Born in Watford in 1960, Mary Portas is a businesswoman, broadcaster and activist. She joined Harvey Nichols in 1989 and left in 1997 to found the marketing agency Yellowdoor (now Portas). In 2007, she began her television career with the BBC Two series Mary Queen of Shops. She was retail tsar for the UK government in 2011, and is a co‑chair of the Better Business Act. She has three children – two with her ex‑husband, Graham Portas, and one with her ex-wife, Melanie Rickey. Her new book, I Shop, Therefore I Am, is published on 2 October.
This was taken at my office in Harvey Nichols. I was finding my feet as a creative director, so magazines wanted to put me on their pages. The clothes – Norma Kamali trousers and a Donna Karan bodysuit – were a subliminal way of reflecting who I was. In my early 20s, I was dressing to cater to the trends. As I approached 30, I realised it was time to consider my personal style: dynamic, strong and sharp.
My memories from this time are of joy and contentment. I was confident at work, but everything felt new and exciting. I remember thinking, “I am rocking this.” A significant feeling, as for a long time I’d been lost.
Growing up, I was one of five kids. I was spiky and naughty, always pushing boundaries and disinterested in getting good grades or making close friends. I was studying at a convent school and found myself constantly distracted in lessons. By the time I was a teenager, most of my siblings had left home to either study or work. Then, very suddenly, Mum died of meningitis.
Dad fell apart; he couldn’t cope at all. Even though I was 16, it was left to me to take care of my younger brother, Lawrence. It wasn’t just losing Mum; my siblings, my elders, my whole support system was gone. The house went from this warm, crazy, chaotic Irish family environment – always a dog barking, food on the stove – to darkness and silence. Mum was strong, funny – a matriarch who made things happen. I didn’t even own a house key because she was always at home.
In the 1970s, there was no therapy. It was just back to school on Monday and onwards. I had won a place at Rada, but enrolled on a college course in visual merchandising so I could look after Lawrence instead. As soon as I got home, I would turn the radio or TV on, anything to fill the house with noise. Then I would try to cook something, having never cooked before. My brother would come through the front door. He was 14, and I could see the grief on his face. I had no choice but to become the responsible matriarch, a role that I have never stopped inhabiting since.
After Mum died, my dad met someone new. He died two years later, and left the family home to his new wife, making me and Lawrence homeless. We relied on the kindness of other people, and lived with family friends in a council house. I wouldn’t want to go into the headspace of the woman who took our family home – I can’t imagine doing that to any child. There must have been some pain in her. I don’t harbour resentment, but I do often look back and grieve for my younger self – I wish I could go back in time and put my arm around her.
Because of everything that happened to me in those years, I never really got to be a teenager. I never did drugs, I never did the big clubs, the rebellion. To this day, I’ve never been off my face. Instead, that tragedy set me on a new path – one that made me want to go out and work. So that’s what I did. My accomplishments didn’t come from being the smartest; they came from working harder than anyone around me.
By the time I was 48, I was on TV. The show was big – 3.5 million viewers. I would walk on to the street and people would say: “Hi Mary!” Suddenly, I was a public figure. I had my business and was constantly travelling for keynote speaking. I had two kids, and was starting to become wealthy. But I was doing too much. I was exhausted.
A friend said: “Why don’t you come away to this retreat? Relax for a bit?” I am not one for time off, and had never really prioritised self-care. I had grown up watching my mother slap on face cream, so I just did the same, and thought that was enough indulgence. But I agreed to go, and on that trip I met a spiritual leader. Anyone could go in and talk to him. He would point to a seat, and get me to speak. One day he handed me the Vedanta Treatise: The Eternities by Avula Parthasarathy, a manual for life and self-realisation, based on one of the ancient philosophies of India. I didn’t understand a fucking word. But I kept reading, and something was changing. Every time I did yoga, I’d start crying.
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My spiritual learning was gradual, and over the years became part of my lifestyle. I would seek out teachers and philosophers, and became more drawn to reading about great thinkers than streaming the latest TV series. It wasn’t quite an awakening, but a realisation that so much of my life had been running – moving on to the next thing constantly. The stress and the energy never connected me to my soul.
I wouldn’t consider myself a yogi but I meditate every day. And it’s changed how I approach work. So much of business and consumerism has been terrible for society. I have to accept that I’ve played my part in that. Plus, we were taught that being good at business was about aggression, but if you put out bad energy and anger, anger comes back. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like earning money; I just like to do it with a conscience.
When I was younger, nobody ever said to me: “Here’s a kid who’s got some spark!” Even when I became display manager at Topshop at 25, I never felt like I was in a place of success. During the Harvey Nichols days, when the press had given me the moniker Mary Queen of Shops, nobody internally said I was important. Because of that, and because of who I am fundamentally, I have never truly felt like I “made it”.
To me, success isn’t achieving career goals. It’s in moments like when my fabulous PA, Bean, once said: “The thing I always admired about you is that you can talk to the CEO or the cleaner. And there aren’t many people who can – or will – do both.” Or it’s when I’m at home with my kids, cooking or simply talking around the table. The other day my brother came over and cut our hair. Those small, ordinary family moments are the ones that feel the most meaningful.
Despite everything that’s happened, I have this belief that everything will always be OK. It doesn’t mean I don’t experience pain. In the last few years, I have been through divorce. The end of a relationship is an extraordinarily difficult thing to navigate. But she and I both celebrated our son’s birthday recently. We are in a good place. And that’s the thing: there have been periods of extreme challenges, but also joy. I’ve had such a rich life. If someone had said to me when I was a little girl that this would be adulthood, I’d have gone: “I’ll tick that box – thank you!”