Prickly Pears in UK, any advice?

[ChingfordHarry]

Just to clear up any possible confusion, the ones I had in France were from the same row of opuntia that I got the pad and seeds from for my plants (I have never been shy of scrumping) so if it was a monoculture (certainly looked like it!) they're the same as the ones I have growing outside here. From memory they tasted similar (maybe not quite as tasty) to the prickly pears (also labelled "Indian figs") that I buy here.

you may notice that I like parenthetic sentences...