Listen to your body, Jane! (with Mary Portas)

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1:40Right. Wednesday's edition of Off Air with Joan Fee with No Fee, but she is back the week after next. We've had some cracking company this week. Evelyn, of course, who's off on another holiday. Then we had Hannah, the pride of Hartlepool. Oh, sorry, Huddersfield. Oh, God, I've got that wrong before. She's going to kill you for that. And today, it's Rosie Cutler, our executive producer. And you're from? I'm from Bury St Edmonds in Suffolk. Is there anything, what should we know about that? Bob Hoskins was born there. Yes. It's got an old monastery. It's beautiful, Jane. Yeah, it is. But I have now actually lived in London longer than I live there.

2:20Yeah, okay. That's interesting, isn't it? You sort of cross a point in your life in which that does become very much the truth. Yeah. But you visit because your mum's there, isn't she? My mum still lives there, yeah. And I do, yeah, I still have, I'm really lucky. I have a lot of friends from school who still live there. So I was actually there on Sunday seeing all my gal pals. And because we're talking about, well, we're talking to Mary Portis. She's our guest today. Does it have a thriving high street? Do you know what? It does, actually. I would say there was a time probably, because what Berry is famous for, many things um one of the things it's famous for is it has a great market and it used to be a big cattle market and when my parents moved to the town in the 80s there literally was cattle on a saturday yeah um and it was kind of loud and busy uh and then that just became a kind of fruit and veg market and you could buy you know batteries all sorts um and then i would say in my 20s so you know about 15 years ago there was there was a real lull i'd say where you'd go in especially during the week there was you know there's a clinton cards no disrespect to clinton cards but there wasn't a lot going on but now it's thriving again and you know a lot of my friends they're young families it's kind of happening um there's people there every single day there's loads of lovely kind of artisan butchers things like that uh you know but there's a greg's and there's dead animals but artisan style exactly i was gonna say there's a walworth there's definitely not a walworth there used to be um but they've got a big shopping center now and yeah there's like three cinemas three yeah separate cinemas yeah you've got the it there's a picture house people will be thinking what's this the berries and edmunds tourist broadcast there's a picture house there's a view okay which is a big multiplex and then there's also an everyman i think i've never been to the everyman no because it's a bit arty isn't it yeah but it varies lovely oh it sounds it yeah it really does i have only been once i think we did a show there you did you stayed in the angel hotel yeah and that before i knew you lovely as well yeah it is nice yeah i do remember i had a very good breakfast there mind you i've yet to have a bad breakfast in a hotel in all honesty fee always looks in absolute consternation at the fact that i can eat pork and uh hen produced products at breakfast but i love it i do love a hotel breakfast when we went to when we were in north berwick last year yes unfortunately we didn't get to go this year but last year when we went i do remember at breakfast it kind of went in order of, you had a very big breakfast.

4:42I think I was just somewhere underneath that. Fee then had something very normal and young Evelyn didn't eat at all. No. She just had a coffee. Well, I'm very... That's what they do. I don't approve of not eating. I think, well, I certainly don't. What I mean is you should eat breakfast. I'm one of those people, I can't leave the house without eating something. I don't really understand people who can, but I know we're all different. I actually just... No, I've seen you. You sometimes have your breakfast at 11.30. I just had it because I wanted to actually be a bit... Because I am better when I've had breakfast.

5:11Well, I should think you are. But I do... Yes, but sometimes I'm just honestly just not hungry. I just really listen to my body, Jane. Sometimes I'm hungry, sometimes I'm not. Okay, right. Listen to your body. I think that's probably a different podcast, isn't it? It'll never be one I present. Mary Portis has written a memoir. Well, I was going to say, I think maybe she's written a memoir. This is a collection of her musings. and actually it's quite topical because it's about largely about her experience in the 90s at harvey nichols which was never called harvey nicks until i think it was called harvey nicks in absolutely fabulous anyway i can ask mary about that but um the shop harvey nichols has just been bought by mike ashley uh i think a man who some people might describe as somewhat bumptious he's the man from sports direct but he knows retail and what is he going to do with harvey nichols where we can ask mary all about that and indeed we'll hear some of her memories of what life was like you don't remember the 1990s do you well actually jane i have an anecdote here we go this is not my one of my anecdotes because you've heard all those before this is one of rosie's not really an anecdote it's actually just a memory and that um so my stepmother lived in uh london and we used when i was a child so on the odd weekend from berryst edmunds we used to drive down here and we used to go out for the weekend and i do remember she took us for lunch at harvey nicks and i do just remember feeling like oh my goodness this is so glamorous and i really i thought that's just what london would be like and then i moved here when i was 18 and it just really you know i was living in the arse end of nowhere um but by the way you can't get anywhere in the arse end of nowhere for less than half a million quid it's true it's just be honest about it but yeah i just thought my life would be kind of glamorous lunches at harvey nicks um but it didn't it it wasn't but uh that was a great memory and i really loved it so yeah i do remember that kind of glitz and glamour of that time it was very much and i think remains a destination store i do know it has problems at the moment and again we can hear about them from mary and talk about those retail issues a little bit later but um yeah you're right there was it was a place where when you went through the doors you felt something might be happening i've got a soft spot too for i think selfridges is like that i think if you i mean i and also the art of window dressing to be a good window dresser and mary was fabulous at it that's an astonishing art form i think and i'm so jealous of the skill set there yeah i selfridges is yeah i do still got that kind of tingly feeling it's a retail tingle and christmas as well in those places is really great apparently they were planning for christmas weeks ago so christmas was christmas in july is the big thing isn't it the big thing it's it's completely in the bag christmas 2026 doesn't bear thinking about we don't even know those trends yet jane no but we don't know what they're gonna be we're about to discover exactly what they are.

