Vaccination Overview

Edward Jenner 

Queen Mary 11, 1662-1694.
Died of smallpox.

 The first documented use of vaccination against smallpox occurred in China around 1000 A.D. when smallpox sores were opened to remove pus, or the dried scabs were ground into a powder, and the resulting material was either scratched into the skin surface or blown into patients’ nostrils. This procedure became known as ‘variolation’, covered by the more modern term, inoculation. Emperor K’ang Hsi, who had survived smallpox as a child, had his children inoculated by variolation in the late 1600s. Queen Elizabeth 1 caught it on October 10^th 1562 and survived but her Lady in Waiting, Lady Mary Sydney, survived but her intense scarring caused her retirement from the Court as did the blight on the former legendary beauty of Lady Katherine Howard in 1619. Queen Mary died of the disease in 1694. In 1721 Lady Mary Wortley Montague, wife of the British Ambassador to Constantinople, decided to have her five year old daughter treated by variolation, having had both sons similarly treated successfully in 1717. The several English physicians who witnessed the treatment, were impressed by the mildness of the subsequent illness and this success stimulated further interest. King George 1 had his grandchildren ‘variolated’ but first, six prisoners in Newgate Prison supposedly volunteered to be guinea pigs in exchange for reprieves and eleven charity schoolchildren received the treatment successfully, after which two Royal children followed suit.

Jenner in action. 1802 cartoon by James Gillray.
Wellcome Institute Library, London.

In 1774, farmer Benjamin Jesty of Yetminster in Dorset, took matter from a cowpox lesion and rubbed it into scratches made with a darning needle in the arms of his wife and two sons. None caught smallpox in spite of living in an area of a smallpox epidemic at the time.

Approximately 10% of all deaths in Britain at this time came from smallpox hence the decision by Edward Jenner in 1796 to attempt to find a cure after noticing repeatedly that milkmaids who contracted cowpox always seemed to avoid later infections of smallpox. Edward Jenner, house pupil of the famous surgeon, John Hunter, at St George’s Hospital, London, had been inspired by his tutor as to the importance of experimentation and after studying cowpox for 20 years, made his first human experiment. On May 14, 1796, he took lymph from a cowpox pustule on the wrist of dairymaid, Sarah Nelmes, and inserted it into two superficial incisions in the arm of a boy, James Phipps. Jenner checked the boy’s condition and symptoms daily, recording the following:

'On Day 7, he complained of 'uneasiness' in the 

Jenner with his gardener's son, James Phipps
May 1796.

 axilla; on Day 9, he became a little chilly, lost his appetite and had a slight headache. On the following day, he was perfectly well. The appearance of the incisions were similar to that produced by variolous matter. On July 1, the boy was inoculated with matter taken immediately before from a smallpox pustule. Several punctures and slight incisions were made in both his arms and the matter was well rubbed into them but no disease followed.'

Jenner continued his experimentations successfully and a few years later published his classic 75 page paper entitled, ‘ An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of Cowpox.’ Although translated into the major European languages, his paper had a mixed reception . However, by the end of 1801, over 100,000 vaccinations had been performed in England with other European countries slowly following. Opposition continued however into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries though approximately half of English children were vaccinated between 1870-73. In 1870 an epidemic [blamed, of course, on French refugees] killed over 44,000, a quarter of which total was in London and this greatly increased demand for infant vaccination. In 1871, 93% of children born in England and Wales were vaccinated, with special officers appointed to ensure no one was missed. Predictably the element of compulsion aroused opposition so that around 30% of children avoided vaccination by 1897.

1808 cartoon by Isaac Cruikshank showing
Jenner and 2 colleagues seeing off anti-vaxxers.
[Online, the handwritten remarks can be read!]

And the story continues to the present day with, anti-vaxxers growing in number in the 21^st century! The last known case of smallpox occurred in 1978.

I am indebted to Wye Historical Society [Kent] newsletter both for the idea of, and chiefly the information on, vaccination. My blood pressure needed a break from Trump and it is always a salutary lesson to learn of human creativity and the predictable emotional resistance to life-saving progress.

America's First Anti-Democratic Leader

On the march.

