Off Air... with Jane and Fi - He's got mice down his trousers

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Jane G and Jane M have been told to 'keep it tight' on today's podcast, but they still have time to discuss welcome home cheese, the pros and cons of bra sex and the arrival of spring in the form of their personal crocus, Fi.They're joined by James Timpson, CEO at Timpson, about his new book 'The Happy Index: Lessons in Upside-down Management.'If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're underway with Thursday's edition of Off Air. I'm sounding semi-professional and brisk because we've been told we have to be tight tonight, Jane. It's almost as if they think we waffle on. Imagine. I won't have it. Imagine. It's not possible. Now, on the Times Radio show show we did allude to the fact

that you do have an amazing social life you're always out and about and certainly that is that is the impression i like to but well convey to people that is the view i have and i i'm not going to ever tell you when i sit on my sofa watching netflix with a bowl of shreddies because that would be very off brand so it never happens happens, listeners, ever. Do you have a hair net on? You've got immaculate hair as well, I've got to say. Would that really be your cereal of choice?

No, I don't even have any. I don't have Shreddies in the house. I don't have food in the house. It's very off brand. Don't you? No, I do. But I'm just not letting you

into the real world of Jane Mulcair. Occasionally. I'm going to keep it shiny. Have a bucket of Alpen, sugar free, with full fat milk and in place of a meal. And that's great.

Oh, yeah. No, I mean, if I do get home and need an urgent dinner, some crumpets out the freezer, usually with maybe a bit of cheese on. A bit of cheese. I always have a couple of slices of cheese just to celebrate getting in. I just think that's like welcome home, open to live welcome home open the fridge if i don't have any peanuts a couple of that's why i buy the packets of sliced cheese home cheese welcome home cheese so anyway last night yes i didn't have any welcome home cheese nor indeed any shreddies

um i went to a screening at after darling yes of the final episode of the brilliant True Detective the show on Sky HBO and Jodie Foster the star of the show was there herself along with her co-star Kaylee Reese and the director Isa Lopez and they were formidable women um and Jodie was just she was just a total superstar she had drinks with us all she gave a great Q A yeah so I'm a big fan even bigger fan than I ever was before I think is she quite anglophilic anglophilic and francophilic because I was told that she was she did all of her interviews in France during this week in French gosh she's very impressive can I just pick up on one bit of her performance though which I wonder if anybody else has got issues with because Robert

Crampton and I have been discussing it today in the show down on the 11th so I don't want to give down well you know how buildings work now no you've really explained it I've I feel as I've been discussing it today in the show. Down on the 11th floor. So I don't want to give down, well, you know how buildings work now. No, you've really explained it. I feel as though I've grown this week. Up, down. So I don't want to give anything away, but there is a scene in the show where Jodie has sex with Christopher Eccleston. So she's heterosexual.

I was just thinking, I'm not even sure, has Jodie Foster played a gay woman? Yes, in Nyad recently. Oh, has she? With Annette Bening. Right, yeah. Yes. And probably, maybe some others, but definitely that one recently.

So she's playing a heterosexual police officer, police chief, and she has this long-running affair with Chris Freckleston and they're having sex. But she keeps her bra on. And Robert Cranston and I were just saying, I understand why actresses don't necessarily want to be topless in all scenes but bra sex is really ridiculous um and it used to annoy me about sex in the city which i know you've never seen isn't it cold

where the series is set in alaska they're in a hotel room all the other clothes are off they're not you know they're not just kind of i'm not even going to say it but they're not just sort of you know slipping their trousers down quickly you know all the're not just kind of, I'm not even going to say it, but they're not just sort of, you know, slipping their trousers down quickly. You know, all the other clothes are off, but the bra's on. And Sarah Jessica Parker used to do this in Sex and the City. She was always wearing her underwear while in sex scenes. And I just think, you know, unless it is very cold or you're on the timer, you know, if you're on a very tight... On the clock.

Yeah. On the clock. You. On the clock. You know, generally your bra comes off, even if it's half off. Anyway, I just feel that it's a bit jarring when you're watching a sex scene and it's a bra on sex scene. Okay, I'm just going to throw it out there.

