fair to say the British cheese industry has had a bit of revival since 1982 though when government cheddar still held sway. Our village shop had "red" or "white" cheese - Cheddar or Wensleydale.
^^^ this.
It's a legacy of wartime rationing, where in order to make things easier to keep tabs on, and to make sure that everyone got the same, creameries were only permitted to produce one single type of cheese - a medium-ish cheddar.
Farmers were allowed to make cottage cheese if milk from their personal allowance spoiled, but it was supposed to be for personal consumption only. Though I'm sure it was bartered for other items.
Post rationing, it took a long time for the smaller creameries to not only restart production, but also to find a market for their wares, as a lot of people didn't want to venture from the cheese they'd become familiar with over the past 15 years. Which was one of the reasonings behind the Milk Marketing Board "inventing" the Ploughman's Lunch.