A helping hand

Television viewers no doubt believe that the people who run UK retailers are avaricious charlatans who spend their time training the minimal store staff they employ to rip off members of the public. Or at least they would if they watched Mary Portas: Secret Shopper.

Mary’s TV programme was one of the big talking points at last night’s Retail Trust ball - the other being the dire state of trading at the moment. But the gloomy mood didn’t stop the retail leaders at the event being amazingly generous in their support of the industry charity, raising over £1million.

There was the usual strong turnout from the fashion side of the industry in particular, with Philip Green leading the fundraising as ever and cajoling the retailers around the room to open their wallets, and Marc Bolland, Harold Tillman, Rob Templeman and Don McCarthy among the other big names also supporting the charity.

The chairman of the ball committee was our friend Leo McKee from Brighthouse and there was a decent smattering of other non-fashion retailers there too - I spotted Alex Gourlay from Boots, Jeremy Seigal from AS Watson and furniture chiefs Peter Harrison and Ian Filby of Furniture Village and DFS respectively.

The dinner has been toned down a bit in recent years with the old auction format - where Philip would bid ridiculous amounts for things like cars, then give them back, and then the Baugur boys or Stuart Rose would pile in - consigned to history. It was great fun but not all that appropriate for recessionary times so has been replaced by a silent auction and the Search for a Star competition, a retail X Factor which was won by a very talented singer from House of Fraser in Chichester.

The year isn’t shaping up well from a trading point of view but even in tough times retail can be proud of how it supports colleagues who are in need or have fallen on hard times. Nigel Rothband and his team at Retail Trust do a first class job for the industry, and it’s a cause that everyone in retail should support.