YouSaid · the spoken record

George Davies

lines on the record: 36
first: 2006-06-11
most recent: 2006-06-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It's a hand built road bike, but I might have to have like cross country tyres on it, but I definitely have my bike'cause I Every weekend, every spur hour. I'm on my bike trying to keep fit.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thought about this And I think I'd take a book that helped me to do something creative, like painting. Because when you said about me being ill, when I had enforced rest, not for long, even the brain humour was only off for three weeks. But I did start painting, and I'm not a great painter, but I think it's wonderful if you can paint. So I think it would be wonderful to have a book that helps me paint”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I first heard this record. When I was with a great pal of mine in Turkey, Atilla Turkman. We were like two young boys. In his range over the windows down at midnight, singing together”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm oppressing you now. Yes, and there you are, but it's. There's lots of other issues. If I was totally selfish, I'd say yes, that's what I can do. But as I've got a little bit older, I think I'm not. Quite so self-centered, and I want to do the right thing for people. Yes, I'd like to do a new concept, but if I can do it with Stuart and people at MNS, that's fine. You don't actually have to Have this big break, which I've had in the past.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean I don't think one would ever say never But the way I feel at the moment I don't want to ever damage Peruna and Marks and Spencer's. Have a great relationship with Stuart. We're both fiery.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I married Well, Fianna, my wife is probably the greatest inspiration regarding business. She has got far more, I think, inherent style than I have.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I do, but if the greatest thing that I've done is actually leaving teams behind both at next and George that have carried on certainly without me. And they've done a brilliant job, haven't they? And that gives me”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You see a trend not to say, oh, that's a nice blouse I'll copy it. I never do that. But if I see a trend and feel a trend, and it's not from, I might add, the people who do the catwalk shows, you know, the top designers, everybody gets that. So everybody can see that. It's also, I mean, they'll lynch me back in the office because lots of these ideas are coming from a team too, but we work together”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I've got certain places all over the world that I go to, and they're not the big stores. There's a street at the back of Barcelona, which I'm not going to tell you about because it's secret, but I always go there. And they know me. And they tell me and they're very individual”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I do, but I didn't then that's the interesting thing. It allowed me probably to Except myself a lot more because, you know, we've all got, I don't think anybody's born without fears and worries. Thank God. And, you know, a bit like fashion. You can never say, oh, well, it's gone forever, but it's been away for a long time. But I had to sort myself out. You can't sort yourself out just with the pills, and I owe it to this doctor Leyland. It's rarely to do with my deep, deep feelings for Italy where I've been inspired and is still my greatest inspiration. Regarding fashion, I love the people the way they work. Lucianovati. Singing”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And when I had it really bad in fifteen, sixteen years ago, I really decided I had to do something about it. I found somebody in London who was a psychiatrist. Leyland I went there every week for two years to try and understand it. And I always touch wood. I got three interviews a lot to do with, I think it's all to do with my childhood, my fears, and I think there was a chemical imbalance.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no, it wasn't that I the first time I had depression was when I was eighteen. And it would know it wasn't anything to do with next. In fact, I don't think it was clinical depression doesn't work like that. Funny if it was. After I'd left Jessica and Lis that I had massive clinical depression again and that was the start of George so it wasn't next.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's the song we used to sing at all the great conferences that we did it next. And those conferences came out of what I learned at Pippa Dee. and nobody on the retail did conferences and reward conferences like Next did then. Weather girls.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Politics. I had too many men on the board. Hate them, but I'll tell you what, you'll never hear me say. People may have criticized me, but nobody has ever heard me criticise next. Oh, George, I may move on, but I love them.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If it was true, why are they doing all the things that I did? What I'd ask. I mean, people did say I went for big stores. Well, if you look today, next have one of the biggest stores, I think it's 90,000 square feet in Manchester.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Above the rails so actually you could see this array you want to give the opportunity you want to display you don't want to display just in an artistic way it's got to be so that it's easy for you to reach a decision”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the concept came out of the Pippa Dee First of all putting a range together not just simple red with red with red, but a whole range of collection that would work together, and we had four main colour stories”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A story behind us regarding Pippa D. When I was at Pippidi We actually used to do big fashion shows and get all the girls together and reward and recognition. It was a big event. We had a division in Holland. And they sent me over while I went over and I said, I'm going to do a similar thing as we'd done in England. And I got there and I was expecting there to be a choreographer. And what choreographers do the steps and it's not my line? Lysy had to go on stage and teach the models the routine, and one of the things that brought the house down in Amsterdam. Money, money, money.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The interesting thing was thirteen thousand women worked for that business, and when we get a winning line, I always remember this, it was bigger, the line was bigger, the volume you take than what Marks and Spencer sold. And basically we turned it round, it went from four P to twenty eight P. I had a route with the chairman, and I by that time was on the board and I got the chairman who had 30% of the business fired. So he didn't like that so he got it back by selling the company and they defied me.