Anyone else watch Mary Portas knicker factory doc last week

[Linford]

I reckon she is right on the money with it - 90% of all the clothes we wear in the UK are imported. It didn't really tell me anything I wasn't already aware of.
They really took the eye off the ball when they allowed manufacturing to fail here. Such a blinkered vision

I wish we had people like her in government, as she has the nouse to get the country back on its feet in this sector.

 

[ColinJ]

I watched both programmes last week and will be watching again this week.

Portas is obviously a very 'driven' person and expects a lot from the people she works with, but that isn't a bad thing.

There was one scene where she went out to some grotty bit of Rochdale and chatted to a couple of young hoodies who were hanging about. She found the environment and their response to it so depressing that she ran off in tears.

I found it quite inspiring. I was especially touched by the skinny little lad whose parents had never worked. He'd got his girlfriend pregnant and wanted to be a good father and partner, and not end up on benefits for life like his own parents. He turned out to be a 'natural' with the sewing machine.

I'd previously thought that Mary Portas probably had a privileged start in life, but she revealed that her mum had died when she was only 16, and her dad then died when she was 18 which must have been tough to cope with. Early in her career, she wanted to get a job at Harrods (?) and they turned her down without seeing her. She phoned them every day for weeks until they finally relented and interviewed her. The rest is history ...