7:58I do remember interviewing a man who'd written a book about Gordon Selfridge, who established Selfridges. This is years ago. And it was so interesting, the social history of it. The reason that Selfridges became very popular very quickly with women of a certain demographic, so relatively affluent, was that, in fact, very affluent, was that it had toilets. Because until then, there were no public loos that people could use safely, women could use safely along the high street. Yeah. Isn't that remarkable? That's crazy. You just don't think about that. Yeah, it's like, well, Fee always says that about feeling safe near John Lewis.

8:35It is that thing, isn't it, where you just know, if you're near a department store, you know, oh, yeah, I can go to the loo. Some of the biggest arguments me and my partner ever had was during lockdown, and we'd go on walks, and I'd really need a wee, and there was nowhere to go, because, you know, pubs were closed, everything was closed, and boys can just go anywhere, can't they? Well, I wish they wouldn't, because then London wouldn't stink of urine all the time, which it always does, particularly. Don't talk to me about the heatwave. There are listeners to this podcast, it might be hard to believe, and some of them have emailed.

9:04We're very, very grateful. So Mary Porter's coming up relatively soon because I know we've got to evacuate the studio for somebody more important than us. Hard to believe, isn't it? We always welcome emails from Brenda in Crumlin and she just wanted to say, I really wanted to agree with your correspondent about the amazing flower in Belfast at the start of this month. Such a festival of Irish music, dance and singing, people from all over the island and indeed the world. As someone who has talked to you before and emailed before about the horrible race riots and 30 years of bombing and security searches and death in my native city, it was so emotional to wander the streets and see the hordes enjoying impromptu performances, people of all ages, from the youngest of children up to old men, playing music, singing and dancing in such a joyful manner.

9:53It made me so proud of Belfast and hopeful for the future in this troubled world. Brenda, lovely to hear from you. Thank you very much. I just don't understand why we haven't... I just didn't know until we got our earlier email about the flower and about how successful it had been and how significant it was that that traditional Irish music festival was held in Belfast for the first time. Standards has been something we've talked about on the podcast this week. and Susie, who describes herself as on a train from Washington, D.C., back to home in New York, listening to Jane and her shushing of the loud man by the pool.

10:30Are you aware of this incident, Rosie? I am, yes. It's an international incident. Well, only in the sense that it happened abroad. The man involved, sadly, I regret to tell you, was British. I have encountered somebody clipping their nails around the pool in Skiathos. For God's sake. We all do it. don't do it by the pool. And another time, somebody plucked their bikini line with tweezers in Sicily. Thank you, Susie. I mean, that is Sicily. And we don't know the nationality of any of those individuals. I would like to believe that they weren't British, but of course we certainly can't be certain of that.

11:10Because we're so well-behaved abroad usually, aren't we, the Brits? My goodness, yes, we never, ever do anything. Another Susie, this Susie is in North Yorkshire. She says she just can't abide bad manners and she will always intervene when appropriate. Susie, you are now me, I am you, we are neighbourhood Nellies. In a store in about the year 2000 with my husband and two teenage sons, we were waiting to be served by a young woman who was just chatting away on the landline. I mean, that slightly dates the anecdote, but anyway. I asked if she could possibly help us and she said she would in a minute but just carried on talking to a friend when I reached over the counter and pushed the useful hang up button now that's proactive she did look shocked and said oh and I said no no not in a minute now this is your job my husband and my boys were hiding and later my elder son said I was just so embarrassing but i didn't care and i still don't i called out a woman just after covid because she didn't say please or thank you to the lady in gregs she then apologized to me and to the lady server if people call rudeness out maybe the world would become more polite

12:30but you always get you've been silenced by that haven't you well i was just thinking would i get involved do i yeah i can be a bit mouthy sometimes as you can imagine but i no can we just say Rosie's reputation in the working environment is, I mean, you like a chat. And there's nothing wrong. The thing's the best thing about coming to work. Oh, my goodness. It's one of the good things about coming to work, certainly here. Other than the tireless journalism that we do, obviously. Yeah, but let's just own the fact that we all like a chat on our team. Yes, we do. And it's good. It's brought us all together.

13:02It has. But do you intervene, this is what I was going to ask, do you intervene every time, Jane? And do you ever think, are you ever concerned for your safety? Well, let's bring in another emailer. Go for it. Denzel in Belgium. I was wondering about a reason why younger people might be reluctant to speak up. Perhaps they aren't necessarily more passive than previous generations. Perhaps they've simply become more conscious of the possibility that challenging a stranger can provoke an unpleasant reaction. These days, you just don't know how someone's going to respond when you tell them their behaviour is unacceptable.