Bra sex. Your views, please. Jane and Fee at Timestock Radio. I knew we'd get here after... We've had a relatively smut-free, if you can call this smut, couple of days, but just at the last minute there,

Malkerians has let their family down and the Catholic Church, I'm going to say. And Sister Susan. And Sister Susan. And the Reformer Pilates teacher. They'll all be listening and they'll be blushing on your behalf. It does seem odd,

but I feel I can't give a well-rounded opinion because I haven't seen the show. Would I, if I'd show find it jarring i don't know maybe you need to watch it and then come back report back right and christopher eccleston's in it see um is that a draw for you not no not really um he's very good in it he was so good in what was that show that we all watched back in the night friends in the north friends oh what a show well no that mckee and him daniel craig daniel craig gosh that was an amazing it really was yeah why was it so good because there was very little else that was good on telly at the time okay yeah telly's got a lot better but it was still very good but i think if we watch it now we think that was good but is it mad men i don't know I've never seen Mad Men As you told me earlier, you read books

don't you? Well I read books, have a bath listen to the radio I'm a really interesting person honestly Yes, go on Special guest today The King of the Cobblers, James Timpson

Brilliant Since we've already started on a smutty theme, I'm just going to carry on in that vein if that's ok The King of the Cobblers, James Timpson. Brilliant. Since we've already started on a smutty theme, I'm just going to carry on in that vein, if that's OK, because this is the best title of an email received in some days. Antisocial rummaging is the title of the email. So Zoe, our lovely correspondent, says, regarding men and antisocial rummaging in the trousers.

As a mother of two sons, I've encountered a fair amount of fiddle faddling over the years. And now, if I see my 10-year-old having an absent-minded tweak, I look at him pointedly and ask him, is it still there? This is usually enough to evoke a sheepish grin and an end to the fiddle. I wonder whether this approach would perhaps work in other situations with grown-up man-childs. I mean, I don't know.

Can you ask a stranger to stop fchilds. I mean I don't know can you ask a stranger to stop fiddling? I mean maybe. I've actually started to offer sniffing men tissues on trains. Oh it's funny you mention that. I did ask somebody the other day do you have a cold? So passive aggressive. Yeah this guy was sitting opposite me with earbuds in and obviously had no idea how loudly he was sniffing and after about 20 minutes of it and me sort of sighing a bit heavily in the end I fished in my bag and I gave him a big smile I went would you like a tissue in a very upbeat way and he pretended to look grateful it was really good he was seething absolutely but I've been so cheerful all he could say was thanks that that's

an interesting one uh is it just that men and boys maybe are never encouraged to leave the house with a tissue? I never go anywhere without a tissue. Absolutely not. Because I'm quite a clumsy person. I get sauce around my mouth. I get sauce down my shirt. I'm wearing most of my lunch. Yeah, I always get daubings everywhere.

So, you know, I genuinely, I'm accompanied, generally, I'm accompanied by a wet wipe. In the summer i've got wet wipes in my bag because dirty feet when you're in london that's too much sorry very personal um this is an anonymous email we haven't got time to read it all because if i did start to read all of this i swear i'd be here until midnight but thank you for being such a game correspondent and including so much information but actually, part of the email is about what it's like to be at the stage in life where you have older people on your mind and, frankly, often on the phone. And our correspondent says here, I knew 2024 was going to be a challenging year.

Both my in-laws have got serious health issues. Dad-in-law is in the middle to end of Alzheimer's. Mum-in-law is dealing with heart, lungs and diabetes while being his full-time carer. I mean, it's an astonishing ask that and I don't think it's that uncommon. No, absolutely not. It really isn't. Anyway, thankfully, they have agreed to move closer to us. They agreed to move closer to us a couple of years ago. So it is only a 20 minute drive to get to them. Whether that's helping mum with computer issues.

Yes, my mother-in-law also has a weekly problem with either her printer or losing something from her iPad. Don't get me started on trying to explain the cloud to somebody of 82. Sometimes I'm the taxi service to get her to hospital appointments while my husband dad sits and I also occasionally respond to calls at five o'clock in the morning things like I can't turn the stopcock off and the house is flooding and my favourite so far dad has super glued his hands together at that point I was just about to go to my daughter's Christmas concert and my husband was in London on the works Christmas Jolly. Gosh, yes. I mean, life can present a whole series of challenges

when you've got older people in your life at that stage. And I just want to say, you know, shout out to you for being there and for dealing with absolutely everything. What lucky parents they are to have you. That's true, actually. Well, they're parents-in-law, actually. Parents-in-law. Yeah.

