Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge (27 page)

The Government meanwhile was in disarray. Bonar Law, his health failing, resigned in May 1923 and in December there was another General Election and another party in the store. The 1,200 guests, who included the Asquiths, the Churchills, Jack Buchanan, Gladys Cooper, Lady Headfort, the beautiful Lady Lavery, the Ranee of Sarawak and the Hollywood hero Charlie Chaplin, danced to music from the famous band-leader Ambrose and his Embassy Club Band. Fifty telephone operators manned special lines bringing information in from around the country. As news of one close count was supposedly coming through, the famous music-hall comedian and emergent film actor Leslie Henson took the microphone. ‘No change,’ he said to cheers from the audience, as he pulled out his empty trouser pockets and shook them. The real results were posted up on a cricket scoreboard by six pretty girls. Those watching outside on the street crowded round the ‘electric newspaper’ which lit up the results in blazing lights. In fact they caused such a bottleneck in the street that the police insisted the store close it down.

To the consternation of many wining and dining at Selfridge’s, the collapsing Conservative vote resulted in a hung parliament, and Britain’s first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, moved into Downing Street. The Selfridge family were also on the move. Their lease on Highcliffe had expired and the castle was discreetly put
up for sale by the Stuart Wortleys. Country weekends were now spent in the open environs of Wimbledon Park, where Rosalie, Serge and their daughter Tatiana had moved into the once grand but now rather shabby Wimbledon Park House. The heavily mortgaged mansion – originally built for the 4th Earl Spencer, who owned the Manor of Wimbledon – belonged to Serge’s mother, Marie Wiasemsky. Desperately short of money, she had recently been taken to court by an irate servant owed three months’ wages of just £12. Rosalie and Serge, clearly hoping Selfridge would fund them, struck out on their own, taking over financial responsibility for the vast property. Serge, already popular in Wimbledon where the family hosted an annual fête and a historical fancy dress gala, had become something of a local hero when locals read press reports about him diving to rescue a mother and child from the sea near Boulogne.

The deeds of the house were in the name of Prince Wiasemsky, Serge having adopted the title. The principal branch of the Wiasemsky family, headed by Prince Vladimir, was not amused. Vladimir, his married sister Princess Lydia Wassiltchikoff and his mother had escaped the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, and settled in the South of France, but his two brothers had not been so lucky: Prince Boris was murdered by his estate workers after having his eyes gouged out, and Prince Dimitri was shot. Memories of these atrocities were still fresh, so it is hardly surprising that Prince Vladimir was less than impressed when the ‘self-styled Prince Serge Wiasemsky’, as he caustically called him, took it upon himself to form a movement called the Russian National Progressive Party. When Alexis Aladin, leader of the Russian Peasant Union, was in London that year for talks with Ramsay MacDonald, he shared a platform with Serge who told the
Sunday Times
, ‘the land of Russia belongs to the people. My party has no connection with, and totally disagrees with and disapproves of the monarchical group.’ By this he meant the Romanovs rather than his own supposed ancestors the Rurikids. The exiled Romanov Grand Duke Michael, who had previously enjoyed the Selfridges’ hospitality, declined an invitation to their next party.

Whatever Serge thought of the ill-fated Russian monarchy, he relentlessly clung to his own title, hobnobbing with other Russians who had married well, among them Prince Serge Obolensky and his bride, the 20-year-old Alice Astor, who had inherited a trust fund of $5 million when her father went down with the
Titanic.
Young Tatiana Wiasemsky made an angelic bridesmaid when Prince George Imeretinsky married the society beauty Stella Wright.

Meanwhile, Harry Selfridge had also parted with Harrose Hall on Lake Geneva, reportedly selling it for a tidy sum. The sale prompted his elderly mother to make a trip to Chicago to see the house once more, visiting old friends both there and in Washington. Chicago, cheerfully described in the hit song of 1922 as ‘That Toddlin’ Town’, was a city under siege. By the time Lois Selfridge arrived in November 1923, it was reported that over 60 per cent of the city’s police were involved in one way or another in the liquor business. Al Capone had established himself as a leading light in organized crime, his own employees running over 160 bars and gambling houses. Capone, having ‘seen off’ three rival families with an assortment of weapons ranging from bombs to Thompson sub-machine guns, was driven around town in a $30,000 bullet-proof Cadillac flanked by posses of armed hoodlums. Madam Selfridge, a life-long supporter of Prohibition, could now see for herself what it had created – a speakeasy life of violence and crime, swinging along at a fast and furious rate.