Much of the world is still reeling from the brutal and violently riotous assault on the Washington Capitol on January 6th. Trump’s Save America rally immediately before the event, specifically called for the attack, singled out Pence, urged the potential rioters to be strong and set them off on their murderous way. Rudy Giuliani threw a little fuel on to the fire, calling, in his Trump warm-up act for

trial by combat. I have just watched [Jan 10th] a 35 minute video, filmed by someone within the crowd [who had no time to do anything other than film] as the building was attacked, entered forcefully and desecrated. The noise, violence, the chanting We want Trump/ Stop the Steal/; the sheer animal force and brutality of a mob totally out of control, drunk on unrestricted power and convinced of the rightness of The Cause. It is terrifying to behold.

The fifty Capitol policemen had no chance against the thousands, many half-crazed with the dizzy excitement of being where they were, with the power to do exactly as they pleased. Despite denials, it is apparent that White House staff and close allies of Trump including former Trump campaign staff and family, worked with organisers such as Women For America First and Stop the Steal, to plan and promote Wednesday’s events. The permit for the march, obtained on Jan 4 by Kylie Jane Kremer, daughter of Tea Party activist, Amy Kremer, was operative between 9.00 a.m. and 5.00 pm and covered 30,000 marchers. The chatter about the planned insurrection was amplified on Twitter and Facebook with supporters openly discussing their plans online. On more extremist media sites like 8kun [linked to QAnon] there was talk “for weeks” about the planned siege of the Capitol. So the remarks of the Washington Police Chief, Robert Contee, at a news conference that there was no intelligence to suggest there would be a breach of the Capitol, seems at least, disingenuous. 8kun put out a message on Jan 5th: As many Patriots as can be. We will storm Government buildings, kill cops, kill security guards, kill federal employees and agents and demand a recount. [8kun]

Plato

Aristotle

I learned today [Jan 11th] that Aristotle worried that, in a democracy, a wealthy and talented demagogue could all too easily master the minds of the populace and that Plato noted a particular risk for tyrants: that they would be surrounded, in the end, by yes-men and enablers. Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale, in a wonderfully illuminating essay in the New York Times of January 9^th, mused on the similarities between Trump’s methods and those of the Nazis: in 1930s Germany, they used the new-fangled radio to replace the pluralism of journalism; Trump communicated via the unrestrained bullhorn of Twitter. Like the Nazis, Trump declared journalists to be enemies, constantly referring to “fake news”, akin to the Nazi, “Lugenpresse”, lying Press.

Timothy Snyder

Josh Hawley in unhelpful pose.

Snyder also unpicks the strands of the Republican Party to explain the continuing support there, even post-chaos on Wednesday, for the Trump viewed by the world, including a majority of Americans, as terrifyingly disgraced. He identifies the ‘breakers’ and the ‘gamers’. The latter want to game the system to maintain power. They are happy to use constitutional obscurities, dark money and gerrymandering to win elections with a minority of voters. He identifies Mitch McConnell as a leader who consistently indulged Trump allowing his electoral fiction to flourish, without commenting on the consequences. The breakers do not care if they break the system; the aim is to gain or keep power even without democracy. He cites Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz who challenged States’ electoral votes to cause delays and impress Trump followers knowing they could not effect the outcome. They were joined by 8 senators and over 100 representatives who voted for the lie that had caused them to flee their chambers.

Snyder suggests that, at the core of Trump’s fantasy of electoral fraud, there lies the belief that
it was a crime committed by blacks against whites. The persistent, traditional racism which continues to blight American life and politics, remains to underpin all.

"His best defence would be insanity."

 

Brad Raffensperger on the left,

 My obsession with American politics continues apace as does my horrified ‘can’t look away’ disbelief in Trump and his utterly immoral, vindictive, narcissistic, self-pitying, mendacious character. I only mention the latest unbelievable act, an hour long call to Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State in Georgia tasked with the overall organisation and oversight of elections. I read of it first in Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from an American, 

Professor Heather Cox Richardson

which a friend kindly sends me every day. Presumably all readers of this blog will have already heard/seen almost non-stop media coverage of this call in which Trump cajoles, threatens, begs, Raffensperger to find 11,789 more votes which he needs to prove that he won Georgia in November’s Presidential election. The call was recorded by Raffensperger’s office to be used only if Trump publicised the call himself or attacked Raffensperger subsequently. Inevitably Trump immediately did both and the conversation was aired [many times] Totally the best advice/comment came immediately from Michael Bromwich, former Inspector General of the Dept. of Justice. “His best defence would be insanity.” Now there speaks the voice of reason! And perhaps, compassion.

