Mary Portas

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is Mary Portis. She has made an art form out of Turning Heads, and her galleries have been the enormous plate glass windows of Harrods, Top Shop, and Harvey Nicholls.

Presenter0:45

She put pop bands in the windows, built an enormous fish from baked bean cans, and, most radically of all, won Christmas, stripped out the displays, and announced the money saved was being given to charity.

Presenter0:56

If her designs are theatrical, it's little wonder.

Presenter1:00

Her first ambitions were for the stage, but family tragedy intervened, and she was forced to abandon her place at Rada.

Presenter1:07

After both her parents died when she was a teenager, she was left in sole charge of her younger brother, with scant income and nowhere to live. I had no money and no home, but in some ways it was the making of me, she says. I went into the driving seat and never left it. So, Mary Portis, you're someone who i is very comfortable in the driving seat, then. Yes, that's where you belong. Yes. How do you feel when you're sitting in the driving seat?

Mary Portas1:28

Yeah.

Mary Portas1:29

Yes.

Mary Portas1:32

Funnily enough, as I get older, I'm more confident.

Mary Portas1:35

It's not a control thing. I genuinely don't think it is a control thing. It just feels natural and it feels warm and I enjoy it. But I like other people in the car with me.

Mary Portas1:45

How are you as a passenger?

Mary Portas1:47

I either let go completely, if I'm a passenger, I have to let go completely. So there's times in my life where I just completely take the back seat. But it's it's all or nothing. When I'm driving, I'm driving, or I'm a passenger, I'm a complete passenger.

Presenter2:02

Um highly competent, obviously, highly creative and maybe a bit terrifying. Do you think you're a bit terrifying?

Mary Portas2:08

I don't know. I I should imagine sometimes I come across like that, but I think the people who know me know that I'm completely not at all that. Truthfully, not that at all. I mean, I think the thing about women in business is one always has to try and put the terrifying if you're you know, you're confident. If you're a man in business, you're seen as kind of wonderfully ball-breaking and go-ahead. And if you're a woman in business, you're seen as slightly terrifying and ice maiden-ish, but it's not true.

Presenter2:33

Yes. And and you run your own company now. When you worked at Harvey Nichols, you were on the board of Harvey Nichols when you were just thirty. Did did you sit comfortably on the board, or were were they comfortable with you?

Presenter2:43

Yeah.

Mary Portas2:43

I think they were comfortable. I mean, I think they were. I mean, there were sometimes I'm sure they thought I was a bit of an upstart. Um and I'm sure I did behave like an upstart. But I did find myself always slightly different. You know, I was this female in a in a retail business which was mainly driven by men. But I think I that was a

Presenter3:02

Yeah.

Mary Portas3:02

Yeah.

Presenter3:02

Benefit for me. And round the boardroom table at Harvey Nicks, then it was, I'm imagining, grey suit, pinstripe suit, navy blue suit, grey suit. And then, Mary Portas, what were you wearing round the boardroom table?

Mary Portas3:09

Yeah.

Mary Portas3:13

Oh, always a great pair of high heels, some great jewelry and a and and a a bright piece of lipstick across my lips. I always enjoyed being me and using fashion, and I've always felt comfortable with fashion. How are you expressing yourself today?

Presenter3:26

Tell our listeners what you're wearing.

Mary Portas3:27

Well, I'm wearing a tiered dress by Philip Lim, um a gray tiered dress with two purple, very purple rings on each finger, and sparkling sworosity ones, with very, very cerise purple tights and a pair of purple brogues.

Mary Portas3:42

Two.

Presenter3:43

Tell me about your first disc.

Mary Portas3:44

Uh

Mary Portas3:45

I think of some of the artists that I love as old friends and Varon Morrison is an old friend. He's been in my life since I was 13, 14, with every album possible that we bought. But this one is from Poetic Champions Compose. And I brought this in when I gave birth to my son. And I brought this album in and played it constantly. And I think these are one of the tracks that he came into the world to.

Speaker 24:09

You know, this upstream

Speaker 24:11

Without each other.

Speaker 24:16

You will cross many waters together

Speaker 14:23

You will drink of the fountain

Speaker 24:24

Oh, in our cylinders.

Speaker 24:29

You'll experience a long cold winter in here.

