Week 2️⃣ 5️⃣

The British high street has been part of everyday life for generations, but in recent decades it has faced enormous pressure. Rising business rates, out-of-town retail parks and the unstoppable growth of online shopping have all taken their toll, and the Covid pandemic accelerated the decline still further. Yet some names still remain standing after over 100 years, such as Boots, Currys and Marks and Spencer, each with a surprisingly humble origin.

Boots began as a herbalist stall in Nottingham in 1849, founded for working-class customers who could not afford doctors. It grew into a nationwide institution, dispensing NHS prescriptions, testing eyesight and, for decades, developing the holiday photographs that British families brought back from their summer trips. Currys started out as a bicycle shop founded by Henry Curry in 1888 before reinventing itself as the nation's go-to electrical retailer. It went through several mergers and name changes along the way, absorbing rivals such as Dixons and Comet's predecessor brands, before simplifying everything under the single Currys name in 2021. Marks and Spencer began even more modestly, as a penny bazaar stall in Leeds market in 1884.

Selfridges, meanwhile, is a slightly different story. Rather than growing slowly from modest roots, it arrived on Oxford Street in 1909 as a fully formed spectacle, the vision of Harry Gordon Selfridge, an American retailer who believed shopping should be an experience rather than a chore. He famously displayed Louis Bleriot's monoplane in the store window shortly after Bleriot crossed the English Channel, drawing enormous crowds. Many habits we now take for granted in retail, such as placing perfume on the ground floor and encouraging customers to browse without pressure, are credited to him.

Not every high street story ends in success, however. Woolworths, with its red fascia, chaotic shelves and beloved pick and mix counters, was a fixture of over 800 town centres before collapsing in 2008. Over 30,000 jobs were lost overnight, and the doors closed for the final time in January 2009. Comet, BHS and Blockbuster followed in the years after, each leaving a gap that has never quite been filled.

Away from the high street entirely, one of the most extraordinary business stories belongs to the Shore Porters Society in Aberdeen, believed to be one of the oldest surviving companies in the UK, with records dating back to 1498. It began as a cooperative of harbour porters and today operates as a modern removals company, a reminder that some brands outlast everything.

Then there is the question of the apostrophe. Some brands carry it proudly: Sainsbury's, McDonald's and Domino's all signal through their punctuation that the business once belonged to a real person. Others have let it go quietly. Both Harrods and Selfridges originally carried an apostrophe, reflecting their founders' names, but both abandoned it over time without any fuss or announcement. Most curiously of all, Lloyds Bank and Lloyd's of London share the same origins yet punctuate their names differently, a small but perfect illustration of how wonderfully inconsistent the English language can be.