James Pellow – How we greeted customers

Simon: What was the particular way of approaching them then? Do you just sort of, “Hello” you know, not, “Hello mate, how’s it going?”

James: No, it certainly wasn’t that (laughs). Well, it was perhaps you’d call it formal now, I can’t remember. There wasn’t a particular approach like ‘Are you being served?’ it wasn’t that phrase, you know, it was a smile and a ‘Good Morning, can I help at all?’ that kind of thing, just a friendly way of doing it.

Simon: And you got to know … was it the same people coming back in regularly.

James: Do you know I cannot remember a single customer.

Simon: Really.

James: No.

Simon: Ok. I guess there’s so many people pass through isn’t there?

James: Yes. And because the Men’s Department was, as I say, on the ground floor, but you didn’t walk through the Men’s Department, only to the Ladies loo, and well to the Office. So that was for Staff obviously, so you didn’t get people walking through all the time to the next Department because there wasn’t a next Department.

Simon: Right.

James: You only got, as I say, the Office people going upstairs and ladies going to the loo. And I do remember one occasion which appealed to my sense of humour. This lady came in with her elderly mother, and in a very loud voice she said, “Come on mother, we’re going to the lavatory” …