13:34So perhaps there's a simple rule of thumb, this is to your point, assess the environment before you assess the behaviour. If you're somewhere very public with lots of other people around also being disturbed, such as Jane's Hotel Pool, then if you feel comfortable doing so, speaking up seems perfectly reasonable. If the person becomes aggressive, you've got lots of witnesses and potential helpers. That's pretty clear, isn't it? But if you're relatively isolated with just you and the offending person, for example, a dentist's waiting room and there are only two patients, perhaps discretion is the better part of valor you might simply have to sit there silently fuming while wondering why the universe has chosen to test you in this particular way i love the idea of someone getting so annoyed at a dentist waiting room i'm normally too nervous to get annoyed with anybody but yeah um thank you densel a beautiful can i say a beautifully worded email um and oh Oh yes, Susie, another Susie.

14:34God, we've had a plethora of Susies. Thank you all. Susie went to Caffelonia for 10 days after breast cancer, so had to rest. I hope you're very much on the mend now, Susie. She took all five of the Castellet Chronicles, read them. I've been raving about the Castellet Chronicles. She read them and then left them in a really lovely cafe. I just put my number and my name in the front of the books and I had three thank yous from people who'd read them and then passed them on. isn't that a lovely idea wow that's really nice yeah that is such a thoughtful thing to do and also what brilliant books to find because usually you just find absolute dross don't you yeah well you do but you see sometimes i i don't know yeah you can find i mean let's not mention the authors that we always find in um what was 30 shades of gray um how many shades of gray was it there are about 50 i think i only got up to i only got to page 38 so i only got to 30 38 shades of gray yeah was it 50 50 shades of gray yeah was it really i'm just gonna look that up but i think it was yeah it's a lot of shades um this is from we'll anonymize this one because um it's a common experience but we don't want to um heap any more on um this set of circumstances but so many people will be going through this uh first time emailer here we just moved back to london after 20 years of living overseas, most recently 12 years in California.

16:01So quite a lot of thoughts on emergency alerts, she says. Our middle child came back to the UK to go to university. He did what he thought was the right thing. He got a decent law degree from a well-known university in the southwest and all the costs that went with that. He has now applied for almost 200 jobs in law and business, as well as any part-time temporary work he could find. I know his story is a familiar one, but what stands out for me is the lack of kindness from recruiters when kids are essentially applying for their first so-called big job. There's no feedback or, in most cases, any acknowledgement of even the application.

16:42Trying to keep him motivated is now a daily task. He has picked up some bar work, but he's so disheartened and wonders why he even bothered slogging away for three years. I'd just make a plea that if any of your lovely listeners are in HR and dealing with graduates or any applicants, please at least thank them for their interest and wish them well. Throw them some encouraging words even. We all know it's tough out there, but that doesn't prevent people from recognising that there is a real person on the other end of that application and kindness costs nothing. my heart breaks for all these kids who genuinely want to go to work and get on with the next chapter of their lives um anonymous thank you for that um again beautifully expressed i feel for you i feel for your son i know it's no fun at all uh when someone in your life is honestly battling away and yeah going going having an evening meal for example and going to their room if they're lucky enough to have one of their own and then just slogging away for hours on end looking at stuff sending off your CV.

17:46It was different. I know you're much younger than me, Rosie, but it was different, wasn't it, 10, 15 years ago? Yeah, although I also went through a very difficult time after university. I didn't do a degree that was as focused as something like law. I did American studies. Sorry, what? American studies. Yes. It came with a year abroad in California, so I don't know what the appeal was. How bad was that? Yeah, terrible. Whereabouts in California did you go? In Santa Cruz, Northern California. Okay. And how good was it? It was the best time of my life, yeah. Honest response. Yeah, it was really, really good.

18:20But I came out of university and I just, because I have siblings that are a lot older than me, and they really did kind of walk out with humanities degrees and just walk into jobs. Like, they just did really great jobs. It was easy. Where people were like, oh, you have a degree from Roald Holloway, great. And I didn't realise, I don't think that the world had changed. My peers did and they did internships. I also couldn't really afford to do that. No. so I got a job in a shop and actually my advice would be I started I had a mild interest in fashion I worked in a shop and for the two years that I was there two or three years I made it I tried to kind of get as much out of it as I could and I actually did end up working abroad for them and and I knew deep down it wasn't really what I wanted to do and but you were working but I was working yeah I was working in retail I mean I was paid absolutely nothing I think I got paid about 800 pounds a month which in london is is i mean you can't even get a room for that now but this was back in kind of 2010 so yeah but i definitely went through that feeling of god why should i even do a degree what what's the point of this which i'm sure that young man is feeling too oh god i wouldn't i wouldn't blame him at all for thinking so i think just try and yeah i mean if you don't have a job at all then it's really difficult i tried to make the most of what i had and then i was just very lucky and shadowed a friend and she worked in radio and i thought i had done a bit of radio at university and i just thought oh this is brilliant and i went i went back and did a master's right but yeah i can't imagine what it must be like to do a degree that is so focused not be able to find a job i kind of felt it was my own fault because i just did i did a kind of whimsical thing that's okay you had a whimsical year in it got me here yeah and look where you are now oh but look um there will be lots of people in a similar position to our correspondent or um they could be in the position of the correspondent's son and just feeling that it's not been worth it and life can be bloody cruel i think your 20s are tough actually super tough i think uni kind of gives you a bit of a false sense that it's all fun and games but then it isn't i think for me as well i felt a real pressure to kind of start my quote-unquote real life and that i should be getting this kind of the big job the wonder job and and truly my life didn't in that sense if that's what you judge it on my life didn't really begin until i was in my 30s i turning 30 was the like i i love my 30s much more than my 20s i found my 20s really really hard and yeah there was a there was a lot of pressure and you know you don't realize in your 20s it's such a long life to lead and you're going to be working for a long time so if you can try and just get you know nobody you don't have to be a high-powered executive by the time you're 24 The pressure, you do tend to measure yourself against your peers, don't you?