She does add a PS. One of my... Actually, we can't do that. Moving on, moving on. Yes, quickly. I'm going to plough on again with men grabbing their genitalia and then I'm going to leave it alone.

Okay, right. Dear Jane and Jane, I was listening to Monday's podcast regarding the need for men to touch their genitalia whilst in public, and especially when talking to women, which frankly I find both annoying and unnecessary. Lo and behold, says our listener, I paused your podcast while I went into the shop here in Mallorca, where I now live, to collect some tile samples. I was led into a male-dominated workshop to see a fella who, guess what, felt the need, necessity, to do exactly that whilst handing me over said samples. All I could think was, oh, now I have to touch these tiles

knowing where his hands have been. So she does go on to talking about a bed. But I would just like to say thank you, A, for relating that, yeah, fairly disgusting story. And also, our listener says she's just moved to me orca where she's starting a new life and how fabulous is that um karen if you come across my friend claire who's an interior designer who's also just started a new life in me orca she'll definitely probably know some places you can get tiles where men don't touch themselves because she's very good like that that's a good strap line for a shop isn't They could say, we sell tiles and our mail shop assistants don't touch themselves. It's not that catchy.

Here are our opening hours. You need a long front for that. You would. Maybe a double decker of a name there. It's such, it doesn't seem a lot. Touch free tiles. It's very good. It doesn't seem a lot to us.

It's not that much. Maybe there could be some training. Wouldn't take that long. Yeah. Just to say, maybe don't touch yourself at the same time as handing over the tiles. Kate is in Somerset. I've just heard you saying, Jane, that you generally lean towards

being supportive of Meghan and Harry but sometimes they make it difficult for you. Yes, I did say that and I do still stick to that. Thank you for voicing that opinion as I do feel the same but I'm pretty sure I'm in a minority. I feel strongly that none of us can sit in judgment upon them. We don't know them personally, and yet they seem to be fair game for ridicule,

whatever they do, and also often, too often, the target of vicious opinions and comments. To keep this short, even though the way they go about things will sometimes make me cringe and think, no, you're just giving people further ammunition i do wish them well and hope that one day they'll find what truly suits them and that the distasteful and obsessive interest in them calms down do you know i don't think there's any sign of it calming down right now and of course some people will say well that's their fault it's difficult isn't it because everyone's the hero of their own story and i'm quite sure in the sussex's mind you know they're they're trying to do everything right because i don't think they're deliberately setting out uh antagonize people or be provocative i mean

you know i'm sure they just probably think naming their children sussex like we had a story today yeah it's a nice thing to do to unify their family i mean nobody sees their own motives in any other way than entirely positive, do they? No, they don't. It's all about perspective. It is, and yeah, I just think I'd just give them a bit of, just give them some space. Then, of course, at the same time they both want their privacy and

then they seem to want attention, so I genuinely do struggle with my view on them. But I refuse to be the Harry and Meghan are terrible camp, because I can't be that black and white about it. I just, I won't be. No. I'm just reserving the right to...

Sit on the fence. Completely perch on the fence. Fair enough. Give them a fair hearing. Well, they, I mean, yes. Give them a fair hearing with their massive Netflix. Jane. Anyway, right, moving on.

We've had a lovely email. It's quite long. I'll get through as much as I can because it's a great email from Jean called Olden Days. Dear Jane, Jane M and Fi, regarding your recent musings about how reporters in the field in the olden days used to get their stories to the news desk via copy takers, sent me right back to my decades travelling up and down the South Wales valleys in rain, shine and everything in between. The importance of knowing the location of every pay phone box in the area was as vital to the local reporters as it is to London taxi drivers to have complete command of the knowledge. With two deadlines to meet each day, it was sometimes hair-raising to go to the nearest phone box

