A letter from Archie Norman, chairman of M&S, popped into my inbox after I complained that I had run over my foot with a changing room door.
It wasn’t a personal letter, rather a generic response, and this was a relief because I would not have liked the actual Archie Norman to have actually seen the complaint email I sent with a close-up picture of my bruised black, grazed and manky-looking foot.
When you complain to a chain store about their weirdly heavy and not-quite-coming-all-the-way-to-the-floor changing room doors, the last thing you want, really, is a reply from someone you once had lunch with when you were suited and booted as a political correspondent.
Dear me, the former MP would have thought, I never would have guessed this is what her feet look like.
But, as it turned out, Archie Norman writes to everyone who complains about M&S, and it’s a nice touch, even if it is automated. Many more emails from every kind of manager responding to my manky foot followed.
I didn’t have time for any of it, what with dealing with my father’s heart attack and my mother’s dementia, but I complained because it was one of those last straw moments. I had taken my poor mum to Marks & Sparks to cheer her up and, while flustered dealing with her, rushed out of this very cramped changing room with a huge door that didn’t quite meet the floor and dragged the door over my foot, all but mangling it.
I made clear in the email: nothing broken, no real harm done. But I thought I ought to say, especially as the staff member in the changing room at the time ignored me howling in pain and had a go at me for not giving her back all the hangers for the clothes my mum and I were about to buy.
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