M&S has lost touch with its customers

I WOULD like to take up two of the points made by Jayne Dowle in her column on the continued failings of M&S (Yorkshire Post, January 9).

Firstly she asks why should we concern ourselves with halting the decline? We concern ourselves precisely because of our shopping history with M&S over many decades and our hope to be able to continue shopping there and yet finding, increasingly, that we can’t for precisely the reasons raised by Ms Dowle.

In fact I sometimes think we customers seem to care more than those who operate M&S these days. In the past I have written to CEO Mark Bolland and his predecessor, sharing my concerns about the style and poor quality of clothes that he and his designers and buyers seem to think we want to buy and wear, and in particular citing the demise of the good, solid, reliable, quality clothing for which M&S was renowned.

I’m sure mine was not the only letter received on the subject and yet all you get in reply is a standard letter (as if your comments were of no consequence) and nothing on M&S’s shop floor changes at all and so the decline in sales continues. And this answers Ms Dowle’s other question concerning the respect M&S professes to show to its customers.

She also makes a point I must admit I hadn’t realised: that men have been the most loyal of M&S customers. You wouldn’t think so when you see how it (and other high street retailers) appear to regard their male customers. The men’s sections continue to shrink and are now typically restricted to a very limited area toward the back, displaced by ever-expanding women’s and housewares sections. The message is very clear: that it is from women shoppers that money is to be made – and yet this doesn’t seem to be the case if Ms Dowle is correct.

As has been the case for some years now, M&S needs to start consulting with, and listening to, its customers or risk losing even more of them.

Positive spin on NHS work

From: Martin Schweiger, Montagu Place, Leeds.

THANK you for publishing a good news story about the NHS. The Paediatric Neuromuscular Disease Unit at Leeds Children’s Hospital is doing excellent work, as documented by your story (Yorkshire Post, January 2).

My understanding is that negative stories about the NHS are scheduled to continue for some time yet, so that makes your story all the more welcome. There are some really great people quietly getting on with their jobs within the NHS doing wonderful work.

The vast majority of work within the NHS is done well and with human care and compassion. Positive, feelgood stories can be a great support to those feeling besieged by the negative stories, so please be brave enough to continue bringing some good news to your readers.

Watertight building idea

From: Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington.

THOUSANDS of homes and businesses are flooded every year because of an old-fashioned system of low level air bricks allowing water to easily access the area under buildings, causing expensive damage to ground level floors.

There is a simple solution, I suggest. That is to transfer the air bricks to the upstairs area of new builds.

They would be linked by inexpensive rigid plastic trunking to the sub-ground floor area to permit the ‘underground’ cavities to breathe, and sealed in such a way that the integrity of the damp courses are maintained.

Miners were 
a ‘big society’

From: Richard Billups, East Avenue, Rawmarsh, Rotherham.

AS a coal miner, my father was, as part of his salary, awarded 12 tonnes of coal per year (Bernard Ingham, Yorkshire Post, Janaury 8).

He, like the rest of the colliers, gave back two tonnes so retired miners or their widows could receive one tonne of coal every three months.

This coal concession was in fact a kind of money. You don’t hear of other workers giving part of their wages away.

Another thing I saw at our house was people from other industries (blue and white collar workers) coming and asking for coal.

One such incident (of many) I recall was a chap whose newly-wed daughter had given birth to a baby and they had no fire. My dad filled two bags and a barrow and that night took them round. No money was accepted.

If a miner got caught giving or selling coal he faced the sack – yes, for giving away what was his. Steelworkers, farmers, journalists, police, shopkeepers plus a lot more besides were among those the miners helped.

My father gave coal to our insurance man whose brother-in-law had a car and would come, usually on Sundays, for his two bags of coal.

Today people talk about the “big society” – what I saw growing up was that the coal miners were the “big society”.

Our Indian doctor was kept warm free of charge and we would get a sick note for nowt!