Toast - Mothercare's UK Stores

Sliced Bread

BBC

Health & Fitness

4.6 • 634 Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why did Mothercare have to close all of their UK stores?

Sean Farrington discovers what happened to the baby goods retailer which once dominated the high street.

Alongside him, analysing Mothercare's fortunes, is the entrepreneur, Sam White.

The pair hear from Tim Curtis who once ran Mothercare's website, catalogue and home delivery service; Amena Khan, a loyal Mothercare customer and Richard Lim, CEO of Retail Economics.

They chart the highs and the lows and learn how Mothercare continues to trade today, albeit in a different form.

Produced by Jon Douglas and Shanaye Mainoo-Magnone. Toast is a BBC Audio North production for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

You can email the programme at [email protected]

Feel free to suggest topics which could be covered in future episodes.

Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in May. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, podcast fan.
0:03.0	Consider this your invite to the UK's biggest podcasting party.
0:06.7	We're heading to Sheffield from the 4th to the 6th of July
0:09.0	for the BBC Sounds Fringe at the Crossed Wires Festival.
0:12.8	We'll be joined by some of the biggest names in podcasting,
0:15.3	including Sarah Cox, Charlie Hedges, Russell Kane,
0:18.4	and some bloke called Greg James doing his Radio 4 show called Rewinder.
0:23.2	You can watch live shows of your favourite podcasts, and the best part is free.
0:28.0	To book your free tickets, go to crossedwires.org-slash fringe.
0:34.4	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:50.7	Hello and welcome to the BBC Radio 4 series Toast, where we have a look at brilliant brands that hit some dizzy heights and somehow ended up toast.
0:54.3	I'm Sean Farrington. With me, of course, is Sam White, entrepreneur, self-made millionaire, back in
0:59.0	Salford from Sydney.
1:00.4	Sam, great to see you again.
1:02.7	Good to see you too.
1:04.2	Sam doesn't know.
1:05.3	Before we walk into the studio, which company we're talking about.
1:08.5	So we get the genuine off-the-cuff reactions, analysis,
1:11.6	opinions on why a business has lost its way. So let's get to it.
1:17.6	Now this one is predominantly for all you parents out there, all you parents to be.
1:24.6	Generations have shopped at this particular retailer, specialising in products for expectant mothers.
1:31.3	We're talking maternity clothing, but also things handy for any parent like push chairs, baby toys, the lot.
	...

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