Watching how much goes into Harrods 40 years ago is an amazing snap shot of British culture - pre internet. All the workers were so earnest - they really worked to make it live up to its name
angry ranger, I was a student in Knightsbridge in the 70s and my main thrill was to get a "modest" lunch at the food hall and was given a huge green Harrods bag to carry it in! and I will always remember the lift man he was totally charming and made my day!
I worked in Harrods in 77/78, straight out of school. I remember using the tube system to transfer payments made in foreign currency to finance. Change would come back in the foreign currency concerned. Amazing service.
I love that tube system. We still have this in Hungary at the Library of the Parliament. If you need a book, which is in the storage, you have to fill a form and send it up to the store-man.
My wife worked for Fortnum & Mason, they and Harrods staff would play practical jokes on one another. One that F&M played was to call Harrods Food Hall saying they were the Natural History Museum and that a dinosaurs bone had been broken. They explained the bone was very near the same shape as a ham bone, the cold meats sales person said they did not have a carved bone ready but would slice one and send it round. A bone duly arrived at the museum by cab. F&M called back to say Gotcha.
Worked in Haberdashery during the summer sales as a teenager in '78. An unforgettable experience. My mother accompanied me to the personnel office on the top floor for the interview and I was first asked to work in Hoisery, and then the head of personnel decided I was better suited to Haberdashery with all the sewing items etc. So glad she did. Helping to sell tights and stockings behind a counter looked restrictive. No uniform for me, just a name badge to make me stand out from the customers. I forgot to remove it whilst eating a gorgeous apricot pastry in the stairwell and got reprimanded by a manager. Bringing back expensive chocolates for my siblings and parents bought with my hard earned money was the icing on the cake. The staff canteen was incredibly exciting for those days. A separate counter for each food type(!).The most exciting part of working in Harrods was just immersing myself in that magical world. Thanks for the memories. 🎉
I worked at Harrods during this period and remember Joe, the lift operator. He was a real character, a lovely gentleman with a great sense of humour. I spent 5 wonderful years there, but I left Harrods once Al-Fayed took over. Under Al-Fayed's management, the staff were spied upon with hidden cameras and sound recording devices, I hated the whole atmosphere under this new management.
Do they still do the fish art anymore? On a recent trip I couldn't find it. I think the fish hall is now called the dining hall, with 1/2 dozen different counter and table restaurants.
It was a gentler time..I worked in the Trevor Square warehouse for Harrods one Christmas when I was still at school....that warehouse is now luxury flats!
I live in the states but have been shopping in Harrods several times, and make a point too visit every time that I’m in London, It’s one of the most interesting and wonderful places that I’ve ever visited, the people that work for Harrods are always very courteous and knowledgeable, I enjoyed chatting with them as much as I’ve enjoyed shopping there. And Harrods is even more amazing during the holidays.
Seymour Butts. That’s pretty damn funny. These people that supposedly hate me so much have invited me into their homes for holiday celebrations. and continue to do so today by phone of by mail, and I have even been invited to their children’s graduations. So it would seem that you not only have a talent for misjudging people, but you also seem to have distinct talent, for making a complete a$$ out of yourself by assuming something that you personally no nothing about. Hoping that you have a wonderful week.
Late seventies lived and worked in Stanmore Middx : While shopping in central London , my first stop after 10.30 AM at Harrods fish hall for freshly opened oysters and a glass of dry white wine while standing up next to the spectacular daily fresh fish display it was a unic work of art. then some time later salt beef sandwich with rye bread , sweet pickles ,good old english mustard and a beer at the Brass Rail Selfridges. those were the days. love from Algeria
Sad but true. Full of badly dressed tourists gawking at everything they probably can`t afford to buy. Tacky is about the best description of this once great Department Store. Both F. & M. and Selfridges are far better now.
I liked Harrods back in the 1980s as I used to visit after work from time to time. I very rarely get nostalgic but Harrods was nicer back then than it it is now. Its just a gaudy tourist trap. Whenever a tourist asks about Harrods I tell them real Londoners go to Self ridges, much nicer and better quality
I worked as a traineee buyer at Harrods in the 1970’s when it was House of Fraser owned and still truly British. I worked there the day we were bombed by the IRA. Never to be forgotten. Also those hideous months of power rationing when we worked alternate days with portable gas lamps on the counters. But people still shopped !
I was at Harrods for two years during that period too....on the management training course. I remember the bomb in the luggage department, the staff canteen and all the other things in this video.
It's very striking how the store has gone downhill in the years since this was filmed, offering only a fraction of the merchandise and services that it used to provide. Most of its floorspace is now given over to big brand concessions renting space from the store, not very different to a Westfield mall.