Presenter4:36

That was Van Morrison and Queen of the Slipstream. You've described to us in enough detail, I think, to get an idea of Mary Portis, what you're wearing today. You have this very notable personal style. Where do you get your style from? Are you somebody who sort of combs the pages of the magazines and says, Oh, I'll pre-order that and I'll have that? No. No, I didn't think so.

Mary Portas4:55

No.

Mary Portas4:57

But I think when you've been in the industry so long, it kind of just goes into your skin and you find your own look. And I think that is another thing that does come with age. So all the different fashion styles can come through and you know instantly that's not me.

Mary Portas5:11

That's not me, but...

Presenter5:12

But a lot of women don't know instantly, do they? No, an awful lot don't know instantly. Of course they don't know. Have you always known instantly? I mean, was that just innate, your style?

Mary Portas5:16

I have that.

Mary Portas5:20

I think so. If I look back and I was looking back, you know, in my twenties, I had very simple haircut, great colour, very simple but good cut clothes, always. So like there'll be five or six style dresses I will have in my wardrobe that I just know are the cut and the right t type for me. The same four styles of trouser. And I just know that from years of of putting them on and finding what's right for my body.

Presenter5:41

Do you look at the rest of us and think we look terribly dull?

Mary Portas5:44

Well, I'm looking at you today and you don't look at all darling. That's a fabulous shirt. You see, that would be my kind of shirt. Um that would definitely be my kind of shirt. But I'd wear it with a a straight leg trouser. That would make my difference in me.

Presenter5:53

Okay, so

Presenter5:54

Should I have worn it with a straight line trouser?

Mary Portas5:55

Actually you can get away with a great straight league.

Presenter5:57

Does

Mary Portas5:57

Uh

Presenter5:57

Uh

Mary Portas5:57

Uh

Presenter5:57

Yeah.

Mary Portas5:58

Yeah.

Presenter5:58

Yeah, you could totally. Next time. I'll know for next time. Let's talk about your early life. Then you were one of how many? Five kids? Five. Fourth out of five. The fourth out of five. So a busy, bustly home life. It was in Hertfordshire. Tell me about early days at home.

Mary Portas6:05

See

Speaker 16:05

Uh

Mary Portas6:05

Four flat.

Mary Portas6:07

So a

Mary Portas6:10

It was in Hertfordshire. Tell me

Mary Portas6:13

It was just fantastic. It was there were five of us with two year, one year age gap, so we were all extraordinarily close. I mean, it was mad. I I remember my mother at one point saying,

Mary Portas6:23

Will you stop it? And she picked up the dog's lead. And then the dog started barking as well because he thought it was walk time. And she just went, oh, and just sobbed. Was she picking up the dog's lead to say, you'll get the end of this? Yes, you'll get the end of this. You'll get the end of this. We were all fighting and shouting. But it was a home that I know so many friends always wanted to come to because it was just where everything was happening. Right.

Presenter6:33

Please stop it yes, you'll get the end of it.

Mary Portas6:43

And she was always there, an incredible matriarchal figure, my mother, and who we all just listened to and loved.

Mary Portas6:50

I don't ever remember my mother, you know, being ill or having a headache or saying, I'm going to bed or I'm just not up to it today. Just always there and incredibly competent.

Presenter6:59

And what about your dad when you were little?

Mary Portas7:02

Well, my father was this slightly frightening figure to me when I was little. I mean, he was the worker, you know, very capable six foot two man. What did he do?

Presenter7:09

What did he do?

Mary Portas7:10

He was a salesman, and he was always like the top salesman as well, and and he would always come back and you know, and he'd you know proudly show us that he was the the key salesman that month or whatever. And he'd come home and then he would do all his accounts at the table. We'd all have to be kind of quiet'cause daddy was doing the accounts.

Presenter7:26

You say he was six foot two. You're tall. I am. How tall are you?

Mary Portas7:28

I am. How tall are you? I'm five.

Presenter7:29

And Half, right? And so all the fa all the kids, were they all? We're all fairly tall. We're all fairly tall. Okay. More about home life in just a second. For now, tell me about this second track you've chosen for today.

Mary Portas7:30

That's

Mary Portas7:32

Blue Wolf

Mary Portas7:39

We had a garden, and I remember so vividly after Lawrence, my youngest brother, was born, the wheels of the pram came off and became a go-kart. That's the sort of thing.

