RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: John Lewis: Never knowingly undervalued... until now  trends now

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: John Lewis: Never knowingly undervalued... until now  trends now
RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: John Lewis: Never knowingly undervalued... until now  trends now

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: John Lewis: Never knowingly undervalued... until now  trends now

The Queen Mum was fond of quoting 19th-century constitutionalist Walter Bagehot’s wise words on monarchy: You should never let daylight in on magic.

Same goes for making sausages. So whenever anyone asks how I manage to churn out this column twice a week, I tend to reply: Put on The Kinks and start typing.

But I’m going to bend the rules for a day, even though I’d never presume to pretend that what I do is in any way comparable to the divine right of kings. I’m more in the sausage machine business.

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it. And Rule One of columning is: never forget who you’re writing for.

'For as long I can remember, John Lewis has been the patron saint of Daily Mail Land, especially since St Michael of Marks & Sparks started serving up ridiculously expensive LGBTQWERTY+ sandwiches instead of six-packs of reasonably priced knickers'

'For as long I can remember, John Lewis has been the patron saint of Daily Mail Land, especially since St Michael of Marks & Sparks started serving up ridiculously expensive LGBTQWERTY+ sandwiches instead of six-packs of reasonably priced knickers'

So yesterday, as most mornings, started with me sitting on my John Lewis stool, at our John Lewis breakfast bar, in our John Lewis kitchen, sipping strong coffee from a John Lewis mug and munching a bacon and egg banjo, cooked in a John Lewis frying pan on a John Lewis hob and served on a John Lewis plate.

My guess is that a fair proportion of you reading this column could say pretty much the same. For as long I can remember, John Lewis has been the patron saint of Daily Mail Land, especially since St Michael of Marks & Sparks started serving up ridiculously expensive LGBTQWERTY+ sandwiches instead of six-packs of reasonably priced knickers.

I’d been reading about the upheavals at the John Lewis Partnership, which has been as hard hit as other retailers by the pandemic and the shift to online ordering.

Chairman Sharon White is considering diluting the company’s staff-owned co-operative model as she attempts to attract investment from outside investors. Since 1950, the company has been jointly owned by its employees, who have been able to top up their salaries with annual bonuses.

Lately, however, with the slump in footfall on High Streets caused by Covid and rip-off parking charges by ravenous local councils, the bonuses have dried up. Stores have been forced to close for good, including the flagship Birmingham Bull Ring branch, which was opened in a blaze of glory just a few years ago.

First Ken Bruce, now John Lewis. It feels like another of those ‘Day they knocked down the Palais’ moments.

As a matter of principle, we’ve always tried to use local businesses for everything from blinds to bird baths.

But when it’s come to the big stuff, the only place to turn has been John Lewis.

The staff are as good as it gets, almost certainly because they have been incentivised by having skin in the game.

We’re halfway between the Brent Cross and Welwyn Garden City branches. I used to go to the John Lewis restaurant at Brent Cross — The Place To Eat, smoked salmon bagels a speciality — with my mum. She loved it. On a clear day you can see the flyover at Staples Corner.

John Lewis has been a North London landmark since it was the anchor tenant of Britain’s first indoor shopping mall in 1976. Whenever he got lost, my dear old friend the sports writer and FA Cup historian Mike Collett, who grew up in nearby Hendon and has the world’s worst sense of direction, would head for the

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