QUALITY STREET FAIR RETURNS

Quality Street was a Holiday Fair with Dickensian flair run each November – that is, until we tried an experiment last year and had a fall fair instead. We have decided to return to the original format, so this year’s Quality Street will be on Saturday, November 18th INSIDE the church. 

The fair will feel familiar. There will be the enduringly popular greenery booth run by the Altar Guild, vendor booths, basket raffle (that was a new addition last year that proved popular), homemade sweet shop, book sale, as well as roaming carollers and Boar’s Head lunch service in the parish hall.

What never changes: Each year, all of the proceeds are donated to the Canton Food Bank and the Canton Fuel Bank. Totals raised are usually $5,000-$7,000.

Where does the name Quality Street come from?

There is an actual Quality Street in Merstham, Great Britain, where a local parish has been running a (mostly annual) fair since the 1300’s. In 1901, J.M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan) made that place famous by writing Quality Street, a play centered on quaint small-town life.

The name is also synonymous with a popular candy. In the early 1930s, only the wealthy could afford boxed chocolates made from exotic ingredients from around the world, with elaborate packaging that often cost as much as the chocolates themselves. In Great Britain, Harold Mackintosh had inherited a candy business from his parents, who’d developed a soft toffee candy that was popular. He had the idea to cover his different toffees with chocolate, wrap them in colorful paper, and present them in low-cost, yet attractive tins. Packaged in this way, the chocolates could be sold at a reasonable price and would, therefore, be available to working-class families. (Source: Wikipedia).

One could surmise the items available at our holiday fair are good quality at affordable prices – and that we’ve got some really tasty sweets.