Her trip lasted three months. Although she was away for Christmas, Harry sent out a card to store staff, showing mother and son together in the library at Lansdowne House. The card also bore a message: ‘What a wonderful privilege it is to live – to see – to hear – to think – to learn!’ His mother, however, did not have long to live. In Washington the following February, she contracted pneumonia. Harry rushed over to America and brought her home on the SS
Berengaria
. They landed at Southampton on Saturday, 23 February, but by the Monday she was dead. Her funeral took place at St Mark’s in Highcliffe, where she was buried next to her daughter-in-law Rose. The store, draped mournfully, albeit exquisitely, in black, closed for the
day, while the tiny Hampshire parish church was filled with flowers sent by, among others, Mr and Mrs Adolph S. Ochs (owners of the
New York Times
), John Lawrie (the Chairman of Whiteley’s), the Blumenfelds and Mr and Mrs John Shedd from Chicago. There was also a spectacularly beautiful bouquet bearing an engraved card from ‘La Princesse de Monaco’. The 26-year-old Princess Charlotte had sent equally stupendous flowers to Rose’s funeral five years earlier and was evidently a close friend of the Selfridge family. Though no trace exists of the origins of this intriguing relationship, Princess Charlotte was certainly in need of friends.

Charlotte had always been sneered at by Monaco society. Her mother, Marie Louvet, had been a cabaret singer in an Algerian nightclub when she first met Prince Louis II of Monaco, then an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Their illegitimate daughter Charlotte Louise was born in Algeria in 1898, and her lonely upbringing was financed by her father. Since Prince Louis never married, young Charlotte became, dynastically speaking, the last chance for the Monaco ruling family. In the absence of an heir, the throne would pass to a German cousin, and with it would go the Grimaldi share of the lucrative profits from the casino. So, by special decree, Charlotte was formally adopted by her father, created a princess, and hastily married off to the ‘dandy’ Count Pierre de Polignac who, during their uneasy marriage, fathered Prince Rainier and Princess Antoinette. The dynasty now being secure, profits made in what Somerset Maugham wittily described as ‘a sunny place for shady people’ continued apace. Selfridge himself, although he gambled at Monte Carlo, preferred the vast municipal casino in Nice, where he kept his own apartment and where, for a while, the exotic Princess Charlotte lived until she set up home with René Gigier, France’s most infamous jewel thief. She and Harry would remain friends until his death.

An inveterate traveller, Selfridge liked nothing better than rushing to board the boat train at Victoria for the journey to Paris. He was an early passenger on the Calais–Nice–Rome Express, whose clattering wooden sleeping cars took travellers south to the newly fashionable
summer playgrounds of the sun-seeking rich; and he was ecstatic when in December 1922 the new First Class-only Calais–Méditerranée Express service – known simply as
le train bleu
– was launched.

Years later, a senior guard on the boat train from Victoria recalled Mr Selfridge fondly: ‘He crossed nearly every week, either to Le Touquet or on to Paris … he once went all the way to Cannes just for six hours’ sunshine. He was the most remarkable person – brisk, methodical and so original. He had the gift of getting to sleep immediately but would jump up in the morning, brush his hair and be fully alert – the only passenger to think of bringing his disembarkation card on board pre-prepared and to put his American passport in a coloured silk folder so it could be easily identified.’

In April 1924, the vast extension to the store was officially opened. Much to Harry’s annoyance, there was still a gap between the original, eastern building and the new section that was being argued about by builders, bankers and borough councillors, but below ground, the Bargain Basement stretched unbroken from Duke Street to Orchard Street, covering an area of three and a half acres. Most of the upper-floor departments were replicated ‘below stairs’, where customers enjoyed keen prices, cool white walls, white marble floors and, for the first time in England, cool air, courtesy of the very latest in American mechanical wizardry, a ‘comfort cooling’ system. Air-conditioning was the quantum leap that created a comfortable environment out of artificial, windowless spaces. To London’s shoppers in 1924, it was a revelation.

