Great Lives27 Maj 2024

Mary Portas on Anita Roddick

Dame Anita Roddick started The Body Shop in Brighton as a way to earn a living while her husband was travelling the Americas by horseback. Her idea for ethically-sourced beauty products which were initially sold in urine sample bottles soon flew. The first shop that she began with a £4,000 loan and painted green to disguise the damp on the walls then developed into a global empire which was eventually sold to L'Oreal for £652m in 2006.

Retail consultant and broadcaster Mary Portas has chosen Anita Roddick as her Great Life for her extraordinary creativity, her playfulness and her innovation. She is joined by Anita Roddick's daughter Sam who now works with the Roddick Foundation which distributes some of her fortune to charitable causes. They reflect on how Anita Roddick put principles ahead of profit. She championed cruelty-free beauty and drew inspiration from her international travels to bring exotic-sounding products to the High Street. She pioneered the introduction of creches at work and used her shop windows to promote the environmental campaigns she believed in, leading her to be dubbed the "Queen of Green". They discuss her legacy and ask whether there is still a place for The Body Shop today.

Archive includes Anita Roddick talking on the Nine O' Clock News on 16th April 1984 and from the BBC Life And Times television programme from 2000. It also features Peter Kyle MP talking about his time working for Anita Roddick on the Political Thinking Podcast from 2003.

Presenter: Matthew Parris Producer: Robin Markwell for BBC Studios Audio in Bristol

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