i'm pretty sure there is a brief for christmas cracker jokes one for them to not be too funny funny. Yeah, they've got to be silly enough to be slightly amusing. Yes.

But not funny enough that people actually laugh. Brilliant. Well, thank you for listening to this Christmas special. Indeed, thank you very much for coming along. We hope you'll join us again next time for another fun-filled episode of Factorily. Bye-bye.

Au revoir.