first if a breaking story was emerging. And the feeling of elation of having got there ahead of some snooty superior reporter from the broadcasting media was beyond compare so we can take it that gene is print not broadcast right and sometimes just minutes to go to deadline you would find yourself cobbling together a few parts to read over to the world weary copy takers while gagging from the inevitable stench of urine fill in the phone box oh the glamour of being a journalist she says also you would have to contend with the queue of locals angrily tapping on the glass glass mouthing not always politely how much longer are you gonna be

i would find that such such a pressurized working schedule i really would yeah i couldn't deal with it yeah i mean i think you had to really think on your feet it was about speed as much as anything else so did you have it in your head and then you'd recite it or do you do it in shorthand on a notepad and then read it out i think some people who are very good probably just did it in their heads i always had to write notes because i just couldn't order my thoughts that well but i think very good news reporters could just download it from their brain and speak it to copy takers which you know if you've only got a few minutes before deadline you'd have to um gene would like to talk one memorable occasion she says comes to mind when the safety net of the of the subs um who would you know correct things if you got it wrong was temporarily hold um so basically she'd been sent to the ronda valley to

cover a press conference uh concerning the hunt for a violent criminal detective in charge of the search issued a warning to the public not to approach the highly dangerous man but to contact the police. Her colleague managed to get to the nearest phone box with seconds to spare to read out the latest on the manhunt to the waiting copy taker just in time for the first edition. Later, back in the district office, we eagerly awaited for our early copies to arrive, only to find that somehow the dire warning from the DI now read,

we're warning the public not to approach this dangerous man as he is known to keep mice down his trousers of course it should have read knives yeah I mean that would never happen anymore in newspapers no absolutely no errors whatsoever well except in some of them because they're always putting that we all know the one anyway um anyway Jean is now 75 and she says she looks back on those news gathering adventures with huge affection and still has a chuckle over my skate. Thank you very much, Jean. And I'm sure that, yeah, I mean, I can imagine the stories abound from those days when you were running around, you know, without the sort of backup of laptops.

Oh, gosh. I mean, frankly, I've got immense respect for Jean because I bet she does look at the way journalists operate today and just think it's a piece of absolute piddled compared to what I was up against yeah there was no wikipedia you couldn't look anything up you couldn't check any facts I try and explain to my young colleagues that when I first started in radio we have no emails um you were lucky if you got a phone call and you could patch it through the desk the trouble I had with the Lempster studio in Herefordshire, you wouldn't, honestly, you wouldn't believe it. And the idea of that immediacy, the link between a live radio show and the listening public,

didn't exist. No. I used to get a farmer who'd come in with some cream once a fortnight, and I would get some letters. And thank goodness for that, by the way. I kind of miss letters. So do feel free. Yeah.

I sometimes get letters downstairs on the 11th floor generally not positive ones so it has to be said well I'm sure you have many many admirers well actually

can I fan mail clack some to you but you do an email first but I've got some fan mail here for you well no I just wanted to say that Claire emailed

to say Jane and Jane I was hoping to hear your thoughts on the death of Steve Wright. And actually, Claire, it broke, didn't it? That awful. And it was genuinely awful and shocking news. It broke while Jane and I were talking to each other. And actually, I was so shocked by that we stopped the podcast and we didn't actually, I think I then referenced it right at the very end

of the podcast, because, you know, it's been a genuinely very sad week for all of us who just love radio and love the form of radio and love the way that certain people, like Steve Wright, totally got it, made it their own, and just conjured up endless hours of magic out of, frankly, not very much. But, you know, it took a lot of effort on his part. Absolutely, to make it look so seamless.

Yeah, I mean, it took a lot of effort on his part. Absolutely. To make it look so seamless. Yeah, I mean, it just it was that it was a crazy, crazy programme that just brought so much happiness and company and comfort and joy to so many millions of people. So, I mean, I know Fi has talked about this, too, and we'll certainly talk about it next week when she gets back. But, yeah, very, very much missed. Absolutely. This is another quite long email. Yeah, very, very much missed. Absolutely. This is another quite long email, so please forgive me, Celia, who's written it, if I summarise a little bit of it,

because it's a wonderful email and an emotional email. So please forgive me for not reading out every bit of it. But Celia's written in because you were talking about egg harvesting and the issues around storing of eggs, which recently has been in the news, and a correspondent's story that we read out before relating to a daughter in her 20s who'd been diagnosed with cancer and decided to freeze her eggs before her treatment started. Now, Celia's daughter was faced with a very similar situation, but unfortunately it was told that they couldn't wait for her to have the hormone treatment to stimulate her eggs in time to have the egg retrieval and harvest before she needed to start the treatment. So unfortunately, she was told there was just no time.