Michael Bromwich

Among a huge display of opinions about the Trump phone call, one Harvard professor whose name I sadly didn’t note, grabbed my attention. He said that Trump had moved over the four years in office, from ‘little lies’ [countless!] to ‘big lies’, [‘I won the election!’] and was now heading to what he termed, “Mounting a coup.” I hadn’t thought of Trump’s strange behaviour beyond assuming the continuing assertion in the contrary face of reality, was just another scam by a look-alike Mafia mob boss. He has gained, last I heard, over half a million dollars from ‘little people’ sending him money to aid his fight to regain his Presidency, illicit though that enterprise is; but channelled immediately into one of his personal accounts. The man has always been shameless! But listening to him yesterday I judged him to have slipped further from reality into a dark swirl of anger and denial; into an echo chamber of horrors which terrifies him. Hence the title of this blog, borrowed from Michael Bromwich. I have always been surprised, indeed, taken aback, by the reverence exhibited by apparently all Americans for the office of the Presidency. There has always been a superfluous reverence for The Office and by association, for the man occupying the throne, as it were. Even for crooks like Nixon and Trump.

Mitch  McConnell,
Senate Republican leader;
Trump-enabler.

Insurrection in Washington
Jan. 6th, 2021.

The above was written before the terrifying mob burst into the Senate, yesterday screaming for blood and fulminating against the 'faked' election result. Trump had, through a public speech before cheering crowds, and through the usual Twitter incitement, encouraged his many supporters to storm Congress [I’ll be there with you!] to ensure the so-called ‘illegal’ election result was corrected. The chaos and lawlessness [and eventual four deaths] have shaken Americans’ belief, oft-proclaimed, in their “greatest democracy in the world,” It has certainly rocked the world, supporters and enemies alike. Even leading Republicans have been stung to shocked criticism; a little late perhaps for these Trump-enablers who have publicly, and cynically, backed his non-stop alternative reality lies over his lost election. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his loss, indeed his strong apparent belief in what he says, confirms his psychologically-damaged, seriously inadequate personality and underlines the danger of installing him in any office. He would have problems in running a sweet shop. But the truly alarming fact is that he has managed to inspire over 70 million people to vote for him for President AND subsequently, following a sizeable loss after an admirably-run election, to convince a significant portion of the American populace that Biden didn’t win, but stole, the election. One imagines the rampaging mob in Washington yesterday to Right what Trump told them was a Wrong, did not understand that it was also tearing apart American democracy.

One hopes sense will prevail and Trump be removed from office forthwith; his attempted coup has failed. Two weeks in office remaining confer a dangerous vacuum for him to convert delusion into destructive action.

Confederate flag aloft in the heart of Government.
One can always rely on racism rearing  its
ugly head in America.

 

Unlocking the Light.

 

Cezar, responsible for my wonderful
Christmas dinner!

Jan van Eyckplein nearby, early
on Christmas morning.

Still rather tired on Christmas Day from too many tasks [all small scale] to be done on Christmas Eve, Surprisingly perhaps, I enjoyed my first solo Christmas very much, buoyed up no doubt by the HOURS I spent chatting on Facetime. Without that electronic wizardry, the day would have been different. My Christmas dinner from Cezar was even better than expected! Lobster soup with rouille and croutons first followed by hare with truffles and tasty mash and completed with a wonderful Mascarpone Pavlova with cherry liqueur. Accompanied by a miniature champagne, a gift from Lieven, my personal trainer. Nothing much like the huge family traditional Christmas blow-out with turkey or goose, compulsory Brussel sprouts plus roast potatoes and other veg followed by Christmas pudding, The trad. British festive fare is much loved with a huge pull on the collective British imagination and will undoubtedly have been greatly enjoyed by all my family yesterday. SO my own Christmas was far from my normal for me but it was cordon bleu and immensely satisfying. Although I did have an occasional pang for an M&S Luxury mince pie, warmed, and my son’s family’s mention of pigs in blankets caused momentary longing!

Oliver Cromwell, 
Protector of Britain 

In spite of all, Covid did not cause the cancellation of Christmas which has survived intact since the Protectorate in the mid seventeenth century when Oliver Cromwell tried to banish the ceremony which leaned too much towards paganism. The Puritanical approach to life thankfully lasted only twenty long years! Since when strong men, aka Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, have studiously avoided the possibility of being labelled as “the first man since Cromwell to cancel Christmas….” Hence, or at least, one reason for Boris’s dithering about Tier restrictions leading up to The Main Event.