21:03Definitely. And some of them, and because life isn't fair and not everybody progresses at the same pace, some people do seem to be shooting ahead of you. Oh, they do. And that's because some of them are. Yeah. But you don't know what lies in store for them 10, 15 years down the line. You never know. Yeah. And you don't know what could happen to you either. But I'd be really interested to hear from recruiters about, I know they're busy, I get it, but the lack of response, because it certainly happened to my children, it's so bloody miserable because you just feel that there's no one out there paying any attention to you can't you just send something back i know it's all ai that initially perhaps looks over the the cvs that's even more depressing and is it this is a question for me really is it better to be doing any job in order to get your so-called first big job than no job at all so is it better to be working in a pub and i'm not in any way dissing that or working in a cafe or doing something that you definitely wouldn't choose to do and that you're considered to be overqualified for, is that better than sitting at home and just applying for 15, 20 jobs a day?

22:07You might find something you really love. And you might. And also I felt that my... Now I'm a bit more further along in my career, I can actually look back to university and see the skills that I learnt then and see, oh yeah, these are transferable skills. But I think when I was 23, 24, I had no idea how to translate that and I felt like I absolutely should but I didn't know how to do it it was just very cloudy to me whereas now I can think about oh of course writing those essays definitely prepared me for the workplace but I couldn't make that and that jump does feel very easy I mean god we work with some we work with some 23, 24 year olds Hannah might be one of them who are so impressive and I absolutely could What do you mean she might be one of them?

22:50She is one of them Oh we don't want her to get that by ourselves We already had an email in about Huddersfield. I don't know if you saw that. But we can save that for her maybe for tomorrow. Oh, yes, we can. She'll be back tomorrow. But yeah, there are some young people here who just, I mean, wow, they blow me away. They are so impressive. And I could not have been in a workplace and be as professional and effective as they were. I was just a child. This is what's so unfair because this cohort of people in their early 20s are vastly more accomplished than I ever was at that age. And the workplace is just not as welcoming.

23:27I mean, in fairness, I'm a completely different generation to you. It wasn't a barrel of laughs trying to get a job in 1985 either. Or 1987, I finally entered a radio station for the first time after two years of abject misery doing other stuff. and it's it's I wish somebody had if somebody had told me then that one day I'd be sitting anticipating a tuna flatbread from a chain of high street sandwich stores that had yet to be invented. Talk about Harvey Nix remember when Pret came to the UK. I do remember when Pret came. Wow because I think that one of the first branches of Pret was in Islington where I was living when I first came to London and they used to do this I shouldn't be I mean why I'm this stuck in my head but they did this beef and horseradish sandwich.

24:10I still think about that. I remember that, yeah. They had one in Cambridge. We used to go especially sometimes. Well, not especially, but it was a perk of the day. Yeah, people won't believe there was a life before Pret, but it was barely in existence, to be perfectly honest with you. A few people have commented about Gabby Roslin's volume. Was the volume out of alignment? Were the settings out of alignment on Gabby Roslin? I don't know. Anyway, I couldn't say. No, Angela says, Gabby doesn't usually make me jump out of my skin every time she speaks. But I was listening in the wee small hours because I had insomnia.

24:44Oh, Angela, sorry to hear about that. Gabby was our guest yesterday. We were in a slightly, recording that interview, we were in a slightly different location. Oh, yes, we were. So I think that that has probably something to do with that. I do apologise because we have over the years had some interactions about levels. But we're generally okay now. Oh, yes. No, Gabby's a good woman, and she was talking about her show The Joy of Pets. And, of course, as we all know, many listeners to offer take joy in their pets. Just a little update on Dora. She did go to the vets yesterday. My youngest daughter took her, and you'll be delighted to hear Rosie.

25:19She's in good nick. I mean, it is important. Yeah. Well, could you look a bit more thrilled? You just look bored, shitless, frankly. I don't have any pets. No. Well, you should have. And she also had her claws done. And so, actually, when she sat on my knee last night, It was pleasurable for the first time in five years, if I'm honest with you. We ought to have done that a long time ago. At least she got hers done in a vet and not by the side of a pool in Sicily. Well, exactly. I mean, even the cats got higher standards than some of these people by the sides of pools. And as, by the way, for using tweezers on your bikini line, I never want to think about that again.

