Peter Jones & Partners

I went to school with a lot of people, obviously, that didn't own a house, that didn't live in a house, lived in a flat.

I think also I was super aware that my parents, although were working class, they were now occupying middle class spaces, right? So my mom worked at Peter Jones.

She'd left school at 16, didn't have a sort of complete education as it, uh, as many of her contemporaries did, but she worked in Sloane Square.

She was working with the royal family.

So I think growing up, I was just acutely aware of the complexity of that, and I suppose where money, home ownership, education, gender, race all created these, these very nuanced stories that we all have around our upbringing, our parents' upbringing, and how ours have differed, the generational differences in class and class experience and class consciousness.

That takes me on very nicely with, I think, between your parents.

Yeah, you said your mom worked at Peter Jones in Sloane Square.

Your dad, I've read in your book as well that in the '60s he went into directing or tried to be a director, but then-

I went out with Rod Stewart for a short time, and he said you can be famous...

You put on he would put on a pink satin suit and he'd be robbed the mod and he'd get into his Lamborghini or something Or you could just not not have all that stuff on and just go into a pub and people are it's nothing and as I always shopped in the Supermarkets and queue in the post office and things and walk go by tube years ago years ago back in the 70s I was going down the King's Road and I couldn't get down the pavement from Peter Jones walking down on the right-hand side.

Couldn't get in.

Pavement was all stuff and there was people holding like this, holding barriers back, barriers back, and a great big car pulled up there and people go, oh, my God, what is it? What's happening? What's happening? Because usually the King's Road is full of quite famous people anyway.

She loved going around there, although she was a bit critical of it becoming not so nice in her latter years.

She might go to Peter Jones, which is on the corner of King's Road, which many of you will know if you live in the area.

She would like to go up Sloane Street and maybe have a coffee in Sloane Square.

And the King's Road, with all its shops and bars and environment, was a place that made her happy.

And as you say, it's just this idea of just reaching so many more homes in a way that is accessible and bringing the energy, just a beautiful sense of energy and empowerment into people's lives.

And the fact that John Lewis are just so on board with, you know, wanting to uplift people, and I've, you know, like you, used to go with my mother, and a- we used to absolutely love it, and she'd ha- like, have her Peter Jones card and everything else, and it, you know, it was just, you know, brilliant.

So it- to me, it's, it's a really, really beautiful place.

And again, the never knowingly undersold has always been a thing that has been amazing.