Christine Fisher-Lathwell – Miss Guy

Christine: I hadn’t realised just how much Miss Guy had taught me.

What was nice was that she eventually took me up to London with her to buy props for the window for Autumn props so that we didn’t have to make them, and she was so lovely and friendly, so different to her mannerisms when she was in shop. She wasn’t cold, she was very, very polite and always very polite to us, the staff as well. Unless you were in her off ice being told off (laughs).

Simon: That is interesting that she sort of had a persona at work.

Christine: Yes, she definitely did.

Simon: And then when you were with her she felt relaxed enough to switch that off.

Christine: Yeah, I know. Yes, she talked much more about the family, and Gillian her sister and she didn’t really tell me much about them, just basically she would tell me something funny that had happened when they’d had a bar-b-que. It was just she was much more natural. She didn’t have to put on this persona I presume.

Simon: And when you went back to work, was she then back in her persona?

Christine: Absolutely, yeah. You wouldn’t be cheeky and say, “Hi Liz” (laughs). That wouldn’t work, no. She had her persona, just as her mother did. Her mother, just amazing woman. And you knew when her mother was coming downstairs because she would kind of bang as she came downstairs you know, it was a funny little walk. Oh dear, I do hope she doesn’t hear me say this. It’s just that his grandmother would have been more like a matriarch, like in ‘Downton Abbey’ that’s who she reminded me of, the matriarch like in ‘Downton Abbey’ but I really, really brilliant Buyer and Elizabeth inherited her ability to understand what the latest fashions were and bring them to the Island.