Comments

yes tom...when I work at the front lines I often use her quote "If you think you are too small to make a difference, you have never been in bed with a mosquito" Her passing is a great loss...

Posted by Mike Neiss at September 19, 2007 7:51 PM

'Gain' can be developed from that 'loss'... by adopting and adapting more of 'her kind of stuff' into our normal activities.

Posted by gulliver at September 19, 2007 9:55 PM

It's your blog, do what you want. Bear in mind, though, that to many, Ms. Rodick was a hypocrite. There's an old saying about heros and "feet of clay."

Posted by Mike at September 20, 2007 10:15 AM

Tom,

Thanks for doing this.

Anita and Gordon are two of our local heroes, and every time I drive past the HQ it makes me remember that we CAN make a difference.

And to Mike who says she was a hypocrite: There's another saying from the same book you quoted: "whoever is without sin can cast the first stone".

I don't expect perfection of my heroes, only that they live what they believe and try to make a difference.

Mark in West Sussex, England

Posted by Mark Harrison at September 20, 2007 3:09 PM

Let us please be dignified and not argue about Anita – we should just celebrate her life. When I did my MA Management (Health Care) in the mid 90’s her book ‘Body and Soul’ was the one I enjoyed reading most. (In fact probably the ONLY one I actually ENJOYED) If you really want to know what is crap in business then don’t listen to management academics and management consultants (including me) but simply read ‘Body and Soul.’ Anita Roddick was just an amazing woman and my biggest regret is that she was not in charge of every business school in the UK.

Posted by Trevor Gay at September 20, 2007 4:30 PM

I am certainly not without sin, but I am certainly without the sin of hypocrisy. I am not judging Ms. Roddick, only mentioning that there are many who do not believe she did live what she believed, or at least live what she wanted us to believe. Hero worship is a dangerous past-time.

Posted by Mike at September 21, 2007 6:40 AM

Discourse about business & wonderful individuals like Anita are certainly part of free world non-socialism though ... no need to be self promoting & laissez faire. Body Shop, L'Oreal & animal testing & cancer causing cosmetic ingredients are all topics quite easily researched to draw an informed opinion. Free enterprise & $1.4B & capitalism are not perfect but can be quite magnificent - caveat emptor - buyer beware! :>}

Posted by John at September 21, 2007 9:04 AM

Wow Trevor, you really added to this eulogy. What the world needs is another sanctimonious nobody with Internet access.

Posted by John at September 26, 2007 7:47 PM

Sorry Trevor, I meant Mike. responing to jerks affects my proofreading.

Posted by John at September 26, 2007 7:49 PM

On a cold wet winters morn, near Christmas time 1976, my old mum dragged me through the poring rain to a little, quite scruffy, weird smelling shop in Kensington Gardens, Brighton. And at an irritable age 10, I was peeved to say the least.

I remember sitting in a backroom full of boxes and weird looking things I couldn’t quite make out. Mud, yes MUD was all over the walls, grass seed piled in heaps, coconuts plied high…... Weird, just weird…. ’Mum,’ I cried, ‘you can’t work here, it stinks.’

Then this even weirder hippy looking women wearing baggy dungarees and wild fizzy hair stormed in the room and shouted something like, ‘Sorry… late… a whole F***ing lot of Hemp just fell out of the Van…..’

‘Mum, Mum,‘ I secretly thought, ‘you can’t work here.’

‘Hi, I’m Anita….’ and shock my Mum’s hand with jolt…………….

She suddenly turned and look at me, and in commanding voice: ‘Get out of those wet things you silly boy, and don’t sit on those boxes, and….’

My mum did take the part time Crimbo job, and yes, on occasion dragged me back to the shop not sit on those smelly boxes.

Things got weirder.

I not only overheard quite strange conversation about how Madagascan women smothered themselves with bees wax to ward off the sun, and how Chilean Men would rub hot chillies on the face to keep flies away. This women Anita, who apparently owned the shop, would rub coconut on her own nut to straighten her hair…. ‘Ho boy, what absolutely bizarre place,’ I sighed.

New years day 1977, sales time, Anita asked if I could keep the store room tidy, as it was chock-a-block with customer in the front shop. ‘You can take home some menthol litmus oils… Good for the chest.’ (I was Asthmatic). ‘Ho thanks!’

What struck me - with my hard earned 10 year old business acumen - was that the shop was busy all day. Why would anyone want to buy Prune Shampoo, or Tree Bark to rub off hard skin? But she must be doing something right…. Right??

I was glad to get back to school (for once). But what was my first assignment my English teacher gave? Yep! ‘What did I do over the holidays?’… ‘Ho boy, ho boy!!’

When I gave the essay in, I got an ‘A.’ Unusual for a distracted dyslexic. It did make me think though. About how listening and observing can lead to new insights and ideas. But more, how earwigging and gawking in unusual, even wired places can give extraordinarily original experiences.

Nita…. I never did get the chance to thank you. Take look at me now. Sleep tight Nita. I wont for get.

Chris Harris.
Author, Speaker, Consultant on Hyperinnovation, Futures Studies, and the New Industrial Revolution. ( www.chrisharrisfutures.blogspot.com. )

Posted by Chris Harris at October 11, 2007 3:56 PM

viagra online overnight Chris,
Thank you for such a personal account. I'm sure we all wish we'd had such an encounter with Ms Roddick. She will be missed.

Posted by cathy mosca at October 12, 2007 11:03 AM