25:50Self-harm, I think. Angela also says, I'd never heard of anybody being allergic to animal spit, which was something Gabby said yesterday. Gabby Rosman loves animals. She can't have cats or dogs because her husband is allergic to cat and dog saliva. It was a new one on me as well, but Angela says she's off to chat GPT it. Well, Angela, if you have got a moment, you can always get back to us on that. Do let us know what you discovered. And just a quick question from Heather, who's in Orange, North, is it NSW Australia? Would that be New South Wales? God, I'm being thick. New South Wales, Australia.

26:27Heather, you're very welcome to the pod. Jane's question yesterday to Hannah about what nursing homes of the future might be like, given young Hannah's multi-audio tendencies, did strike a chord with me. My dad is currently getting great care in a nursing home with lots of family visits and support. While he cannot navigate remote controls, he can still send text messages. Is my generation... This is such a good question. Is my generation the first to receive a daily string of text messages from a parent whose moods fluctuate wildly and has cognitive impairment. We're in no way laughing at that situation because it's, I mean, and I should say, Heather, I have mentioned before, my dad is now in a care home.

27:10This stuff is very real to many people of my generation. I do think you raise a really interesting question there because these people, my dad does WhatsApp, he doesn't have cognitive impairment, I should say. He's been very fortunate. But, you know, it's not easy to adjust to life in a care home and inevitably there are ups and downs. There are good days and there are not so good days. And we as a generation, people in the 50s and 60s now, are part of this. We are hearing from our parents who are able to communicate and keep us fully up to date with everything going on in their world. And I can't deny it, Heather, I'm with you.

27:48It's quite strange. Heather does say Dad's current level of concern is his nipples. He's experienced pain in them and sends me regular updates as to the level of pain. and again we're not laughing at this at all um for my own sanity i've decided not to respond to his text today although he has already alerted me to his dangerously low level of his preferred lip balm so he said two left and then i will die right shout out to all the adult children wrestling with the best way to support aging parents um heather i absolutely hear you and i suspect many other people will as well and just to emphasize we are not in any way laughing at the plight that heather's father finds himself in or indeed anybody who's in a care home because let's be honest uh it's the best that any of us can hope for uh but there is no doubt uh that period of life comes for challenges for all comes with challenges for all involved i think that's clear and i would welcome more correspondence on that subject uh jane and fee at times.radio

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30:29I'm going to do a little bit of filling while our guest, who has now arrived, gets her breath back. She is Mary Portis. She's always well worth hearing from. She's got a new book out called I Shop, Therefore I Am, the 90s Harvey Nicks and Me. Harvey Nicks is Harvey Nichols, of course, the well-known Knightsbridge department store. Is this enough waffle? Yeah, yeah, I think they've got the story. I've been 17 flights. I've got my breath back now, Jane. We're fine, we're fine. Right, OK, we should just say that the lifts in this building, in a glamorous location very close to London's scintillating London Bridge, are just not working.

31:03So you're a fit woman, but it was tough, wasn't it? Well, it was 17 flights. Yes, I'm sorry. Everybody slowly peeled off going along on the third or the fourth or the fifth, and your lovely little runner was going, it's only a few more, and I said, just tell me the number. 17 flights. And are you in heels, or have you got your trainers on? No, no, no, I've got these on, little sandals on. Not in heels. I don't wear heels much at all now. Oh, right, OK, well, we can talk about that. We need to talk about Harvey Nicholls, because you were there in... Well, would you say that you were there during the glory years of Harvey Nicholls?

31:34Yes. Or did you create the glory years? A bit of both, I think. Well, don't be modest. Well, no, because there's always a great team. Yes, I went in when it was loss-making and left when it was, you know, pretty large global business. so it was 10 years and exciting and wonderful from this one store in Knightsbridge and of course you have to remember then Jane this was well before the internet people were buying online so destinations for boutiques and stores were so vital you just had to make these places places of real magnetism yeah so I left when I set up my own business in 20 oh my god 2007.

32:11So Mike Ashley of Sports Direct is now the man who owns Harvey Nichols and are not just in Knightsbridge anymore. There are branches elsewhere in the country. What do you think of the Harvey Nichols, Mike, Ashley link-up? Are some people a little bit snooty about it, do you think? Yeah, you know, the thing is, there's part of me that kind of loves the idea that this guy has created such wealth, you know, and is British and is buying this British institution. And he's an employer. And he's an employer. So I kind of think, you know, let's just watch and see here. And it's a really tricky time because we're up against so much.

32:47And it's not as if I was in Liberty the other day and it was buzzing, but it's right in the heart, sort of Soho, near Oxford Street. It's just off Oxford Street, yeah. Yeah, and you've got nights, but you've got to have... What reason do people want to come? And that's the big question I guess he needs to ask himself. Well, let's just see. What would you do to Harvey Nichols? I knew you were going to do this. I'm not the most original broadcaster, but carry on. Well, I think there's a big thing that I, whenever I work with clients and where they have a lot of physical retail, I always say, what can't Amazon do?