Mary Portas7:49

Pram has finally had its time. And Michael, my eldest brother, fixed the string on it. And I just have this music and being pushed round the garden with the go kart and all of us in the garden and the dog and Mungo Jerry in the summertime.

Speaker 28:02

In the summertime when the weather is hot

Speaker 18:06

Cause stretch right up and touch the sky When the weather's fine, you got women, you got women on your mind

Speaker 18:15

Have a drive, go out and see what you can find.

Speaker 18:20

If a night is rich, take her out for a meal. If a night is poor, just do what you feel. Screet alone.

Speaker 18:27

You were down or a ton of twenty-five

Presenter8:31

Mungo Jerry and in the summertime and memories there, Mary Porters, of going round the garden in the home made go cart with the dog barking and the four brothers and sisters running after you. Um were you an attention seeker?

Presenter8:42

Oh, I think I was. I was

Mary Portas8:43

I I must have been. I'd always be the one who

Mary Portas8:47

Would come downstairs and say, you know, Mummy, can you spend some time with me? And I'd always be the one that my father would wake up in the middle of the night and I'd be in the bed with them. And my mother said to me, God, if I'd have had you first, what would I have done? you know?

Presenter9:00

Not had the other f

Mary Portas9:01

Four of them. I had the other four, although we were talking about this and I just think it was the fact that she didn't have the time and I was an extrovert child who needed attention. And to be quite honest, I don't think they had the time to give the one to one.

Presenter9:01

Yeah, probably not ahead of the other four.

Presenter9:16

Were were you extrovert at school?

Mary Portas9:18

I was I was. But, you know, I suppose it went into the naughty sort of arena as opposed to being, you know, funnelled. But I don't I mean, I look back on them now, they were hardly bad. They weren't expulsion stuff, but I was often in front of the headmistress. What might we have found you doing?

Mary Portas9:33

Well, I remember the worst that that and I was so embarrassed and they rang my parents was that I ate the still life, the fruit for the O-level class and I thought it was really funny to eat it all, my friend and I, and then put the um the tea towel on over it. So they all came in to do their final exams and there was just these seeds and apple cores there and um that just went down really badly.

Presenter9:54

So there you were with your brothers and sisters and your school friends occupying what sounds like an incredibly enjoyable, quite boisterous, colourful life. And then the shock happens, which is your mother contracts meningitis. Can you take me through what happened from there? Was it was it presumably very quick? Meningitis is a vicious and quick disease.

Mary Portas10:13

Get us.

Mary Portas10:14

Very quick. I mean, I came home from school and my brother Michael said, Oh, mum's in bed.

Mary Portas10:21

I never kn knew my mother being that oh, she she's not well.

Mary Portas10:25

And um I went up to see her and I said, Mummy, I'm going to go out to the shops. I'll get you some lemonade, you know? And she said, What's lemonade? and I remember thinking

Mary Portas10:35

Oh.

Mary Portas10:36

Oh my God. Um but she ended up being rushed into hospital five days later and then went into a coma and died a week after that.

Presenter10:43

Yeah.

Presenter10:44

You've used the phrase which is incredibly poignant, you say it stopped your childhood.

Mary Portas10:49

Yeah, yes, it did. It it just, um

Mary Portas10:53

Everything that I just felt, that warmth, that that buzz, that this wonderful person who made our life what it was, just it felt like a door completely had closed.

Mary Portas11:03

And I remember coming home from school and just her not being there, and it was this void, just this this just emptiness, because

Mary Portas11:12

You know, my my other siblings were then going off to university and whatever, and so just suddenly this house that was full became extraordinarily empty.

Presenter11:20

And along with the emotional emptiness was also the the harsh practicality of what you were handed, which was basically you had to step up and start taking care of your brother. How much younger than you would he have been?

Mary Portas11:30

L Lawrence, he was um two years younger than me. Um yes, I would have to just get home and and make the dinner, as it were, you know. So any sort of social time where I'd be rehearsing normally with the theatre after school was just kind of put by the side. And your father, how did he handle it? How much talking was done?

Mary Portas11:48

Oh, n nothing.

Mary Portas11:50

He then had this terrible breakdown and just would sit crying each night. And I remember thinking.

Mary Portas11:56

You know, poor dad, and he saw the end of his life, and um, I think he forgot that, you know, there were these children.

Presenter12:05

Let's have some music then. Or what have you chosen next for us?

