An Original Miss Selfridge

Mary Hindmarsh was a Selfridges employee from 1938-1940

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception


When I was growing up in Kilburn, north London, in the 20s and 30s, Selfridges was the finest department store in the country.
There was Liberty, Whiteleys in Bayswater, DH Evans, Marshall & Snelgrove and the newly opened Marks & Spencer, but Selfridges on Oxford Street was the shop everyone wanted to work in.

Just before my 15th birthday, in 1938, department heads from the store came to my convent school to interview the best-presented girls.
I remember being taken into the head's office where I was asked some questions and looked up and down.
I was offered a job in the haberdashery department for 15 shillings (around £21 today) a week and I was thrilled. (Haberdashery was in the basement and everyone started in the basement, being moved up through the floors as you gained more experience.)

Before I began I was given some training along with the other new girls. We were taught always to address customers as Sir or Madam, and had Mr Selfridge's mantra - the customer is always right - impressed upon us.
There was no uniform but everyone had to wear a black dress or suit, dark stockings and flat shoes. They didn't provide us with the clothes so my mum had to buy mine from Marks & Spencer. We could only wear minimal make-up and no jewellery.
Every evening, Mr Selfridge used to tour the store and inspect every department.
If he saw someone with a hair out of place he'd tell the 'floor walkers', who were in charge of each department, and you'd be in trouble! Mr Selfridge never spoke to us, only the floor walkers.
I remember him as a very smart man in a suit with a tie pin - although he was 80 by the time I got my job.
He had an apartment above the shop and I'm sure senior staff used to gossip about him. He had a lot of glamorous friends and there were often music hall stars in the store. I think Wallis Simpson used to shop there.
To be honest, everyone who shopped in Selfridges looked very smart. It was during the Depression and only the well-off could afford to buy things there.

The ladies were always in hats and gloves and lots of them used to make a day of it. Selfridges was a destination in itself and lots of customers would spend hours there, perusing the departments, having lunch or taking tea with friends.

 

It was very different for the staff, of course. My mother was a hotel cook, my father had died and I could never afford to buy anything from the shop.
When we needed something we went to M&S, which was for more ordinary people. I knew some girls who would buy a dress there, wear it for three months and then take it back, saying there was something wrong with it!

'If he saw someone with a hair out of place he'd tell the "floor walkers", who were in charge of each department, and you'd be in trouble! Mr Selfridge never spoke to us, only the floor walker'

We had to be on the shop floor at our counter every morning at 8.45am, ready to begin work. We finished at 7pm, although the more senior staff stayed until 9pm, and we worked till 1pm on a Saturday. Sunday was the only full day off, and you sometimes got a half day during the week.
If you were late twice you lost a day's wages so I made sure I was never late.
We got one tea break and a lunch break which we used to take in the cloakrooms, in among the coats. We took our sandwiches and sat on armchairs that were too tatty to be out on the shop floor. After I'd eaten I used to walk round the different departments, admiring the building.
It was so elegant! Everything about the store was beautiful - there were statues and paintings and even the staircases and lifts were lovely. (But we didn't use the lifts, with their uniformed attendants - they were for the customers.)

Crowds gather to watch a Selfridges window dresser in the early 1940s

And the tills were magnificent, all marble and gold and emitting a delightful 'Trrrrring' when you opened them.
Back then it wasn't uncommon for families to have ten children and many of the girls were helping to support their siblings.

I was lucky, I had just one sister, and my family weren't dependent on my wages. Although I gave some money to my mother she usually gave it back to me for sweets, and I spent the rest at the cinema and the swimming baths.

Selfridges was a beautiful place to work but I must admit I became rather bored there, and after about a year I decided to leave. I got a job as a nursery assistant in Kent and I found that much more fun. But I do look back fondly on my time at Selfridges, and I still shop there occasionally. I don't think it's nearly as elegant as it once was - it just looks like all the other big stores - but it's still Selfridges!