And, you know, she says her daughter was it was in her 20s and really, really did want to start a family and was heartbroken to not be able to have that treatment. But, you know, of course, her family just wanted her to get well. So jumped to a little over two years later, says Celia, and after six rounds of chemotherapy, happily, her daughter is still with us living in a new city and with a new job and thankfully free from cancer. She was mostly just treated at Christie's in Manchester and is still involved with the teens and the young adults group there. We do not know how seriously this whole process has affected her fertility but it's certainly not helped and if she had been able to freeze her eggs when she was a healthy 23 year old she would have jumped at it but sadly it did not work out for her. I do hope that other your other correspondence

daughter has had happier times of being able to make that decision and the ability for the NHS to be able to support young people to enhance their fertility options is just wonderful. I just want to say Celia thank you so much for writing in about this because you know for whatever reason someone isn't able to go through with their family planning in the way that they thought they might is obviously you know really hard and I speak from personal experience on this you know I've been through IVF which didn't work so I really do know that it's it's difficult to come to terms with those things um your daughter is still very young and I'm really hopeful that you know we make such great leaps in terms of fertility treatment every year and that hopefully there will be options by the time she wants to think about starting a family that will be available to her

um but I think it is a really difficult one being made to make that choice of your treatment your necessary treatment starting imminently and having a bit more time to think about your future self. It's a choice that nobody should have to make and I really do feel for all of you in that. On another note, she'd just like to say, Jane, that she's been listening to you and Fi, including at The Other Place, for years

and she thinks that Dame Garvey has got a lovely ring to it. So she certainly refers to you as mum and will do if your paths ever cross. Yeah, I do think that I hoped by today I'd have a letter saying that Baroness Garvey has been appointed. But I think maybe that's got lost in the post. Well, maybe next week. It's my birthday in June and it's the significant birthday. So that would be a nice gift.

Millie actually is emailed to say shouldn't it be the House of Lords and ladies now yeah with reference to that absolutely and then for years we had a queen but we were still the United Kingdom why would we not the United Queen them hmm why should we in fact now I'm gonna start a petition to be called the United Queendom while we've got a king because for years with the UK when we had a king, never mind. Actually, Millie's main point in the email is about Caroline Quentin. I just think her voice is such a comfort, says Millie.

She was a guest earlier in the week. She's a national treasure. Whenever I hear her name, though, I'm reminded of my granny. Caroline starred in a short series called Life Begins in 2005 and it was the last programme my granny Myra watched before she died. One of those funny things we managed to laugh about despite the incredible grief. She lived with us for my whole life and I was 10 when she died. She was truly a wonderful woman, devoted her retired life to helping her family, was a committed Christian who would happily pray aloud whilst driving us to school, always starting, well, Lord, she was pleasant to everyone and to our embarrassment, always struck up conversations

with strangers, but with a twinkle in her eye. Her favourite trick was to pretend she was cross with us and say, come here, and then just give us a big hug. She was everyone's adopted granny, but she was our real granny. And we still all miss her every day, despite her dying almost 20 years ago. Millie, that's lovely. And thank you very much for your email and your very fond memories of your gran. Can I just ask you on a Caroline Quentin note, whether there was something going on with the universe that day? Because after Off Air, I went off to have my hair cut.

And on my way home, thank you very much, on my way home... It does suit your face. Thanks very much. It's a good job, isn't it? On my way home, my hairdresser texted me to check I got home all right because he's lovely. And he said he'd been re-watching Jonathan Creek and he'd been too young while watching it first time around

to realise how amazing Caroline Quentin is. And I said, that's very spooky because Jane interviewed him today. And I sent him the podcast to listen to. Isn't that spooky? Like Caroline Quentin just, you know, infiltrating everyone's lives on the same day. I think she is one of those people who is kind of gently, if you like, part of the fabric of the nation. Those people that almost everybody who's ever come across anything she's done likes.