My Dad worked in the piano department selling pianos, he left because his skill set was pianos but was asked to sell other musical instruments for which he felt uncomfortable doing so. Harrods once had a whole floor dedicated to just pianos before creating just one floor for all musical instruments. How times change. I remember visiting the store with my sister being shown around the different departments by my Dad, sometimes after the store had just shut or per-opening, we would see my dads colleagues and friends who were thrilled to show me and my sister the new toys or the cakes and sweets plus which horrified me the poultry and farm animals hanging from hooks. I also recall the Christmas parties for children of the employees great memories.
ah, the 'arrods of the 70s and 80s, the upper circle restaurant, the Olympic way, the supermarket in the basement, way in, being slapped on the backside by a cheerful doorman....happy days
Standards have gone down. The folk working for Harrods here looked immaculate like finely tuned solders and take pride in their work. I love the narrator accent just like my teachers back then.
Arriving in London from Francis by euro train 🚞 on holiday, the first request to my accompanying daughter Was *please let’s go to Harrods , my first ever visit there , we bought nice roll sandwiches an desert An the headed to Hyde Park for our picnic , we had purchased bus 🚌 tickets to see the city of London Only to fine the traffic jams especially by Piccadilly caused us to forgo our seats to asking the Conductor to let us off , he explained back in the day the horse an cart went at 6miles an hr , an Now *2004 , the bus was slower than the horse an cart. We alighted the platform an took the tube I really enjoyed this vlog on Harrods of the original days ..fascinating thank you for this . Mary Canada 🇨🇦
And the Harrods country club for staff in Barnes and the furniture depository is now luxury housing.....Al Fayed even stopped the free tea in the canteen after I left in 91 !! You're much better off as staff working for John Lewis..way better off!!
I really enjoyed that. I worked at Harrods for about a year. The fellow staff members gave me the best laughs. The worst time, at least for me, was the crashing boredom of Monday mornings.
@@jennytaylor3324 Yes. Harrods and Peter Jones in the 80s. Harvey Nicks was downmarket then before the 90s changed that and Harrods became less of a local store.
I went to London with my nan in 1985 to visit her sister for the first time since WW2 (her sister being married to a RAF pilot). She couldn’t speak a word English and I was five at the time. Her sister translated everything for her but she wanted to visit Harrods with me on her own. I can remember some shopworkers trying to speak German because next to French and her native Dutch it was the only foreign language she could speak. How offended she was when people mistook us for Germans 😂. Harrods was overwhelming to me, as if they sold everything you could want. My nan held on to her plastic shoppingbag from Harrods till the day she passed in 2004. We all brought back Harrods bags for our nan when we grandchildren started to travel to London on our own (or on a school excursion).
My dad worked in export bereau in the late 1970’s and my mum worked in switchboard in 1981 at harrods. They have very fond memories their and remember Joe how funny he was!
I actually miss those days, where people spoke to each other, you had to go places to get things done, and more people had jobs because the computers and reductions, economic inequality took over....corporations. sadly are gone
16:59 he says different, people dont say pleaese or thank you and are very rude... its always better "Back in the day" no matter what year you are in...
I loved this! A topic I would have NEVER seeked out off my own back but my god they knew how to make seemingly the most mundane subjects back them become interesting. And for some reason I LOVE the slightly melancholic music at the end!
I remember the chaps operating the lifts in the seventies and eighties. The lifts in the middle of the store had concertina doors; like trellis. So exciting as a child.
I used to work years ago for a Saudi Business man who had a house in Montpelier Walk round the corner from Harrods. It was basically furnished from there. He was a British educated Anglophile with extremely good taste. I stayed there a few times when in London and it was surreal for a young lad from Scotland.
But any one noticed quality of documentaries make in Britain then? If you compare quality of these documentaries with what todays BBC produce... Britis journalism was at highest level in the world
I’m 41 years old, 1982 born. I remember in my teens, late teens, around the late 90s and certainly early 00s, documentaries I would enjoy on the BBC or Channel 4, started to creep in small amounts of dramatic music underscoring the narration or the people being interviewed. My ears were sensitive to it, as that wasn’t what we were used to - and I remember, even at that tender age thinking “this sounds like something you’d expect from an American show’. So there was a slow ‘Americanisation’ of our more measured, thoughtful and stoic British productions… by the 2010s/20s this intellectual approach to documentary making and news reporting is lost. We have dumbed down as a society - now a celebration of urban culture and speaking badly. A real shame.
That was lovely, the golden age, it certainly isn't like that now. The cheese counter is so tiny you have to ask where it is. There isn't a pet department. It is now some tiny thing operated by a third-party and zero animals. I am just so glad I remember it from a time when it was glorious.
Moved from Ireland in 1989 and Worked in a diner called West side Express up the stairs from the Green Man in Harrods .Was totally blown away by everything in the store
You mean capitalism. The nation where the money came from is less important than what incentivised the money to behave as it did and what allowed that money to come in the first place and that would be the economic system we live under, and any person who voted for Tories post 1950 voted for the screwed up world we currently live in as they voted for capitalism without restraint. Welcome to the UK 2019. If things get worse, these will be not just the last years for what remains of high street shopping, but the last years of the UK Union itself.