Mary Portas12:08

Oh

Mary Portas12:09

When we were children, my my the one I argued with the most was my my brother, who was just above me, Joe, and we used to argue like cat and dog. Oh God, he used to drive me round the bend, and now he's just I just love my time with him.

Mary Portas12:21

And Jo and I have a very special time where once a year we go to the opera. And this piece of music from Norma, the aria from Norma, just reminds me of Jo and I sitting so still together, which was so unusual when you look back at our childhood and listening to this wonderful piece of music.

Presenter12:44

It remains if you want.

Presenter12:51

Lord we would take all day.

Presenter13:10

Oh it is in your day, sing song, they sing song.

Presenter13:32

Maria Callas and Casta diva chased goddess from Bellini's Norma. So, Mary Porters, how long then after your mother's very sudden death, which dramatically impacted on your family, how long was it before your father then left the home?'Cause he moved out.

Mary Portas13:48

Yeah, he um about a year.

Mary Portas13:51

He met some woman and became like this ridiculous kind of love sick puppy and um.

Mary Portas13:58

Married her. Which we all thought at some point, oh, you know, good for dad, you know, that's great.

Presenter14:02

Yeah, but

Speaker 114:02

Mm.

Mary Portas14:05

But he then married her and went to live with her, and then we maintained the family home. So he left us in the family home, because by which time my elder siblings were, you know, in their twenties and they would come back and I we would be self sufficient in the family home. How old were you? I was now eighteen and a half.

Mary Portas14:23

It sounds odd.

Presenter14:23

Uh

Presenter14:25

Du did it seem odd at the time?

Mary Portas14:27

Um, it do you know, it it seemed just life was just so thrown up in the air that I just kind of thought, well, you know, everything had changed so radically that my father then moving out and just coming back, you know, one night during the week to see us or or at weekends didn't seem that odd.

Mary Portas14:43

We were all, you know, starting to now, you know, go into our careers, looking at w what we wanted to do and me me, you know, desperately wanting to go and act and

Mary Portas14:52

I suppose because my father wasn't, you know, looking after us, in some ways it was a relief that we didn't have to look after him.

Presenter15:00

You have two children of your own now, Milo and Verity. When when you look at them and as a mother I mean, okay, you dealt with that at the time. It was it was your lot in life. But when you look back at that situation now as a mother yourself,

Mary Portas15:11

I I actually look back now and I look at my children who, you know, not far off, you know, not far off. Lawren Mila will be the same age as Lawrence was, my younger brother, and I just think, how could anyone have done this? I just really think, how could anyone have done this?

Mary Portas15:29

We still talk about it today, not often, but my brothers and I and my sister and will say he just had really taken leave of his senses, we think. I really genuinely think he was so traumatised by the death of my mother that he just was seeking any type of personal happiness.

Presenter15:46

You are not by any stretch of the imagination a poor me person, it strikes me meeting you today. Do you ever, though, look back at at what was being heaped on your eighteen year old shoulders and think, Yeah, actually.

Mary Portas15:51

Meeting you today.

Presenter15:58

Poor me.

Mary Portas15:59

Yes, I think it was deeply unfair. And I'd love to have a very candid conversation with my father at some time. I do think he was, you know, in an

Presenter16:09

Another world. And you must have been constantly preoccupied by the day-to-day running of a house and the shopping and I mean, how did you handle all of that as well as your schoolwork?

Mary Portas16:16

Well, this is why I suppose my fascination and love with independent retailers, because my mother you can imagine her shopping for five children. So she knew the butcher, she knew the baker, the fruit and veg man, she knew every shopkeeper, and every shopkeeper loved my mother. So they used to stay open for me, just or put some stuff aside for me, a little few pieces of meat or whatever, and I'd get the school bus back from Rickmansworth and it would drop outside the shops and they would put aside for me the butcher and the bakers and stuff that I needed. And I just will never forget that.

Presenter16:47

I bet. Let's have some music then. What what's track number four?

Mary Portas16:51

When we were younger, my eldest brother always used to go and buy the albums, and he'd say, Right, okay, we're going to get Bowie's Aladdin Sane or you know, everybody's got to put their pocket money in. He was extraordinarily bossy, but thank God he did have a great taste in music. And I remember the day that this album came home, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On?

Speaker 117:09

We can lie

Speaker 117:11

Picket S.