When King George V opened the vast British Empire Exhibition at Wembley later that month, Selfridge’s had nineteen speakers wired around the store so customers could hear the King. One chap taking tea in the Palm Court Restaurant was so awed he stood to attention. ‘It’s
the King
speaking,’ he said. In the days of silent films, people were enchanted by the wonders of radio. Wembley Stadium itself was built as the centrepiece of the BEE, as the vast exhibition was fondly called. Ironically for Selfridge’s, part of the enormous plot of land that had been compulsorily purchased had been the original location
of the store’s staff sports club. With the money from the enforced sale, Selfridge bought a fifteen-acre plot in Preston Road, between Wembley and Harrow, where the staff held teas, supper dances and quiz nights in a handsome pavilion after a hectic Saturday and Sunday afternoon of football, netball, cricket and tennis matches. Over 27 million people poured into Wembley to see the exhibits, travel on experimental railways, inspect a coal mine, visit an amusement park and buy such things as the first ever commemorative stamps issued by the Post Office – which were also on sale in the Selfridge’s branch post office on the store’s fourth floor.

Selfridge, who had used the concept of a post-war World Fair as the central theme of his many after-dinner talks to various business groups, might justifiably have felt hurt at not being invited to join the Exhibition Organizing Committee. He made up for it with his own displays in the store, where Empire ‘flags, emblems and decorations’ were on show in a vast department selling ephemera such as printed cotton Union Jacks priced at 1 shilling a dozen and portraits of the King at 1/11d each. Selfridge had long celebrated Empire Day with a staff party on the roof, and to inaugurate the BEE he invited Lord Beaverbrook to entertain the staff with what turned out to be a rousing speech.

Harry Selfridge believed in engaging emotionally with his workforce and he had an innate understanding of the importance of ritual for customers and employees alike. He made a point of observing Armistice Day. Each year since the war, on 11 November, a bugler had stepped out on to the central balcony to sound the Last Post at 11.00 a.m. After a two-minute silence came the Reveille. It was a moving experience for all who heard it, and it continued each year until Selfridge was evicted from the store. Creating ‘experience’ was central to his beliefs. His critics said it had less to do with shopping and more to do with theatricals. But he knew – as few other retailers did – that emotion and experience formed a huge part of what customers craved. ‘The whole art of merchandising,’ he said, ‘consists of appealing to the imagination. Once the imagination is
moved, the hand goes automatically to the purse.’ Years later, one of his directors, Frank Chitham, who left to work for D. H. Evans, said, ‘He had the closest insight into customer psychology. When he was expressing ideas they came alive in your mind.’

After the morning tour, there was usually an ideas session in the Chief’s office where his desk was flanked by the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack. Reports on new trends in England and France or new gadgetry from America that he might usefully use in Oxford Street were discussed. Sometimes he would just sit for a while, hands clasped behind his head, looking out of the window at the clouds high above Oxford Street. No one ever dared interrupt him. And then the ideas would flow. Some were prosaic. If he saw that it was going to rain he would have someone call to check on the number of raincoats and umbrellas and ask that extra stock be put on to the floor.

In the new men’s department, opened in 1924, the ex-world champion Melbourne Inman challenged Tom Carpenter at the billiards table. An ice rink was opened on the roof terrace where the American champion ice skater Howard Nicholson and his partner Freda Whittaker – the Torville and Dean of their day – enthralled the public, helping to establish the trend for skating. Poppy Wingate, England’s first female professional golfer, gave demonstrations in the ladies’ sportswear department. All these events were supported by linked merchandise displays often marked at ‘special prices’, which invariably ran for the rest of the week. The events made news because Selfridge’s press room was open to all, whether news reporters or sports or women’s page writers. Once they had met and photographed whichever sports star or stage star was in the store that week, only one task remained: the celebrity in question had to sign the Chief’s autograph window with the diamond-tipped stick before a chauffeured car whisked them back to their hotel. Finally, their visit was reported in the store’s own house magazine,
The Key.

In what the press called the ‘Ball of the Season’, in the early summer of 1924, Selfridge threw open the doors of Lansdowne House for another Royal Charity Gala, this time to raise funds to endow
hospital beds. The guest list included the British royal princes Henry and George, their cousins the Marquis and Marchioness of Milford Haven, Princess Marie Louise and Princess Helena Victoria. The seat of honour, however, was given to Princess Serge Wiasemsky (née Rosalie Selfridge), and her cameo, charmingly drawn by Rex Whistler complete with coronet, adorned the front cover of the programme. Selfridge pulled out all stops to put on a show: Garrard’s and Carrington’s loaned gold plate; no less than five champagne houses kept supplies flowing freely through the night; a jazz and classical band played; and Ivor Novello’s mother – herself a noted musician – put her celebrated Clara Novello Davies Male Choir through their paces for the society audience.