by staff reporter

Last updated 05:39, Friday, 22 August 2008

THIS Carrs’ biscuit tin looks much like any other Christmas biscuit tin from 1941 – except it is unopened.

Tasty discovery: Carrs are now the owners of the biscuit tin and its intact contacts after striking a deal with an antiques expert

Months ago antiques enthusiast Hugh Ruding-Bryan spotted it in a sale at his local auctioneers Wellers of Chertsey, Surrey, and successfully bid £25.

When he arrived home he called the Carrs’ factory in Carlisle to explain his find and was asked to send the tin north for analysis.

A few days later Mr Ruding-Bryan received a call from an excited managing director of Carrs who, having X-rayed the tin to confirm all its contents were intact, expressed his wish to buy it for the factory museum.

He could scarcely believe someone had bought the tin during wartime food rationing and failed to open it.

Apart from offering to pay the auction cost and postage from Surrey, he suggested a donation to Mr Ruding-Bryan’s chosen charity, the Children of Chernobyl Life Line, and invited him to Carlisle for lunch and a tour of the factory while his estate car was filled to the brim with about £500 worth of assorted Carrs biscuits.

Some have been sold to friends and business associates but most have been allocated to the children from orphanages in Belarus who the charity provides with holidays in the United Kingdom.

A spokeswoman for United Biscuits said: “We’re delighted that a biscuit tin from the 1940s has been discovered, and we’ll be interested to hear how our quality biscuits have stood the test of time.”