@@j0499 Not entirely accurate overall in context of history but certainly accurate and correct today. Prior to 1980 people had far more disposable income and the rich were a primarily nationally based lot so harrods did survive primarily from the middle classes and the elites of the UK, with a handful of international customers and a handful of the working classes for a birthday or Christmas treat. Today in terms of disposable income the middle are near as poor as the working classes were, the working classes are near destitution and the elites have more money than god could count but are now transnational and do not give a flying f*** about the nation they were born in that gave them their massive amounts of unearned income and general riches, so harrods has to entice the elites of all nations passing through the capital for survival.
A symbol of the way England used to be. England used to have a clear identity. But like Harrods they sold out, and now all that’s left is a cheap knock off version that caters to foreign customers.
Harrod's, I used to love going to the bakery area in there, each morning for a week the last time I visited. The ladies that worked in there were always very pleasant and helpful.
As a teen living in the UK, I cant help feel like this is the Britain i would have wanted to live in, gone are the days of englishness, class, sophistication etc Makes me sad to see how bad it has become.
fatima haidara I am a black woman and I hear black women say all the time how they only want black kids. So if this guy only believes in racial purity, why is he a racist???
Olly When I was growing up 70s/early 80s this was reality. Trouble is, when I grew up, it all changed for the worse to what we now have. All gone. You sound like a very intelligent person who knows we've thrown away many of the things worth having in this country.
@@fatimahaidara5064 don’t be so silly. It is not racist to talk about the good old days. Even other races say it. It wasn’t perfect but better than today’s false wokeness narrative. People had fun and there was banter, yes some were over the top but a lot of people got along and people had respect for their elders. Simple times and simple pleasures. Food was cheaper and there was some joy with less. Christmases and Easter were genuine family affairs not the over commercialized tat we see today. You didn’t know you were born in those days as the lady helpers used to say at primary school smile 😀.
Go to Harrods today and the food halls are still impressive, but nothing like as spectacular as they once were. A lot of the original food hall area has been lost to jewellery sales and dining space. I suppose they are trying to wring as much money out of every square foot as they can. Pity.
Isleofskye Just leave the snowflake be, probably one of those that are offended by everything and everyone. They wouldn’t know what banter was if it hit them in the face. Too busy being offended! 🤣🤣
Could someone enlighten me what makes the wee ginger moggy being housed in its designated enclosure? Was there a 'clandestine' pet store or suchlike? I am trying to recall this based on my distant childhood memory.
It had a very famous pet department! I must have first visited it maybe a year or two after this and was very disappointed because I was expecting it to still sell exotic big cats,crocodiles and other silly things Now the small pet department is a franchise which sells massively overpriced dog beds for lapdogs and nail polish for dogs.horrible tat.
Modern-day Harrods: Friends on holiday purchased a fine china dinnerware set to be sent to their home in the States. But even after repeated calls, it never arrived until after they called the office of a London acquaintance who was an MP.
Ál Fayhed is a good man. Yes he is no longer the owner but its wrong to label a store because its foreign owned. What's the problem. Qatar purchased it so yes there are changes so bbe it.
I remember Harrods back in 77 I was no higher than a traffic cone...it was posh as anything..cor blimey even the doors in and out were like something out of a king's palace.... and as for the goods inside. It was like nothing us West end peasants had ever seen before
I love this, I remember it so well as a frequent visitor in the 70's & 80's. We got our school uniforms from there, and we had the Harrods van come to our school every Thursday for uniform top ups. Loved the toy department, always end up getting something there each week, the food hall was yummy, I'd buy mazipan fruits and scoff the lot lol. I'd remember walking through the perfumery dept and there was a mirror on each wall and play about there for ages whilst my mother had a nose round there. I proper rinsed it in the 80's, wads of cash, clothes shopping there and Harvey Nicks, I go Harrods, lunch in the Georgian restaurant and spend like a demon in Newman dept next to the restraint on the top floor, via the food hall, some cold meats, cakes and sweeties, and back the the car via the tunnel lol. Lovely days! Later on in life, got a nod to go to the Chairmans office on a Saturday with both my children, mega queue jump to the front to see Santa, that went on a for a few years lol.... Lovely I'd showing how I remembered it as a kid
My husband and I visited in August. The only ones buying were Saudi women in burkas. There were mobs of them in the handbag shoes, fragrance, and jewelry. It was crazy. The food area didn’t look to great. Many items on display in the cases looked old and wilted.
The quality isn't even good! I can only guess a lot of footballers wives type buy the clothes there,as they were so poorly made and overpriced! Almost exclusively made from cheap manmade fabrics,by an overlocker, unlined and with seams showing on the outside. If I was paying 4 or 5 figures for a garment I want to see that some time and skill has been used on durable, quality fabrics.