Speaker 117:14

Don't punish me with a brutality Talk to me so you can see

Speaker 117:25

What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on?

Presenter17:36

That was Marvin Gaye and What's Going On. Mary Portis, you you mentioned a moment ago the the thing that you loved that you didn't have time to do, which was the the old am dram. I mean you loved dramatic si were you in school plays, or you were in a local dramatic society? Or? All, all.

Mary Portas17:50

I just everyone. All of the above. Yeah, all of the above. I remember going for an audition.

Presenter17:51

And also

Mary Portas17:56

When I was thirteen, I had this fantastic history teacher called mister Harold, and he said, You can really do this and I ended up getting the lead in in the school play and therefore always getting the lead. And then I thought, Right, I'm gonna I'm gonna try this somewhere else and

Mary Portas18:10

I applied to a local.

Mary Portas18:12

Amateur drama groups and ended up just getting the parts that I wanted. And then suddenly I go, I've found it. I found where I'm meant to be.

Mary Portas18:20

To me it was just heaven learning a script and performing.

Presenter18:24

And you were so good that you won a place at Radha. Where at that point, where did you see your life leading?

Mary Portas18:29

to the stage. I just saw that I would be an actress. I didn't ever think was I going to make money. I just thought, No, my gosh, I I'm going to just perform and I'm going to be stage actress. I didn't see it as anything other. That's what I enjoyed the most.

Presenter18:41

So, you won a place at Radha, but you weren't able to take up the place at Radha. Tell me what happened.

Mary Portas18:46

No, um

Mary Portas18:47

Well, six months later he died of a heart attack, and my father was found dead in his office.

Presenter18:53

How did you how did you hear about his death?

Mary Portas18:55

His wife came to tell us. I came home one evening and um

Mary Portas19:02

His wife was just coming into our house.

Mary Portas19:05

And, um

Mary Portas19:07

She talked?

Mary Portas19:09

Um

Mary Portas19:10

But

Mary Portas19:11

Not that that was bad enough. What what then happened was, is that um he had left everything to her in in his will.

Mary Portas19:20

And so

Mary Portas19:23

Our house was put on the market.

Mary Portas19:26

She took it all. I mean, she took it all. And I I remember um

Mary Portas19:30

My we were brought up Catholic, and my mother was a very, very strict Catholic, and my father was a Protestant who who changed his religion to be my mother. And one of the things that my mother when she died is that we had she was going to be buried with my father, and you book your plot.

Mary Portas19:44

And um she even to this extent said, Well, no, no, he that won't happen because he he was um married to me and that that was his past life, you know. The only thing that we ever did fight for was that my father would be buried with my mother. And I remember all of us walking with the family priest to see her, because that was the only person that we could drag in to make sense, to see her and say, Let this man be buried with his wife.

Presenter20:11

And that is what happened.

Mary Portas20:12

And we got.

Presenter20:14

Let's have some music then. Tell me what's next.

Mary Portas20:16

All right, this is the seventies. Watford College. Me and my brother Lawrence dressing up. We'd heard on the John Peel the Cure were playing, and we went down to see them and just one of the greatest bands of all time. So this one's for you, Lawrence.

Speaker 120:33

Don't walk away, come back, come back, come back today. Come back, come back, what can't you see? Come back

Presenter20:42

Uh

Presenter20:42

Come back, come back to me. And I know I was wrong when I said it was true. That it couldn't be me, but we were in between.

Speaker 120:51

Hello,

Presenter20:58

That was the cure and in between days for your brother Lawrence, you said, bringing back happy memories. We were talking, Mary Portis, just a minute ago about this set of um, I would say, uh, extraordinary circumstances where your your mother had died and then your your father died. Um as I said, you're you're not a poor me person, but did y were you ever able to conclude that business? Were you ever able to make some sort of peace with it somewhere?

Mary Portas21:23

Yeah, we were I mean I moved on, moved on, moved on. And one thing I guess, you know, my family upbringing, because it was so strong, gave this wonderful ability for us all to move on. But one Saturday, I remember it very vividly, in Marks and Spencer's food department, and there's Graham, my husband, and the two children, Milo and Verity. And I remember Milo was just about two and a half, and Verity had just been born, and she was screaming. So Graham said, I'm going to take her outside and I'll continue with the shop. So I'm pushing this trolley with this little toddler, and I look up and I see my father's.

