Chorleywood u3a monthly meeting
Starts at 2:30 pm. We are planning this as an in-person meeting in the Memorial Hall, which we will also make available on Zoom.
The Palace of Knightsbridge – AKA Harrods: a talk by Richard Furnival-Jones.
The story of how Harrods grew from a small family shop in the 1840s with a staff of two plus messenger boy to today’s huge Knightsbridge department empire with 330 departments and thousands of staff. Fascinating facts included Oscar Wilde and Lillie Langtry being among the first customers to be given credit and customers being offered smelling salts or brandy after surviving a trip on England’s first escalator in 1898.
Richard Furnival-Jones was a trainee in the food hall in 1963. He worked his way up to become food hall manager before retiring after more than 40 years. Sharing his entertaining memories and stating that “Harrods is a family. When I went to work there I became part of that family.”