My son and I (he was about ten or eleven at the time) had afternoon tea there. The waitress saw I was having a hot flush (thanks peri menopause) and very discreetly placed a stack of serviettes in my lap with a knowing look. She was so sweet that I left a huge tip.
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Watching how much goes into Harrods 40 years ago is an amazing snap shot of British culture - pre internet. All the workers were so earnest - they really worked to make it live up to its name
The elevator gent was priceless. What a gem these men were.
angry ranger, I was a student in Knightsbridge in the 70s and my main thrill was to get a "modest" lunch at the food hall and was given a huge green Harrods bag to carry it in! and I will always remember the lift man he was totally charming and made my day!
@@SarahJones-wy5us What a great vignette. Please share more of your old London memories!
Kind of reminds of Fallout video game lol He is so static and looks aimlessly whilst speaking lol
I worked in Harrods in 77/78, straight out of school. I remember using the tube system to transfer payments made in foreign currency to finance. Change would come back in the foreign currency concerned. Amazing service.
I love that tube system. We still have this in Hungary at the Library of the Parliament. If you need a book, which is in the storage, you have to fill a form and send it up to the store-man.
My wife worked for Fortnum & Mason, they and Harrods staff would play practical jokes on one another. One that F&M played was to call Harrods Food Hall saying they were the Natural History Museum and that a dinosaurs bone had been broken. They explained the bone was very near the same shape as a ham bone, the cold meats sales person said they did not have a carved bone ready but would slice one and send it round. A bone duly arrived at the museum by cab. F&M called back to say Gotcha.
and to this day the ham bone is still being showed
I love this!
Beautiful
@@justaman5418i guess it was a joint effort
@@mattgrant9479very humerus
Worked in Haberdashery during the summer sales as a teenager in '78. An unforgettable experience. My mother accompanied me to the personnel office on the top floor for the interview and I was first asked to work in Hoisery, and then the head of personnel decided I was better suited to Haberdashery with all the sewing items etc. So glad she did. Helping to sell tights and stockings behind a counter looked restrictive. No uniform for me, just a name badge to make me stand out from the customers. I forgot to remove it whilst eating a gorgeous apricot pastry in the stairwell and got reprimanded by a manager. Bringing back expensive chocolates for my siblings and parents bought with my hard earned money was the icing on the cake.
The staff canteen was incredibly exciting for those days. A separate counter for each food type(!).The most exciting part of working in Harrods was just immersing myself in that magical world. Thanks for the memories. 🎉
I worked at Harrods during this period and remember Joe, the lift operator. He was a real character, a lovely gentleman with a great sense of humour. I spent 5 wonderful years there, but I left Harrods once Al-Fayed took over. Under Al-Fayed's management, the staff were spied upon with hidden cameras and sound recording devices, I hated the whole atmosphere under this new management.
I remember you . i was al fayeds right hand man.
Interesting insight.
Do they still do the fish art anymore? On a recent trip I couldn't find it. I think the fish hall is now called the dining hall, with 1/2 dozen different counter and table restaurants.
He sounds like a right twat.
Like old times Russia
I‘m German and from 79-80 i lived in London
The good old England !
I loved it soooo much !
It was a gentler time..I worked in the Trevor Square warehouse for Harrods one Christmas when I was still at school....that warehouse is now luxury flats!
I live in the states but have been shopping in Harrods several times, and make a point too visit every time that I’m in London, It’s one of the most interesting and wonderful places that I’ve ever visited, the people that work for Harrods are always very courteous and knowledgeable, I enjoyed chatting with them as much as I’ve enjoyed shopping there. And Harrods is even more amazing during the holidays.
U M - You arrived forty-odd years late, but better late than never...
Seymour Butts. That’s pretty damn funny. These people that supposedly hate me so much have invited me into their homes for holiday celebrations. and continue to do so today by phone of by mail, and I have even been invited to their children’s graduations. So it would seem that you not only have a talent for misjudging people, but you also seem to have distinct talent, for making a complete a$$ out of yourself by assuming something that you personally no nothing about. Hoping that you have a wonderful week.
@@borderlord I remember the dark underground passage to Trevor Square. It was like something out of Dickens !!
Late seventies lived and worked in Stanmore Middx :
While shopping in central London , my first stop after 10.30 AM at Harrods fish hall for freshly opened oysters and a glass of dry white wine while standing up next to the spectacular daily fresh fish display it was a unic work of art.
then some time later salt beef sandwich with rye bread , sweet pickles ,good old english mustard and a beer at the Brass Rail Selfridges.
those were the days.
love from Algeria
Now that's a Harrods I'd visit. Not the dreadful vulgar brash money obsessed tacky supermarket it is now.