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, very similar to Tapua. And they'd started out. As jokingly termed knicker parties. And what happened was it was like Tupperware, but these girls used to go out with two casefuls what they could carry and hold the party, and it was basically based on laundry. So we changed it from being just laundry into outer. A lot of people did it but they'd have a blouse that didn't go with a skirt. And I thought the best bet would be we did a piece of network that went with a skirt, that went with a blouse, and”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Littlewood, I've never been able to give anybody the training they gave me because I spent months. First of all, if I wanted to get in design and buying, I had to go into the stores to learn about customers. They then put me three months working in Lancashire Mills because Lancashire made all the cotton, Yorkshire made all the wool, their knitting was coming through. That was Leicester. And then they put me through examples.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A church anniversary. Yes, exactly. And they wore the same frocks. And they all went out, Morris dancers. Yes. And of course, the sails, if it looked a year ago, the sales went from ten dozen to two hundred dozen. Everything was dozens. I mean, the kids don't probably know what we're talking about. And that has actually not just plain, that's why I became so keen on the differences of people in different parts of the country.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. It was actually anklison what they called half hose, you know, up to the knee. I don't think it was the biggest wrist job they were giving me. I went in as a stock controller. And that meant I had to send the stock, no computers then, send the stock to all the stores. And I remember I got... The biggest dressing down I've probably had in my life when I got called up by the head of Stockin and he said I've just had John Dew it shows how I remembered this John Dew from Manchester Ninstalk because he stored a number and he thinks you're the biggest ignoramus he's ever come across I said what have I done? He said Don't you know it's Whitwalk And in fact, during wit walks, remember when we used to have a Monday off and it was a big festival”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They asked me what I'd like to stay on another year and repeat, I think, after first or second year. And I thought, you know, I was 21, I wasn't going to release a year in my life. And so I never went back. And my mum said to me, I do think it would be a good idea if you got a job. I thought what I'd do, I'll write to two of the biggest companies. One was Pokington's, and the other was Littlewoods. Her tender little woods, and I think they'd let anybody in, and they said you can have a job And if you start doing something you love, I never thought I were. I mean, I work in the sense, but when I started at Littlewoods, I can tell you I'd never look back. I've enjoyed every day of my life.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was Bami. And I carried on from my school days that I didn't work at Bayman, but I got into the British University soccer side. So that was fine too. And there's plenty of girls there”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and the catnager started and Liverpool was an amazing scene then. But what I remembered was getting back having been diving down at the cavern, and you'd be sweating. Your face be red, the collar would be undone, and you'd get a ribbollicking from the bosses. So anyway, I was working then, actually. It was the biggest hoot that year. Then my mother announced me that I was going to university, and she'd gone to see my old headmaster, John D. Berbier. He said the course that was easiest to get into was dentistry, so I then turned up for an interview.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've got my A levels, but again I'd though my mother would say I got three A's, I think I got three B's or three C's. And because I didn't think I'd get to university, I didn't apply. And I worked for a year in North John Street in Liverpool with the Royal Insurance. And it was really funny because during the lunch time the cavern was just about two hundred yards down the road, so all of us sort of eighteen rolls would leave the stuffy atmosphere and be in the cavern.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes he did. I was lucky enough to get picked for the under eighteen English team and played against Scotland and again I scored I think the winning goal. And the next morning to our little house in Crosby removed to Crosby then. Bill Shankley turned up and turned up and And ask me to go for trials. And anyway, after a couple of trials, I think they thought I wouldn't make it at that level and they didn't ask me to go back.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the passion came from a mother But I can also be quite level-headed and reasonably good with figures, and my father was brilliant at that, and I'm very quick at that, and I think there's bits and pieces all over. I'd like to think... As you get older, Auntie Velves a lot more like her father. This is a record that having been speaking about my mother. Because she used to take me to the cinema, and she'd always tell me there was a cowboy on, and in fact she sometimes told me whoppers because it was musical and I couldn't stand musicals. But this is about the cowboys high noon, Frankie Lane Do not forsake me, oh my darling.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, my father's a production manager, and he was, in fact, he was incredible, in truth, to tolerate my mother. And he was just so understanding. And in fact, it's funny all my kids had probably a greater admiration for my father because he was so gentle as against my mother who was so dominant. But they got on. And you like to think you pick up certain things from a mum, but I think I picked a lot from a dad.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it was funny that because we used to play soccer on a Saturday at some playing fields and there's mixed schools there. And this boy said, what use here for? And I said, my name's not Hughes. It's Davis. And he said, are you trying to be smart with that? He gave you a rill.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well not well not the way well you can tell now it's not exactly great accent as if I think the thing as a kid you're not aware what you know if somebody speaks like that that's fine it's my mum who was you know dictating how she thought I would speak”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, you did. I had to leave school at night and then go into Liverpool to a place called the Crane Theatre, and Mrs. Ackley would sort of have me there How now Brown Cow?”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yes, she said to me I don't know four or five years ago that I was always top of the form, and when I said Listen, I used to just get by at school. If I got sort of fifty percent, I thought it's brilliant, but she wouldn't have it, and then when I said, no, you're wrong, she said, no, you're not talking about my son like that.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think she programmed me and she probably programmed her father too. My dad and I didn't have much say. She was so tough, but tough in a really loving way.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had a great uncle who just died. and used to go and visit him in his pub in St. Dassaf. I used to sit in the back room till ten o'clock because kids weren't allowed in pubs, and at ten o'clock he locked the doors and then invited all the people back in'cause he could lock it, and I went in and used to sing this song Rock Island Lion.”
2006-06-11 · Desert Island Discs · George Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source