33:20What can the digital world not do? And I think, first of all, I would be looking at all the space and creating destinations that are extraordinarily, wonderfully luxurious for women, particularly. And I think they did start that to an extent, like putting Pilates studios on there and having these beautiful spaces, growing the well-being. But I would also open up a whole floor completely of recycling, upcycling, trading floor for young people. So getting all those young Gen Zs in who can trade their own clothes, that's becoming such a growth market. Secondhand and vintage is exponentially growing.

33:57I mean, it came from a very low threshold, but it's growing faster than fast fashion. Hooray. So I would do something that becomes this destination where they have to come where these drops are and creates a destination. That's one of the ideas. And then I'd be looking at social spaces that are absolutely not what you can do online. And that can be an absolute mix of stuff. When I was doing research on Gen Z, nearly 80 % Gen Z saying, we would love to meet in physical spaces. Because that generation, they're the digital world. They didn't know. That's why they're all loving the 90s. The 90s was the last time to them where they felt, my God, that was joyful, wasn't that great and wasn't that fun?

34:34So I'd be looking at how I get those two groups. I'd be looking at the youth and then I'd be looking at the women with the money. So has Mr Ashley been on the phone? No, no, no. But if he were to... Well, would you go back to Harvey Nichols? No, I'd never go back there, but I would certainly give advice on what I do. OK. I'm interested in the fact that you mentioned destination and some people are, I don't know, they're a bit snobbish about shopping, actually, and about the pleasure that lots of people, including me, get from a little bit of the retail therapy thing is real, isn't it? I can be given a certain amount of pep in my step if I go out and buy a nice new shirt and a book I've wanted for a long time.

35:15What's wrong with that? Some people are rude about it. Well, there's nothing wrong with it, but I think the reason I called the book I shop, therefore I am, is, and I think people are rude about it, because it seems like we're not conscious. if we become these, oh, I'm just popping out. I mean, we've really moved on from when the going gets tough to tough go shopping, that sort of era of the 80s and 90s where, you know, when I was at Harvey Nichols, you had no idea what the impact of what you were doing. Now we do know. And so I think when it's done with a knowledge and a consciousness, it can be really joyful.

35:48But the reason I called the book I Shop There for is because Barbara Kruger did this whole campaign that she put in the Serpentine, and it was all an indictment. The Serpentine Gallery. Yeah, the Serpentine Gallery. We might be a bit London-centric here. Yeah, sorry about that. It's the 17 steps I had to go up, 17 flights. But anyway, she talked about consumerism had become, defined us, and it did. It did, what we owned and what we bought. For those particular 20 years, I think, 80s, 90s and noughties, 30s, there was this real, I shop, therefore I am. That was what she put up, and it was absolutely an indictment on the way we were living.

36:24We've come out of that now. and so therefore I think we can and we need to have high streets, we need to have shops, we need this in our lives. We'll talk about the high street in a moment but let's just talk about the very, very rich people that you encountered in your time at Harvey Nicholls. Now I've written this down because this is a bit from the book that really stuck with me. The customers I saw swanning into Antonella's VIP dressing room were on another level. Personal shoppers taking them through previews of collections, champagne at 10 in the morning, a driver to whisk them home when they were trollied by lunchtime.

36:56Did you like these people? They sound horrible, Mary. They're awful people, aren't they? It was a complete different world than I'd ever been in. You know, I was a working-class kid who'd come from Topshop as display manager. I was living in a little bedsit in Manor House, and I used to get the bus in, and I just never knew. I mean, now you see how... You could just have to look on any social media and you see how people live. I had not experienced this and at first I found it I felt completely outside it because don't forget this was the time of the Sloan Rangers as well and they used to literally pull up and all dressed like Lady Diana with little ruffles and pearls and those headbands and it seems crazy that you can really define that era by that look and it was, if people had money they bought luxury that didn't stop, that didn't change until when brands became, you know, really fuelled in the late 80s, 90s.

37:53So these people had lives, you know, they were driving, get the driver to take them, but they lived within a five-mile radius of the store. Yeah, they could have got the bus. They weren't on the bus with me, Jane, that's for sure. No, absolutely not. The window dressing is something that is, I think, such an underrated art form. And I mean, I'm going to say, I think the British are probably as good at it as anybody or possibly better than anybody else in the world. Tell us about your big hits when you were window dressing at Harvey Nicks. Well, I think the New Yorkers are pretty good there. Oh, never mind them.

38:23New Yorkers, yeah. Never mind them. But there was the two, because, no, don't forget Auntie Warhol dressed windows and Dari dressed windows. I wish I'd never said that now. You see, so, no, but that was back in the 40s and 50s. Some of my best, I don't, it was just the joy of doing stuff. I mean, I loved it when I put nothing in the window and gave all the money to charity for Christmas, and that really worked. That was just, I don't need to be here selling. I'm just going to speak to people's hearts. And that was, I love that because it was an experiment. That is really a bold thing to do. And did it actually perversely bring more people into the shop and make more money for Harvey Nichols?