Sad but true. Full of badly dressed tourists gawking at everything they probably can`t afford to buy. Tacky is about the best description of this once great Department Store. Both F. & M. and Selfridges are far better now.
having worked there i agree lol
not surprised - Modern Life is Rubbish
@@paullewis2413
I think when the country runs mostly on tourism, be glad for whatever, however and from wherever they come.
I liked Harrods back in the 1980s as I used to visit after work from time to time. I very rarely get nostalgic but Harrods was nicer back then than it it is now. Its just a gaudy tourist trap. Whenever a tourist asks about Harrods I tell them real Londoners go to Self ridges, much nicer and better quality
I bought some coleslaw in Harrods once, it's ingrained in my memory for how delicious it was
I worked as a traineee buyer at Harrods in the 1970’s when it was House of Fraser owned and still truly British. I worked there the day we were bombed by the IRA. Never to be forgotten. Also those hideous months of power rationing when we worked alternate days with portable gas lamps on the counters. But people still shopped !
I was at Harrods for two years during that period too....on the management training course. I remember the bomb in the luggage department, the staff canteen and all the other things in this video.
That was when it still belonged to the Scottish Owners. I was a regular shopper in the 50's absolutely loved it .My England . Sadly disappeared.
For any who voted Tory or Lib dem post 1950 they voted for capitalism without restraint, today is the inevitable result of what they voted for.
Do you know who owned it in 1982?
@@mattbeardsworth3201 House of Fraser.
Doesn't that make you over 100 ?
@@Nine-Signs 😀ok I'll settle for atleast 80/90 . Not many ppl that old RUclips
It's very striking how the store has gone downhill in the years since this was filmed, offering only a fraction of the merchandise and services that it used to provide. Most of its floorspace is now given over to big brand concessions renting space from the store, not very different to a Westfield mall.
Only way for (Retail) to survive, sadly.
Jean Michel Jarre "Equinox" as the backing music - nice.
gives the whole thing a zombie movie kind of feel
Equinoxe pt7, I think this version is from the 1981 China Concerts live album..
👍🏻
I have watched this video at least six times now. I love how it was made
Great production values considering it was 1982 - obviously a great deal of effort was put into making this.
My Dad worked in the piano department selling pianos, he left because his skill set was pianos but was asked to sell other musical instruments for which he felt uncomfortable doing so. Harrods once had a whole floor dedicated to just pianos before creating just one floor for all musical instruments. How times change. I remember visiting the store with my sister being shown around the different departments by my Dad, sometimes after the store had just shut or per-opening, we would see my dads colleagues and friends who were thrilled to show me and my sister the new toys or the cakes and sweets plus which horrified me the poultry and farm animals hanging from hooks. I also recall the Christmas parties for children of the employees great memories.
ah, the 'arrods of the 70s and 80s, the upper circle restaurant, the Olympic way, the supermarket in the basement, way in, being slapped on the backside by a cheerful doorman....happy days
Standards have gone down. The folk working for Harrods here looked immaculate like finely tuned solders and take pride in their work. I love the narrator accent just like my teachers back then.
Now the store is 90% rented space for name brands
That’s the way they stay afloat I guess
Quite sad in a way
This is true the magically experience has left
Arriving in London from Francis by euro train 🚞 on holiday, the first request to my accompanying daughter
Was *please let’s go to Harrods , my first ever visit there , we bought nice roll sandwiches an desert
An the headed to Hyde Park for our picnic , we had purchased bus 🚌 tickets to see the city of London
Only to fine the traffic jams especially by Piccadilly caused us to forgo our seats to asking the
Conductor to let us off , he explained back in the day the horse an cart went at 6miles an hr , an
Now *2004 , the bus was slower than the horse an cart. We alighted the platform an took the tube
I really enjoyed this vlog on Harrods of the original days ..fascinating thank you for this .
Mary Canada 🇨🇦
And the Harrods country club for staff in Barnes and the furniture depository is now luxury housing.....Al Fayed even stopped the free tea in the canteen after I left in 91 !!
You're much better off as staff working for John Lewis..way better off!!
Another interesting contribution. Thanks.
borderlord fuck the pharaoh fayed
Should never have allowed a foreigner to buy it
Worked in the west end during the 80's
Doing my Christmas shopping on Oxford street
Different times long gone I'm afraid
everyone had purpose back then - people were real, life was real. now it's all... well, shit frankly.
They should make a Harrods museum of all the old stuff and machinery .
What a wonderful insight into how things were done and I wish , still were.
I really enjoyed that.
I worked at Harrods for about a year. The fellow staff members gave me the best laughs. The worst time, at least for me, was the crashing boredom of Monday mornings.
Fascinating. Thanks for upload.
the woman smoking at 12.25 screwing up her face is my auntie! a right old sloane in her day. still is.
Rubbish.