Yeah. And that's a gift that, I'm going to say it, not everybody has. It's very true. Now, let's talk cobblers. In the company of James Timpsons, CEO of Timpsons, if you're listening outside the United Kingdom, Timpsons is a very kind of an establishment shop

here in the UK. It's up and down every, just about establishment shop here in the UK. It's up and down every, just about every high street in the land. And it does shoe repairs, watch repairs, sells watch straps. It'll put a hole in your belt buckle. It sells shoelaces and a polish. And I mean, it's just, there's nothing glamorous. It cuts keys. It's not glamorous.

It is tremendously efficient and much loved. A little bit like Carolyn Quentin, although I don't think she'll thank me for that comparison to a branch of a cobbling company or to a major cobbling company. And the CEO is James Timpson. He also has a kind of another life, really, because Timpson specialises in employing former prisoners. So he's also the chair, James, of the Prison Reform Trust. So there's quite a lot about prison and prison reform in this interview. And Timpson's does pride itself just generally on being a great place to work. There are some employee benefits you'll hear about things like you get your birthday off.

That's lovely. Yeah, which is lovely. I spent my birthday with you this year, though, which is better things like you get your birthday off. That's lovely. Yeah, which is lovely. I spent my birthday with you this year, though, which is better than even having your day off. I think a lot of people would choose that option. I really do. So here is James Timpson, CEO of Timpsons in the UK. And he, first of all, talked about how business was, bearing in mind that today we heard the news that Britain is officially in recession. Well, we're quite an anomaly because when business is brilliant for everybody else, we do OK. And when it's bad for everybody else, we still do OK because we're in the business of fixing things and repairing things.

What we actually see is when things get really difficult, people actually bring more items in to get repaired because they don't want to buy new ones but what we've seen from a sort of a retail perspective is that things were going pretty well up until mid-December and since then it has been a bit quieter but for us it's still actually pretty good um we're not complaining parish my finance director hasn't had to come and have words with me yet uh and we're sort of on track. But what I'm seeing is some high street businesses are doing really well. And the ones that have been doing badly are doing even worse. So there isn't a consistent picture. Okay. I mean, you have how many shops across the country? Timpsons I'm talking about. 2,100 shops across the country and over in Ireland as well. So we've got a pretty good idea of what's going on.

Right, OK. And as you say, you're in poorer areas, you're in rich areas. I think it was your Hanover Square Mayfair branch the other day because I was passing and I needed a watch strap. I mean, you just do all sorts of stuff for all of us on a daily basis and you are renowned for the decent service. And I've got to say that over the years, things like having holes punched in belts has been done for me at Timpsons for free. And that's something you encourage, isn't it?

Very much so. So 4% of all of the transactions that we have are for free. In fact, if anything, I'd much prefer we did more transactions for free because customers love it. And even though we don't get any money, although you may make a donation to charity, we all have a little charity box on the counter, you remember it and you come back because you don't get much for free nowadays.

The shop you're referring to is actually a really handy shop for me as well because when I get the train down from London, that's a really handy spot to leave my bag and use the loo at the back of the shop. It's perfect. Yeah, I didn't use the loo, but now I know it's there. I might pop in again. I kind of gave the impression that I was a Mayfair resident there. I need to make it very clear that I'm certainly not, but I happen to be in the area. We've had Rachel Reeves on Times Radio, or certainly a clip of an interview with Rachel Reeves, in which she fairly and squarely put the blame on Rishi Sunak. She's calling it Rishi's recession. What do you say to that? I mean, we've been battling a lot of things recently. So in our business, COVID was very, very difficult.

When all of our shops were closed, we're not an online business. We were losing, I think, about a million pounds a week on average. So that was really difficult. So we came out of that. And then we've had the energy crisis. So there's an awful lot of unusual economic factors that are impacting us. Higher interest rates. Higher interest rates actually suits us because we've got cash in the bank.