38:59Exactly. And they gave more to the, and donated to all the different charities we were doing. So that really showed me, because when I presented that to the board, they were like, this isn't going to come on. Everyone wants, it's got to be, you know, joyful at Christmas and abundance everywhere. and you're going to leave empty windows. You can only do that once, though, can't you? No, of course, of course. I don't think anyone's done it since, but it was enough to get front pages of the papers. And you also got front pages for Carhenge, didn't you? Yeah, Carhenge. What was that? Well, there were these old dudes in the Nevada desert who, all the cars get dumped in the Nevada desert when they're old and dumb.

39:33And these guys who were scrap merchants who were pulling them together decided to stack them up and called it Carhenge. They looked like Stonehenge. It was the most unbelievably surreal thing. and I saw it at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and I thought, I just had this sudden moment of, my windows, I've got this complete gallery that looks out onto London and I could just put art in there. And it was a real breaking point for me to actually just entertain and stop people and the by-product was you put the product in and they bought. And Harvey Nicholls was Harvey Nicholls until it was Harvey Nicks and it was only Harvey Nicks because of Absolutely Fabulous.

40:09Is that correct? They used to call it Harvey's. Oh, did they? The people who were there, Harvey's. Right. And then Jennifer, and I found out that Jennifer was doing this comedy, and I rang her and said, would you film in the store? And that's how it all happened. Oh, so you made that link? Yeah, I rang her. I see. I rang her, and she came in with Betty Jackson. Betty Jackson used to dress her. And Betty had said, I think she's doing this comedy. It's going to be hilarious. And she's asking which designers to wear and whatever. And Betty was her inside knowledge. knowledge and I said oh my god tell her I wanted to film here so she said well call her here she is and so she came in but she didn't tell me anything about the show and I just had this feeling this could be a terrible risk right or it's going to be great and I said look we're the only store everybody's talking about Harvey Nicks and they weren't quite it was getting really there you know we just launched Mac we were getting the real original stuff Mac the makeup Mac the makeup and I had RuPaul dressed up in the window you know in in drag and and I said everybody it's the London store and she just said I don't know I don't know and I said well tell me what's about she wouldn't tell me what it was about so you there's a very funny bit in the book where you watch the first episode of Absolutely Fabulous and you're fringing because you've no idea what awaits you no she two weeks later faxed me can you remember fax came through saying I'll come in and film and I just remember going downstairs and the thing was Joanna Lumley was always this classical actress I mean she was purdy she was a nice posh girl and suddenly I looked through the door and saw Joanna Lumley with a fag on, a bottle of Bolly and a beehive.

41:46Yeah, I mean, has it stood the test of time, Alphab? I haven't seen it recently. I think it totally is. People still send me bits from it. One the other day when I was out with Too Big a Night with friends and they said, one they sang with Patsy said, God, if a mosquito bites me now, it'll have to go into rehab. That's still funny, right? Yeah, that does work. So the 90s were, well, for you, there were details. I just didn't get. I'd never understood this. Didn't know anything about it. Obviously, the high-end fashion world, if you were going between the fashion designers, you'd have to wear their clothes.

42:20You couldn't have a meeting with somebody unless you were wearing their gear. So you'd be in the back of a cab in New York squeezing into a new pair of designer trousers. I mean, just crazy. You'd turn up and you'd want those designers. So the big designers. And at that time in the States, you were talking Donna, Karen. These were the gods. Calvin, Ralph. It was Dana, Calvin, Ralph. Massive, massive sales. And I guess our equivalent was Joseph did really well in the UK and Nicole Fari. Because really, everyone thinks, you know, the spend is always with the youth. The spend is with 50 plus women.

42:55That is where the dosh is, right? Yeah, but can I say, I mean, on behalf of women who aren't five foot eight and seven and a half stone, are you five foot eight? Okay. Not seven and a half. Well, you're not a big woman, Mary. I mean, we just need to be honest about this. Fashion has never really felt like it was for me or the average woman. No. It still isn't. No. No. So what do we do about it? Nothing? Well, I don't think... Actually, I've done quite a few things on that. I did the 40-plus women for the first time. I sort of broke through and said, this is ridiculous. Every single campaign has 16, 17-year-olds who are, you know, sample size.

43:29I used to be able to get in. You know, sample size is 8, 10. It's not that now. It's less. It's less. So six? Yeah, it would be a six. Less? And you see them, I don't know how much less, I haven't tried to get into any samples lately. But it's terrible, and it is just, you've got to understand as well, a lot of men at the top designing, you know, that are putting these, you know, models down the catwalk. So we have... Who don't know much about or care much about women? Who would see this as beauty and androgynous and sexy rather than that's what a real woman looks like. Look, they've moved the dial.

44:08It's nowhere near enough. And now they say, oh, we'll show older women. But then they go into, let's show, you know, bless her, Maggie Smith in Celine, or really famous, very old actresses who have a great sort of currency because of what they've achieved. But you don't see, as you're saying, 60, 55-year-old women who are a size 16 and... But some of whom have money to spend. They're where the money is. That's where the money is. But then there's another thing. I'm not sure people want to see... There's a wonderful line, one of my favourite lines in Chicken Run, where she goes, my life flashed before me and it was really boring.