Bulcock's
Ace. I am fascinated by old 'Sloanes'! Was it a regular haunt of hers?
@@ivanahavitoff7308 i wrote bulcocks as a reference to one of the peoples surnames featured in the documentary. Do keep up.
@@jennytaylor3324 Yes. Harrods and Peter Jones in the 80s. Harvey Nicks was downmarket then before the 90s changed that and Harrods became less of a local store.
I went to London with my nan in 1985 to visit her sister for the first time since WW2 (her sister being married to a RAF pilot). She couldn’t speak a word English and I was five at the time. Her sister translated everything for her but she wanted to visit Harrods with me on her own. I can remember some shopworkers trying to speak German because next to French and her native Dutch it was the only foreign language she could speak. How offended she was when people mistook us for Germans 😂. Harrods was overwhelming to me, as if they sold everything you could want. My nan held on to her plastic shoppingbag from Harrods till the day she passed in 2004. We all brought back Harrods bags for our nan when we grandchildren started to travel to London on our own (or on a school excursion).
My dad worked in export bereau in the late 1970’s and my mum worked in switchboard in 1981 at harrods. They have very fond memories their and remember Joe how funny he was!
I actually miss those days, where people spoke to each other, you had to go places to get things done, and more people had jobs because the computers and reductions, economic inequality took over....corporations. sadly are gone
Well said.
16:59 he says different, people dont say pleaese or thank you and are very rude...
its always better "Back in the day" no matter what year you are in...
and don't forget "work ethics" People took pride in their work and it showed!
People only speak to strangers now if they are all drunk
I loved this! A topic I would have NEVER seeked out off my own back but my god they knew how to make seemingly the most mundane subjects back them become interesting. And for some reason I LOVE the slightly melancholic music at the end!
sought
Very interesting!
'addock. Lovely. Cheers Tel, see ya in the mornin'
It's nothing like that now....:(
That really is england of a different era!
This is fantastic. Thanks so much for uploading
Analog version of what Amazon is trying to become today. Early 1980s. 4 Green Men down from 10. Things were already unraveling. It’s a shame.
I remember the chaps operating the lifts in the seventies and eighties. The lifts in the middle of the store had concertina doors; like trellis. So exciting as a child.
I used to work years ago for a Saudi Business man who had a house in Montpelier Walk round the corner from Harrods. It was basically furnished from there. He was a British educated Anglophile with extremely good taste. I stayed there a few times when in London and it was surreal for a young lad from Scotland.
makes me want to watch "Are You Being Served" : )
Went to the UK in the late ‘80’s and bought a smashing bottle of wine from Harrods.
Amazing store.
Have you got any left?
But any one noticed quality of documentaries make in Britain then? If you compare quality of these documentaries with what todays BBC produce... Britis journalism was at highest level in the world
I’m 41 years old, 1982 born. I remember in my teens, late teens, around the late 90s and certainly early 00s, documentaries I would enjoy on the BBC or Channel 4, started to creep in small amounts of dramatic music underscoring the narration or the people being interviewed. My ears were sensitive to it, as that wasn’t what we were used to - and I remember, even at that tender age thinking “this sounds like something you’d expect from an American show’. So there was a slow ‘Americanisation’ of our more measured, thoughtful and stoic British productions… by the 2010s/20s this intellectual approach to documentary making and news reporting is lost. We have dumbed down as a society - now a celebration of urban culture and speaking badly. A real shame.
Great channel old school London!
That was lovely, the golden age, it certainly isn't like that now. The cheese counter is so tiny you have to ask where it is. There isn't a pet department. It is now some tiny thing operated by a third-party and zero animals. I am just so glad I remember it from a time when it was glorious.
More like a shopping mall now.
Great snap shot of when times were better. Who would have though 50yrs down the line, we are all worse off and cant afford to eat,
It's crazy how much computers and the internet has dumbed down society. It's sad. People barely know how to socialize anymore 😔
Moved from Ireland in 1989 and Worked in a diner called West side Express up the stairs from the Green Man in Harrods .Was totally blown away by everything in the store
I worked in harrods in the beauty department late 80,s 90,,s i ❤ it there❤
I used to walk though perfumery every day to get to the Food Hall.
The modern day ones are not the same. Souless with no character.
Amazing store-- its like a world in it self
Itself.
Battery powered truck. Used heat from electric generators to make hot water. How eco friendly they were.
Love that this is a vintage clip
Better times. Before the greed for Chinese money ruined the place.
Ironically, the song playing at around 17 minutes in is Souvenir de Chine by Jean Michel Jarre!
and arab, and russian, and now indian too
You mean capitalism. The nation where the money came from is less important than what incentivised the money to behave as it did and what allowed that money to come in the first place and that would be the economic system we live under, and any person who voted for Tories post 1950 voted for the screwed up world we currently live in as they voted for capitalism without restraint.