Mary Portas22:00

Wife.

Mary Portas22:02

You know that minute of where you think, shall I? Shan't I? Yes, shall I?

Mary Portas22:07

And I picked Mila up in my arms and I walked over to her and I said, It's Mary.

Mary Portas22:12

And said Mary, how are you?

Mary Portas22:14

And I said, I'm fantastic. This is my son, Milo.

Mary Portas22:18

And my daughter Verity's outside with my husband.

Mary Portas22:21

And life's been great, really great.

Mary Portas22:25

I just hope yours has been the same.

Mary Portas22:27

And with that I walked, I left a trolley,

Mary Portas22:30

I walked out the door.

Mary Portas22:31

And I just burst into tears outside and sobbed and sobbed.

Mary Portas22:36

But I let it go. It had gone.

Mary Portas22:39

Here you go.

Mary Portas22:40

And I just felt this incredible strength. I went outside, and this was my family now. This was my family.

Presenter22:44

Division

Presenter22:46

So you have moved on. Let us move on then. You once said, Mary Porters, I never wanted to be a big retail chief executive. I am much more interested in transformation, and indeed you've done a remarkable job of transforming your own fortunes and your own life. What is it about transformation? Is it just simply the potential in everyone to make of themselves what they can? Yeah, it's people. I love people.

Mary Portas23:12

You know, I think back on my life and I think of the people that just, you know, opened doors for me and, you know, shone some light on me. And so often when I.

Mary Portas23:20

visit smaller retail businesses, I see people who've just lost, you know, and their head's been down and they've just lost their way and they've lost their mojo and they've lost their spark. And I just love giving that back.

Presenter23:29

Lao

Presenter23:31

You see, meeting you and listening to you talk about the chain between your own experience and your mother's experience of, you know, going out and shopping for those five kids and for her husband, knowing the butcher and and knowing the baker, and you know, that'll be familiar to so many of us, but it's not the retail experience we have now. You know, we shop online or we go to yet another big out of town superstore. How do you manage to find the charm in retail? Because you talk about it as if it's a really earthy business full of love, but that's not often.

Mary Portas24:00

That's

Presenter24:01

The experience of the consumer.

Mary Portas24:03

It's not often the experience. Sadly, it's not often the experience of the consumer. And we are sadly living in an age now where it's the big boys who are just taking over our high streets. And truthfully, convenience can happen locally. And that's what I'm looking at with small businesses at the moment, from butchers to bakers. How can you compete with this massive engine of supermarkets? And it's sad because if that had been the 16-year-old today,

Mary Portas24:32

Who was lost without her mother? And if that was my children, I have not a clue where they would go to.

Mary Portas24:38

Let's take a break. Now tell me about your next piece of music, Mary. What have we got?

Mary Portas24:42

I love talking to people about music, and one day I had this electrician who was spending the week in rewiring my house.

Mary Portas24:49

and I was playing um a piece of music, and he said, Oh, I love that I won't see them in concert and we ended up just talking music. Every day he would come, we'd talk about music. And then one day I found that he left this little C D on my hall table.

Mary Portas25:03

And it's Sunhouse Crazy at the Weekend, and it's just probably one of my favorite albums of all time.

Speaker 225:10

Wasted all my money on some brown fares honey now I can hardly speak

Speaker 225:20

Dream, dream, you are just a lucky star so louder.

Speaker 225:26

Blow my lungs away

Speaker 225:29

Dream, dream.

Speaker 225:31

Think I'm gonna be somebody

Speaker 225:34

Feels like a move.

Presenter25:37

Uh

Speaker 225:38

Loser

Presenter25:38

My way.

Presenter25:40

That was Sunhouse and Crazy on the Weekend. Tell me, Mary Portis, how do you create these extraordinary windows for Harvey Nichols? I mean, anybody who ever visited London and Knightsbridge for shopping, or anybody who lived in London I mean I know I've taken my car on detours to see a Harvey Nicholls window, they're so amazing. What was your favourite one that you made? I'm thinking of the Michael Caine one with the car bonnets.

Mary Portas26:05

Well done, you. I love that. I saw that in LA they've got all old cars and they called it Car Henge and they stuck them on their sides in this desert, which was just genius. And I thought, I'm going to do that in the windows. And I think what inspired me was never looking at the fashion. I was inspired by what was happening in the world, and then I put the fashion into it.

