Harrods | Reporting London Special | Thames Television
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ม.ค. 2013
- Filmed in 1982. Thames Television was given unique access to one of the worlds most famous department stores - Harrods.
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Quote: VT26878
My Mum worked at Harrods in these days. Back then she earned enough money to get a mortgage for a 3 bedroom house in Walthamstow (alone) and still live decently. How times have changed
@george What does it mean "suck off dodie" ?
Bloody Tory scum want us to starve and die....
You can blame immigration…
AAron Thom I can only pay for my chlamydia tests
T T shut up arsehole
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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 TH-cam
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.
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.
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
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..
👍🏻
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
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.
They should make a Harrods museum of all the old stuff and machinery .
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.
It's nothing like that now....:(
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).
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
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 🇨🇦
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?
Fascinating. Thanks for upload.
'addock. Lovely. Cheers Tel, see ya in the mornin'
This is fantastic. Thanks so much for uploading
Amazing store-- its like a world in it self
Itself.
That really is england of a different era!
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
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 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.
What a wonderful insight into how things were done and I wish , still were.
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.
Very interesting!
ELPaso1990TX indeed
makes me want to watch "Are You Being Served" : )
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
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❤
Wow!!!!!!!! What a great video 👏👏👏
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.
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 👏🏼👏🏼
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.
Love that this is a vintage clip
Before it transformed into dubai airport
I can't recall any planes landing there.
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.
Visited there last April. Impressive food court. I also love Fortnum and Mason
Battery powered truck. Used heat from electric generators to make hot water. How eco friendly they were.
Harrods library - now that is interesting.
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.
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.
Very appropriate for the Hat Show, music from “My Fair Lady”. 👍🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
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
Give me Fortnum & Mason . . . a veritable treat.
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
15:48 "or door 3 dogs and royalty"
Wow 😁 I love this
the synth score is incredible
Amazing
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?
Love the background music
Was great.
A 3-course lunch for £8.50 in Harrods. My kids spend more than that in McDonald's on shite.
£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!
The Northern guy at 7:24 made my day 😂😂😂😂
Harrods was amazing
everyone had purpose back then - people were real, life was real. now it's all... well, shit frankly.
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.
It will be cool to see what’s it’s like today
I really want to know if they got the power station still?
Classic Britisch tradition ! I love it
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.
"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?
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!
The world is yours...
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.
Very interesting to hear the man say. No manners, no please or thank you. He was well ahead of his time..
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,
I reckon the reporter definitely claimed for his haircut on expensives.
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 😀.
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’.
Love the Jean Michel Jarre music in the background!
I like harrods but would rather have the old harrods any day
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.
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.
love the guy on the escalator at 18:05 mins
1/4lb wine gums and an Asterix book… it was a wild jungle of fun! c.1979
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 😆
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.
Give me small, family owned or boutique shops any day. I loathe department stores, but....
thanks for the information. I enjoyed the film.👍🙂
The store was bombed the year after this was filmed.
JMJ :) Nice video!
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.
@@kimozge010 - ‘Equinox’ and ‘Concerts in China’
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
Those were the days, my friend.........
Scarface music at 17:08
Greg Hinson
“My Fair Lady” Music at *14:03! 😉
@@janedoe805 Lovely...
Do you know what the song is called?
They don’t do 24hr deliveries anymore after a lady phoned in and fell asleep taking up the entire reel? OMG!
Is Harrods still selling fish
Yes.
Harrods is nothing like this now this is really luxury, would have loved to see all this stuff but now it’s JUST a retail shop making profits. Still a nice place but look at this video and go now no comparison