Welcome to the UK 2019. If things get worse, these will be not just the last years for what remains of high street shopping, but the last years of the UK Union itself.
Harrods wouldn't be in business if they solely relied on English people.
@@j0499 Not entirely accurate overall in context of history but certainly accurate and correct today.
Prior to 1980 people had far more disposable income and the rich were a primarily nationally based lot so harrods did survive primarily from the middle classes and the elites of the UK, with a handful of international customers and a handful of the working classes for a birthday or Christmas treat.
Today in terms of disposable income the middle are near as poor as the working classes were, the working classes are near destitution and the elites have more money than god could count but are now transnational and do not give a flying f*** about the nation they were born in that gave them their massive amounts of unearned income and general riches, so harrods has to entice the elites of all nations passing through the capital for survival.
5 million in one days taking in 1982 now that's amazing.
In 2014, I visited from Australia. Harrods food hall was awesome, but lunch for Two came to 40 something pounds, but it was a great lunch 👏🏼👏🏼
The past was better than now and the future looks grim.
......said every old person in history. Obviously the further away from the grave we are, the better.
@@zivkovicable You speak a lot and add little value.
Before it transformed into dubai airport
I can't recall any planes landing there.
I worked there for a brief moment in time.
It's a shame they didn't show the tunnel under Brompton road and the Harrods Shoe factory.
They did show the tunnel under Brompton Road.
@@AtheistOrphan Sorry I must have missed it.
Recognise old Bert Arrons from the MCR driving the stillage trucks. Going into the wine cellar?
15:48 "or door 3 dogs and royalty"
A symbol of the way England used to be. England used to have a clear identity. But like Harrods they sold out, and now all that’s left is a cheap knock off version that caters to foreign customers.
Cry more whitey
'Foreigners' feel the same way about you when you are in their country LOL
Bit of Jean Michell Jarre music.
Dan PS are you old enough to remember his Wembley concert? Lit up London with its lights. Could see it in walthamstow.
At the beginning it sounds more like Tangerine Dream. It's Jarre?
@@stephanesonneville Jean Michel Jarre Equinoxe all the way through
Give me Fortnum & Mason . . . a veritable treat.
Wow!!!!!!!! What a great video 👏👏👏
Visited there last April. Impressive food court. I also love Fortnum and Mason
Harrod's, I used to love going to the bakery area in there, each morning for a week the last time I visited. The ladies that worked in there were always very pleasant and helpful.
As a teen living in the UK, I cant help feel like this is the Britain i would have wanted to live in, gone are the days of englishness, class, sophistication etc
Makes me sad to see how bad it has become.
olly hp it was awesome. And, I feel gutted that it’s unrecognisable these days. Things change, can’t stop it. I wish I could have though...lol. 👍🏽
Oh mine the racist are mad😂😂😂😂😂
fatima haidara I am a black woman and I hear black women say all the time how they only want black kids. So if this guy only believes in racial purity, why is he a racist???
Olly When I was growing up 70s/early 80s this was reality. Trouble is, when I grew up, it all changed for the worse to what we now have. All gone. You sound like a very intelligent person who knows we've thrown away many of the things worth having in this country.
@@fatimahaidara5064 don’t be so silly. It is not racist to talk about the good old days. Even other races say it. It wasn’t perfect but better than today’s false wokeness narrative. People had fun and there was banter, yes some were over the top but a lot of people got along and people had respect for their elders. Simple times and simple pleasures. Food was cheaper and there was some joy with less. Christmases and Easter were genuine family affairs not the over commercialized tat we see today. You didn’t know you were born in those days as the lady helpers used to say at primary school smile 😀.
Very interesting to hear the man say. No manners, no please or thank you. He was well ahead of his time..
I used to go to Harrods a lot in 1981 while my father was producing "KRULL" at Pinewood Studios.
Whoa that movie was mental!
@@politecat4236 Does that mean you liked it?
A 3-course lunch for £8.50 in Harrods. My kids spend more than that in McDonald's on shite.
Go to Harrods today and the food halls are still impressive, but nothing like as spectacular as they once were. A lot of the original food hall area has been lost to jewellery sales and dining space. I suppose they are trying to wring as much money out of every square foot as they can. Pity.
When people could have a banter, without someone being offended!
zivkovicable I’m OFFENDED that you referred to him as “RETARDED”
T R I G G E R ED
Idiot. Most people shared the same culture and were sufficiently mentally strong to give and take jokes then..
Isleofskye Just leave the snowflake be, probably one of those that are offended by everything and everyone. They wouldn’t know what banter was if it hit them in the face. Too busy being offended! 🤣🤣
The only person offended and upset is you weirdo
@@kaizuko991 Shut it!
I like harrods but would rather have the old harrods any day
£3.40 in todays money for an egg. Absurdly expensive.