Presenter26:27

You describe

Mary Portas26:27

I describe

Presenter26:27

But it was for for all the people who didn't see it.

Mary Portas26:27

What is more?

Mary Portas26:29

Yeah. What I did was I drove out to where these car derelict cars are, what they call scrap metal yards, and they thought all their all their Christmases had come at once'cause I just bought all the scrap metal and I said, Right, guys, but I want you to spray it pink.

Mary Portas26:43

And then I sprayed them with pictures of different stars. So one was Michael Caine, one was George Best. And the George Best one I also piled up footballs and sprayed part of his picture onto. So I made the sculpture of these car parts. And one day I came out from work and I saw George Best standing in front of the windows having his picture taken.

Mary Portas27:05

And did you talk to him about that? I did. I did because best was my father's hero, you know, the Man United sixties footballer that I remember just being stuck in front of the T V.

Presenter27:16

But All of this creativity that's in you, all of this originality, this ability to think beyond the norms of what most people do.

Mary Portas27:18

Yeah.

Presenter27:24

Do you not feel in a way that you are short changed by channelling it into retail? Do you not think you should be there creating an incredible work of art that has a sort of purity in it that isn't tied to, in the end, earning a buck to send the the share price up or or whatever else?

Mary Portas27:40

Well, you know, the the thing is, d do I do I worry that it's a commercial ve you know, vehicle in the end? No, because I actually genuinely don't even think that way. What turns me on is that I think when someone wants to come to this store, I want them to go

Mary Portas27:54

You know, this this inspires me. This is fantastic. I want to be in this place. I call it being and buying. The first thing is create a place where I want to be, and it's a given. People will buy. And you know

Presenter28:07

It's always worked. Tell me, Mary Portis, how it came to be that you ended up seeing both Muhammad Ali and David Dimbleby in their pants.

Mary Portas28:16

Oh, that was Harrod's. I was working at Harrod's and I was working on the back windows. And um u the the the windows used to back on to the men's changing rooms. And I came out, stepped out, and Ali is just standing there in his box of shorts and literally in the cubicle. So there's he and Ah.

Mary Portas28:34

About two foot by two foot cubicle. It was Ali. I mean, what did you say? What did he say? I said, I'm so sorry. He just burst out laughing. I don't think he gave a monkey so I was standing there. He was massive as well. I do remember. And those really big cotton boxer shorts. None of those huggies. And what about David Timbleby? Oh, I don't remember his pants too well, but I do remember it was him. And I think he laughed as well. I mean, God, you know, what was I? A 22-year-old girl going all purple. I was all flustered and left everything in the windows and just ran.

Presenter29:06

Let's have some music then. Tell me about uh track number seven we're at now.

Mary Portas29:10

This is, I just love Pedro Amoldoval's films, and this piece of music is from the film Talk to Her, and when I heard it and saw this was about the bullfighter and this wonderful nurse who sits next to her bed to make her better after she's had a terrible accident, it just brings back just all the wonderful emotion that Imoldeval's films are about.

Speaker 129:32

Dissenque por las noches.

Speaker 129:36

No maseleiva en pura yara.

Speaker 129:42

This end cannot come here.

Speaker 129:46

No ma sele ilva en purotoma.

Speaker 129:51

Uran que el mismo sielo sextre ne si aloir sullianto.

Presenter30:01

Kaitano Veloso and Kururo Kuku Paloma from the sound track to Pedro Almodivar's film Talk to Her. Um we've talked about clothes. I can only imagine your home environment is just as important to you. Is your house fabulous?

Presenter30:15

I don't know whether it's fair. Yeah.

Mary Portas30:16

This but I

Presenter30:16

I

Mary Portas30:16

Uh

Presenter30:16

Okay.

Mary Portas30:16

Yeah.

Presenter30:17

Uh

Mary Portas30:17

Uh

Mary Portas30:18

I love home, I think, and home design slightly more than I love fashion design.

Presenter30:23

Can you give me a sort of thumbnail description of your house?

Mary Portas30:25

Colour is vital to me. Purples and oranges and pinks. So there's there is a lot of colour in my home. And I love mixing extremely modern with very old. And a great place where I can just curl up.

