The death aged 94 of former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed brings down an Egyptian curtain on the window of the world’s most famous store. Of course he was known for many other things. He was as at ease on one of his roll backed Chesterfields as the sofa of a morning television chat show, proprietor of Fulham Football Club and, so tragically, the anguished and bereaved father of his beloved son Dodi.
But the Al Fayed I knew at the helm of Harrods, where I had sloped and shopped since childhood from our London townhouse nearby, lived and breathed the mixture of soigné and the souk. He simply made it the premier shopping destination, like Saks on Fifth Avenue or La Samaritaine in Paris, for well-heeled Londoners, Europeans and the wealthy London Arab population. His keeping Harrods open late for private celebrity shoppers — Madonna and European royalty — was a masterstroke.