Of course its expensive its Harrod's
@@sonaterese799 😂 Oh I know friend, I was just having a laugh.
@@Nine-Signs Good for you!
Very appropriate for the Hat Show, music from “My Fair Lady”. 👍🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Could someone enlighten me what makes the wee ginger moggy being housed in its designated enclosure? Was there a 'clandestine' pet store or suchlike? I am trying to recall this based on my distant childhood memory.
It had a very famous pet department! I must have first visited it maybe a year or two after this and was very disappointed because I was expecting it to still sell exotic big cats,crocodiles and other silly things
Now the small pet department is a franchise which sells massively overpriced dog beds for lapdogs and nail polish for dogs.horrible tat.
Wow! Amazing video
Modern-day Harrods: Friends on holiday purchased a fine china dinnerware set to be sent to their home in the States. But even after repeated calls, it never arrived until after they called the office of a London acquaintance who was an MP.
Something that would never have been allowed to happen when it was run properly.
And now it's a foreign store for foreign money;) In the end money wins, wherever it comes from.
Ál Fayhed is a good man. Yes he is no longer the owner but its wrong to label a store because its foreign owned. What's the problem. Qatar purchased it so yes there are changes so bbe it.
Quality is everywhere now, especially the high street.
I remember Harrods back in 77 I was no higher than a traffic cone...it was posh as anything..cor blimey even the doors in and out were like something out of a king's palace.... and as for the goods inside.
It was like nothing us West end peasants had ever seen before
I would go _Just To Ride The Elevator!_ What a wonderful character😊
I love this, I remember it so well as a frequent visitor in the 70's & 80's. We got our school uniforms from there, and we had the Harrods van come to our school every Thursday for uniform top ups. Loved the toy department, always end up getting something there each week, the food hall was yummy, I'd buy mazipan fruits and scoff the lot lol. I'd remember walking through the perfumery dept and there was a mirror on each wall and play about there for ages whilst my mother had a nose round there. I proper rinsed it in the 80's, wads of cash, clothes shopping there and Harvey Nicks, I go Harrods, lunch in the Georgian restaurant and spend like a demon in Newman dept next to the restraint on the top floor, via the food hall, some cold meats, cakes and sweeties, and back the the car via the tunnel lol. Lovely days! Later on in life, got a nod to go to the Chairmans office on a Saturday with both my children, mega queue jump to the front to see Santa, that went on a for a few years lol.... Lovely I'd showing how I remembered it as a kid
And a partridge in a pear tree 😄
My husband and I visited in August. The only ones buying were Saudi women in burkas. There were mobs of them in the handbag shoes, fragrance, and jewelry. It was crazy. The food area didn’t look to great. Many items on display in the cases looked old and wilted.
They had money to spend. You went in as a window shopper.
@@sohailalexander46812024 and they’re still annoying.
The quality isn't even good! I can only guess a lot of footballers wives type buy the clothes there,as they were so poorly made and overpriced! Almost exclusively made from cheap manmade fabrics,by an overlocker, unlined and with seams showing on the outside. If I was paying 4 or 5 figures for a garment I want to see that some time and skill has been used on durable, quality fabrics.
Is that equinox,ah still got that album.
What's the name of the album?
Kim S. I have two of John Michell jars albums,from the early seventies,equinox,and oxygens.
@@ozgekim010 - ‘Equinox’ and ‘Concerts in China’
I loved Harrods as a child and still do ❤
Harrods library - now that is interesting.
0:23 Cheeky sod ! wiping his hands on the other guys coat and had to laugh at the guy picking his nose on the escalator at 18:06 😆
It will be cool to see what’s it’s like today
I really want to know if they got the power station still?
OH! you have the Royal Warrant on both sides of the van. That's very good!
Classic Britisch tradition ! I love it
The Northern guy at 7:24 made my day 😂😂😂😂
My son and I (he was about ten or eleven at the time) had afternoon tea there. The waitress saw I was having a hot flush (thanks peri menopause) and very discreetly placed a stack of serviettes in my lap with a knowing look. She was so sweet that I left a huge tip.
Going by the W reg harrods delivery vans its probably around 1980 81
1982. The narrator mentions ‘last years royal wedding’ ‘They all now want to look like Lady Di’.
Harrods was amazing
I was Impressed with Hat Season :) QC
"Last year at the royal wedding" AWW! I was at her son's wedding in 2011 a few years ago.
Of course you were dear.
Jelly? I was literally 1 of a million who saw it IRL
Who the cunty mentioned jelly?
/Anyone know the song playing over the last few mins?
*My sister Pauline worked for Estee Lauder in the cosmetics department in Harrods.*
Is Harrods still selling fish
Yes.
The world is yours...
What’s the song at the very end? Very haunting
Jean Michel Jarre - Souvenir De Chine
God Bless You! Wow thanks so much!!! I hope you have a nice day wherever you are !