This morning, as I plugged in the Christmas tree, put on carols by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen and added water to my lovely red and green bouquets, I mused on enjoying life physically alone. How difficult many seem to find it and how pleasant it has chiefly been for me. This happy state seems governed

Boris

by having occasional contacts on phone or Ipad; beautiful space in which to live; projects to enjoy; food and drink to imbibe though the latter is currently altered as I manage a three day pre-colonoscopy diet, which is not difficult. Also, I suspect, resilience and stoicism, perhaps easier to attain when old.

Could be my fav. Christmas card!

Plus, of course, emails with titles like that from HuffPost UK, The Brightside: “This email contains only uplifting news.” And again, extras like my new book by Andy McSweeney, photographer par excellence, entitled, Brugge Landscapes: Unlocked for Light. Andy, a Canadian married to a Brugge girl, has transformed the Brugge Covid disaster into a book of photographs which are all little works of art full of light, space and the beauties of the landscape, both brick and water. Then I was delighted to find, on Christmas morning a Quentin Blake card from my sister. She and I have long been Quentin fans!!

I have given myself the luxury this morning of an opt-out from the usual early walk; excuses include stormy, rainy weather; self-treat for Christmas; lots of typing to do [and that is currently slow and clumsy.] Nails, professionally gelled, are loooong and my girl may not open till February!

Obama

Post-morning chores, personal and spatial, I gave myself the luxury of an early and prolonged viewing online of Michael Cohen being interviewed about Trump’s Mafia boss, pardons [interesting] and then an interview of Obama by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. Obama is doing numerous talk show interviews to publicise his current 700 page autobiography, A Promised Land. I am reminded of Barack O’s eloquence, honesty, fluency, humour, intellectual range, political savvy, essential goodness and fitness for the office of Presidency. Also ponder on the fact that, during his initial campaign to win the Democratic nomination for the Presidential race in 2007/8 he had to have the highest level of police protection [President level] because the number of threats to his life were the largest ever recorded. The interview also left me with considerable admiration for the skill of Trevor Noah, the online journalist-presenter.

Trevor Noah

Andy McSweeney

Wandering Again

 

The Jules Fonteyne plaque.

 Obviously, walking each morning has meant that I, a most unobservant person, have noticed a number of things, features, plaques or just plain sights, around Brugge unnoticed previously. The back courtyard on a little hotel, insistently light-filled in these less than light-filled days! This morning along the Coupure, a little plaque on a house to Jules Fonteyne, 1876-1964, attesting to the fact that he had lived there. I must try to discover something more about Jules if he is worthy of a special plaque!

Modern, back extension to the
Grand Hotel Casselbergh.

Last week, three friends and I, the same three from previous weeks, all masked and distanced of course, went on a mini-architectural walk, led by the expertise of Leen! We looked at the very modern rear elevation of the Grand Hotel, Casselbergh on Hoogstraat, as seen from across the canal, from Steenhouwersdijk. The back extension is strangely pleasing, in modern style though set within a mediaeval landscape. The architects conceived of it as a bronze treasure chest, in the architectural shape of a box with a chamfered roof echoing the design of the Belfort which also used to hold the treasury of Brugge. The idea of the treasure chest is underlined by the bronze projecting window frames which represent the gems. Frankly, I had admired this splendid back view of the hotel many times knowing nothing of the architect’s intellectual design process which really helps me to understand the design concept which, in turn, helps to account for the harmony of the modern within the mediaeval panorama.

Roger Raveel swans in removal, 1971.

En route to the Rijksarchief, we passed the spot on the Groenerei associated with Roger Raveel, an artist with an interesting history! Born in 1921, he was eventually knighted by the King. His versatility was legendary; he practised as a painter and sculptor, potter and designer of flags and for the Triennale in 1971, he made four wooden swans and placed them in the Groenerei as a protest against the dirty state of the canals. The council removed them and returned them to the artist who promptly replaced them on the water. After this cycle was repeated several times, the canals, then in a particularly filthy state, were quietly cleaned. In his paintings, he often incorporated actual objects like mirrors and reputedly, once, a cage containing a living pigeon. One of the gifted eccentrics of Bruges, he died in 2013.