44:45We're coming out of jokes today, Jane. And I just think, do I want... Sometimes I don't want to see completely. I just want to think I could look good in that, you know, rather than being shown exactly what I look like. I mean, you hinted that there were class issues at Harvey Nichols, weren't there, because you were not from the same background as Antonella, who I mentioned earlier. Antonella had a job. I couldn't quite work out what her role was, but she certainly, she swanned around. So, no, you had the head of buying, the buying director, which was the goddess, you know? Right. And then Antonella ran personal shopping.

45:16So people, you'd get all the movie stars going in, so she would have them. That's why she used to have when Princess Diana was in there. And you'd feel this hush in the store. You just literally, you know, before a curtain goes up. Yeah. Just that, you knew she was in the store. No one else. There could be superb Hollywood actors. But in that sort of feeling, you'd see everybody turning round and she would usher her in and then sort of shoo everyone away like little pigeons outside that were gagging to get a look at, you know, Princess Diana. Did you ever meet her? Many times. Yeah, many times.

45:44When she was shopping there? No, I met her a couple of times in the Caprice. In the restaurant. For people who live in London, this is gripping. For people who live in Norwich, it's not so gripping. But is that a good restaurant? Yeah, it's fab. And Jeremy King's overtaken. It's still very good. Call out for him, one of our great restauranteurs. But with you lot, it was all egg white omelettes, wasn't it? It wasn't me. I always ate properly, but I used to call them the egg whites. So you'd do a press launch and you'd get the caterers in and they'd come and do the most exquisite food and none of the fashion press would eat it.

46:17It is actually horrible, actually, isn't it? Isn't it? There's nothing like it. I hate wasted food. So do I. I used to take it back to my little... I used to take it back home, scuttle it into a bag and take it back. Yeah, you had no shame then or now. Not at all. So can we just talk about the high street? Because it has been one of your passions. And so many people care so very much about their local high street. I mean, two things can be right at the same time. I care about my local high street, but I also use Amazon. Can I have it both ways? Yeah, of course you can. But I think that there's a couple of things.

46:47It's so big. You know, when I did the high street report how many years ago? 2011, I did that report. I genuinely... I got asked to do something else by Cameron's government and I said, I can't do that because I'm travelling the country filming and I'm turning up and these high streets are on their knees. And so they commissioned me to do this. And then, even then when I did it, I could feel, although it made a lot of noise, anything you do political, you know, it makes a lot of noise, but I really don't think people had that civic pride and understanding how important this was to their lives until Covid and I think people woke up and went oh my god where can I go where can I meet where can I connect and I think the shift and this is why I think there's an opportunity to really regenerate high streets if Burnham gets this right the shift that we've seen in people working maybe a couple of days from home being aware that they spend less an economic crisis where we're spending less think about how they travel we've got a huge opportunity to regenerate high streets but it really does need policy change at central government and local government and actually giving the powers to local government.

47:57So very briefly, do something about business rates? Totally do something about business rates. These people you need to give them a break to and they aren't doing that. And we're hearing about the pub, we're cutting back this bit. We need an absolute idea that the regeneration is going to come from small entrepreneurial businesses that could be organised by the local council for the needs of the people of that town. lovely thank you very much mary mary portis author of i shop therefore i am the 90s harvey nicks and me and she's about to start her ascent down 17 17 for god i mean i don't know i'm laughing i've got to do it as well mary portis her book is called i shop therefore i am the 90s harvey nicks and me it's a beautiful looking book as well they're not all beautiful looking but this one is gorgeous and um i just don't think there's anything wrong with the notion of retail therapy I mean, in my case, probably more book-related than clothing.

48:52But actually, can you beat the thrill, honestly, Rosie, of walking down the street, swinging a bag, containing a new top, not necessarily an expensive one, maybe a pair of earrings? Just makes you feel a little bit better, doesn't it? There's no doubt about it. Yeah, I like to buy make-up. Buying a bit of make-up always makes it feel good. And just illustrating the difference between us, I like to buy Epsom bath salts. That puts a real fizz in my heart. actually the tragic thing is it does um anyway um thank you for all the emails thanks for being a part of this we're back tomorrow well at least you're not are you but hannah is uh it will probably be hannah tomorrow yes probably uh it will yes you're putting me on the spot yes it'll be it's a bit of a week this week but it should be hannah tomorrow yeah i mean can we just acknowledge that august is very much with us yes some of us have got three days to their holiday and I just, you know.

49:44Oh, okay. Right. It's not just Eve. No, no. No, it's you as well. Oh, my God. Who's going to be here next week? I mean, I'll be here on my tod running the whole gaff. Yeah, Fee won't be back. Eve will be here for a bit. Hannah is here. Hannah is actually, yeah, she's really earning her keep. The truth is, Hannah, Quinn and I keep this empire afloat. But so do you. Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. See you tomorrow.

50:26Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.

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