Presenter30:38

A at home, you you were married to Graham for was it about fourteen years? You've said I've read you say you remain very good friends. Now that is a tricky one to pull off. There are not many people who are divorced who can say that. How how come you remain very good friends?

Mary Portas30:42

Yeah.

Mary Portas30:45

Now that

Mary Portas30:52

Because I married a person who was the right marriage for me, and he will always be a friend of mine, and he is the father of my children, and a great choice.

Mary Portas31:00

And um he's someone who I love dearly.

Presenter31:03

Your partner now is Melanie Rickey. She is a a a fashion editor at Grazia magazine. How did your teenagers deal with that situation? Were they did they find it tricky that mum was in a same sex relationship?

Mary Portas31:14

Oh, you're just embarrassing, Mummy. Don't mention that. So I'm just a bit of an embarrassment. But you would be an embarrassing.

Presenter31:19

But you would be an embarrassment anyway.

Mary Portas31:21

It'd be an embarrassment. Look, when they tell me, you know, don't turn up in those purple Proudhon shoes, Mummy, when you come to watch me play lacrosse, you know I'm an embarrassment anyway. But yeah, of course it's you know, there were times that they thought, ooh, but they have a great home life and we have a great life together.

Presenter31:37

And if Melanie's business is fashion well, it is fashion, um she works in magazines, does she is she very opinionated about what you wear? Does she sort of give you a critique and say that those tights are so last week?

Mary Portas31:40

Yeah.

Mary Portas31:48

There we go.

Presenter31:48

Uh

Mary Portas31:48

She's completely fashion-obsessed. I'm so not. Oh my gosh, she's completely fashion-obsessed and five foot ten, like a catwalk model. So I think she's one of the best dressed women I know. So I listen to her.

Presenter31:51

Yeah.

Presenter31:58

Now I'm going to maroon you on an island. Will you be fine without a high street, or a little back street, or some wonderful boutiques? Yeah.

Mary Portas32:05

Now

Presenter32:05

Cruel.

Mary Portas32:05

I'll be totally fine. That's not what turns me on in my world. That's not what turns me on. So I think the most difficult thing for me being on a design is I'm never alone. Yes. I think that would be I mean, I grew up in a big family. I have family. I have friends. I have businesses. I'm on the road with people all the time. So I'm just never on my own.

Speaker 132:15

Fuck.

Mary Portas32:26

Let's have a look

Presenter32:27

Have your final disc, then what are we gonna hear?

Mary Portas32:29

Oh, I'm just a radio head fan and my daughter Verity's a radio head fan with me too and we put this on in the car and we just sing to it together and it's just fantastic. And there's part of this that makes me think a bit of the fashion industry, the fake plastic trees, with all these wonderfully fake plastic faces and fake plastic people. You know, have we sometimes forgotten that, you know, who we are?

Presenter32:56

Yeah.

Speaker 132:56

If I could

Presenter32:59

Uh

Speaker 132:59

Who you wanted?

Speaker 133:02

If I could be who you want to

Speaker 133:09

Oh tongue.

Speaker 133:16

Oh turn.

Presenter33:23

That was Radio Head and Fake Plastic Trees. So, Mary, um, the books now, the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, both of those are yours already, and of course, you need to choose a book of your own. What would it be?

Presenter33:36

Yeah.

Mary Portas33:36

It's very difficult to find a book that would just touch all my senses, and I think I'm about the senses so much. And poetry is one of the things that just to me I go back to time and time again. But my favourite, I think, would be the poet Rumi. I would have the works of Rumi, who is this Persian poet and philosopher. All these hundreds of years later, I read his stuff and I think, God, you had the world sus, didn't you? That will sustain you. So that's your book, and a luxury too. Right, well, this is an unusual one. But my luxury. Well, smell is so important to me. And I do have this habit of sniffing the people I love, you know, and their bodies. I just absolutely you know, your children, your partner. I can smell people. I know the people I love. So I would love to have a bottle, and I know a great perfumer who'll do it for me, a set of different fragrances that he could create from all the people I love. And I'll just.

Presenter34:02

But my luck to me

Presenter34:29

Smell them away on that island. It's a good one. It's yours. And if you had to choose just one of these eight discs, which one disc would you choose? I think it's going to be the Aria from Norma.

Presenter34:41

Mary Portis, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. It's been my pleasure.

Presenter35:33

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc.co.uk slash Radio Four.