We progressed to the Rijksarchief on the Predikherenrei, again, a modern building [2012] of most harmonious design, often admired by me-as-casual-passerby! The principal structure is made from long, thin bricks called Wienerbergers [from Vienna] which give a strong layered effect meant to suggest crumpled paper, and the stones incorporated are a reference to the piles of documents within the building. There are no windows above but the ground floor is walled in glass both to let in light but chiefly to invite connection with the outside world. To the left of the facade can be seen a succession of slanting roofs meant to give an architectural connection to the neighbourhood.

And finally, to see the wooden man who had long perplexed me. Situated adjacent to the pedestrian bridge on the Kazernevest, in a glass and blue stone tank, lies the wooden figure of a recumbent man, face-down. At an unseen signal [from a ‘key’, a movement detector, in a tree nearby] the prone figure slowly rises to the top of the tank, remains briefly before descending to its former resting place, every fifteen minutes. The timing of this choreography corresponds exactly to the time taken to raise up from, and return the bridge to, its original position. The bridge itself is made of blue stone and oak, similar to the materials used to fashion the man and his tank. The blue stone is from a quarry in Henegouwen, a Walloon province. To further form a unity between oak articulated model and bridge, the figure has twenty flexible segments designed to echo the movement of the nearby water. Significantly, it was a choreographer, Ugo Dehaes, who designed this unusual and fascinating tribute, named Coupure, in 2002 when Brugge was European Capital of Culture.

Coupure descending .....

Odds 'n' Sods

 

The Burg triangle of light,
majestically soaring to the dark sky.

Think I will write about Odds ‘n’ Sods today, or to put it more elegantly, Various Unrelated Items which crossed my path or my eyes in these last few weeks of shorter and shorter days. Not too long before the shortest day arrives, December 21^st, and then it will be the first rumble of the train starting to travel to 2021, and less and less Covid as vaccines are implanted though authoritative opinion, like Bill Gates, thinks that the first several months of 2021 will be the worst.

Wintergloed arrived just over a week ago and was such an immediate success that ‘t Zand was SO overfull with enthusiastic sightseers, that the Burgomeester immediately cancelled the next night’s

Winter glow in Brugge

show and reduced viewing hours of this winter light feast, discovered in a ten stop illuminated walk through the centre. I accept that older people are more resilient and can therefore accept new guidelines to limit normal behaviour but I just CANNOT understand why families and others are so desperate for light relief in a reduced world, that they ignore sensible, temporary safety precautions. No one wants to stop eating and drinking out; meeting friends and the wider family; wandering in slow-moving crowds to discover beautiful sights; enjoying exhibitions, visiting concerts and clubs. It has not been an easy year for anyone and many, including me, have spent about 95% of the past ten months, alone. But most, probably almost anyone, can adapt, especially if the threat of a potentially killer virus hovers.

The Markt in all its festive finery.

In spite of no Christmas Market, the commune has made a great effort with selected, central sites like the Markt which is delightfully stuffed with Christmas trees, some big, some less, but all a-glitter with garlands of tiny electric lights. SO pretty. The streets are less-decorated this year but the Markt is dressed to kill befitting its central place and importance in the city. Echoing this light-in-the-darkness statement, the facade of Frederiek Van Pamel, half-adorned for weeks, is now shameless in its festively ripe flaunting of red seductive baubles and bunting. A treat for the eyes of the passer-by. And as I write almost, Jan van Eyckplein has had several Christmas trees of varying size, installed with tiny lights; it looks magical in the dark as I glance out of my study window. The town IS less decorative overall than usual but in several points, great effort has been made to lighten up the Covid gloom with festive décor.

This photo hardly does justice to the splendour of 
the Van Pamel shop exterior. It glows
with exuberance and baubles!
A truly festive sight; the best in Brugge!

I am trying, in my apartment, to titivate, to remind myself of Christmas; in advance to give myself encouragement for an unusually solitary Christmas Day. I do look forward to see if I come up to my expectations and enjoy the Day as I think I will. The Day will begin with a Christmas Walk when I may well remember Christmases Past, especially when my children [now well into their fifties] were young. An early canal-side wander as the morning light emerges will be a magical start to December before I return home to my warm flat and Christmas lights and carols. After 10.00 a,m I need to pop down to Cezar to collect my special meal-for-the-day before lighting candles and luxuriating in the ambience. I am hoping to be lucky enough to have Zoom and/or Facetime calls from family at intervals linking me with California, London, near Oxford and rural Suffolk. Plus, sudden thought, Papplewick in Notts. Sounds good at least!!

