His grandmother worked in the Huntley and Palmers factory in Reading. Huntley and Palmers was a Reading-based Quaker firm which exported biscuits all over the world in distinctive tins.

In 1899 writer Joseph Conrad used an empty Huntley & Palmers tin as a symbol of British colonial power in Africa.Reading's world famous biscuit makers started in 1822 and by 1900 were the largest ...