My metal tree lined with Led lights
and looking better than this photo!

The nearby restaurant, Cezar, a beacon of light
for me during Lockdown, with its
splendid array of take-aways.
Solely responsible for lifting the standard
of my culinary intake!

Debenhams R.I.P.

A mournful end to a long and distinguished
commercial career.

More than a pang this week to hear that dear old Debenhams is to close. It appears that Covid has finished off the last uncertain year of trading for this familiar and much-loved store, on the ubiquitous high street for all of my long life. It traces its history back to 1778 when William Clark established a drapery store at 44 Wigmore Street, even then a prestigious address. He sold expensive fabrics, bonnets, gloves and parasols which makes me almost certain that Jane Austen will have shopped there during her frequent stays with her brother, Henry, a banker, and his wife, Eliza, They lived over the bank in which he was a partner, at 10, Henrietta Street, and later in Chelsea at 23, Hans Place.

William Debenham in 1813

In 1813 William Debenham invested in the firm which then became Clark & Debenham and went from strength to strength. The first store outside London was opened in Cheltenham [a fashionable town] in 1818, an exact replica of the Wigmore Street store. In the ensuing years the firm prospered and became an important centre for the lucrative Victorian fashion of family mourning by which widows and other female relatives adhered to a strict code of clothing, usually new, and etiquette.

In 1851 Clement Freebody became a major investor in the firm which was re-named Debenhams & Freebody and business expanded into wholesale, selling cloth and other items to dressmakers and large retailers. The firm grew, acquiring retail, wholesale and manufacturing businesses during the remainder of the 19^th century when offices also opened in South Africa, Australia, Canada and China.

Debenham & Freebody, London, 1905.

Acquisitions continued into the 20^th century and the store became Debenhams Ltd in 1905. In 1919 it merged with the famously fashionable Marshall & Snelgrove and in 1920 it purchased Harvey Nichols, a gloriously resonant trading name. An astonishingly sustained period of growth and financial success followed. The involvement of the Debenham family finally ended in 1927 and the business became a public company in 1928. By 1950 Debenhams was the largest department store group in the U.K. owning 84 companies and 110 stores, the lynchpin of the British retail landscape. It continued to grow with central buying finally introduced in 1966. 1976 saw the acquisition of Browns of Chester, the so-called Harrods of the North, and the following year all the stores were re-branded as Debenhams with the sole exception of the prestigious Browns which retains its own name to this day. Browns was both a high-status store and also one set in a jewel of a building.

Part of the gorgeous interior of
Browns of Chester.

From 1985 to 1998, Debenhams became part of the Burton Group which saw the repositioning of the business with the introduction of exclusive merchandise, most notably, Designers at Debenhams, launched in 1993. This period also witnessed a significant increase in the number of stores and in 1997 came the first international franchise store opened in Bahrain. Following the de-merger from the Burton Group, Debenhams was listed on the London Stock Exchange until 2003 when it was acquired by Baroness Retail Ltd, returning to the London Stock Exchange in 2006. In September 2007 the Company acquired nine stores from Roches in the Republic of Ireland followed, in November 2009, by the acquisition of Magasin du Nord, the leading Danish department store.

In February 2019 Debenhams announced a strategic sourcing partnership with global supply chain solutions provider, Li & Fung. In April 2019 Debenhams plc entered administration and delisted. The operating businesses under Debenhams Group Holdings Ltd were acquired by a consortium of lenders, Celine UK NewCo 1 Ltd at this time, and the business gained access to £200 million of new funding and embarked on a restructuring plan.

Debenhams advertising postcard,
1906.

And now the bombshell that Debenhams has ceased trading and is holding fire sales this first week in December. J.D. Sports had been negotiating a buy-out but after Philip Green’s Arcadia also collapsed this week, JD Sports terminated the negotiations with Debenhams. Given the vast property portfolio, 124 stores, and the huge number of jobs, 12,000, which will be lost, the collapse of Debenhams will have a huge impact on Britain’s ailing High Streets. The consensus of opinion at this monumental failure is that Debenhams lost out to more nimble competitors as it failed to embrace change, particularly online, I certainly mourn the ignominious end of 242 years of incredible continuity and exemplary commercial success. For me, there is nostalgia of course, for one of the background staples of my childhood and growing up, but there is also a considerable sadness at this ignominious final act.

Customers rush into the first day of sale,
1977.

Illustration of Clark & Debenhams 
before 1851.