So for the first time in a long time, we're making profit on our money in the bank. But there was a lot of instability. But even now, if I look at our business, so our energy costs are coming down, our rents are coming down by about 30% still. So that's significant numbers. But our biggest cost is what we pay our colleagues. And that is going up more than I've ever known in the 20 odd years I've been running the business. And with the national living wage going up again in April, by 9.8%, that's going to have a big impact, not just on payroll costs, but also on prices, because we're all going to have to put our prices up to make money. But surely businesses like yours, particularly yours, I mean, you really pride yourself on

decent treatment for your employees. You're going to be happy, aren't you, to relatively speaking, to cough up more for your staff? Yeah, it's really important to us. So we always pay more than the national minimum wage and our colleagues get weekly bonuses that are pretty substantial. But the other thing that we do is we have lots of benefits for colleagues, holiday homes, lots of days off for special events, dreams come true schemes and all this kind of stuff. And when times are difficult, what we've learned is we need to do more of that. So if we do see a sort of bit of a drop in sales, we'll probably just go and buy another couple of holiday homes as part of our package to inspire our colleagues even more. Because when you've got one colleague in a shop, it's quite hard to become

more efficient. You can't have less than one person in the shop. So the nature of our business is what can we do to increase sales rather than save costs? Yeah, I mean, I've got a quote from the book, actually, you say, we do zero market research. We've never had a budget meeting. We never borrow money from a bank. We just focus on how we can inspire happy colleagues. I mean, all this is, I don't know, a land of absolute milk and honey and free apple pie at about four o'clock every afternoon. Is it that wonderful? It works. And one of the things that amazes me is that the more time and money we invest in looking after our colleagues helping them when they've got problems most of those problems are away from work the more loyal they are and the the better they

serve customers so rather than focusing on all these sort of businessy type things like marketing budgets and and but and forecasts and all this sort of stuff just focus on really on what you can do to inspire your colleagues. Saying that, there are some colleagues that don't really like our culture. I would say our colleague turnover is about 14%, which is pretty low for retail. But there are always people who join us, and it's not for them. They don't like working in retail, standing up all day, putting their hands in people's shoes sometimes.

But it's our job to make sure that our fantastic people work alongside people who are also fantastic. So sometimes we have to have those difficult conversations. You do write in the Happy Index about CVs, and I thought it was really interesting that you say you literally don't give a damn whether someone's got a 2.1 in, I don't know, archaeology or biochemistry or whatever it might be. All you really need to put on a CV is your name and your contact details.

Is it that simple? Yes, because what we're looking for is something you can't find on a CV, which is personality. So you may be the world's best shoe repairer or photo processor but if you're moody unreliable uh dishonest and grumpy um our customers don't want you to be in our shops and our colleagues certainly don't want you to be in our shops so what we find is just recruit on personality and then train for skill so jane i mean i could teach you to repair watches in about a week and key cutting within about um three or four months but i can't teach you to repair watches in about a week and key cutting within about three or four months. But I can't teach you to have a different personality than you have. And what we've learned, just recruit on personality and it makes life a lot easier.

We've had just a brief conversation earlier in the programme this afternoon about the so-called economically inactive. And I'm always a bit wary of using that term, because I know people find it insulting. And there are some good reasons why some people cannot be a part of the workforce. But a recurring theme on the text this afternoon has been people around the same age as me, actually 59, who just feel that employers don't look at them, won't look at them. Would Timpsons look at somebody in their late 50s with a view to employing them? Would Timpsons look at somebody in their late 50s with a view to employing them? Very much so. Very, very much so.

And it's a really good cohort for us to recruit from because they know how to work. They're really up for the challenge. And they seem to be able to learn the skills that we have in our business really well. I mean, you know, we don't just recruit people of your age. We recruit people of your age who've just come out of prison as well. I mean, you know, we don't just recruit people of your age, we recruit people of your age who've just come out of prison as well. So we're sort of a big believer in second chances. Let's talk about your policy of recruiting former prisoners, because I think, according to the book, it began for you when you would visit Style Prison in Cheshire. And actually, coincidentally, I have been inside Style myself for a work project.

And it's a pretty bleak place, actually, I have to say, with some phenomenal staff doing their very best and some very, very interesting people serving sentences there as well. But you were there because your mum was a foster carer? That's right, yeah. I was brought up with foster children, as were my brother and sister. And my mum, she used to have a lot of babies

whose mums were still in style prison. So every week she used to go there on visits to bring the babies to go and see the mum. And we used to sit in the car, normally fight, when we were waiting for my mum to come back. And it always felt wrong to me that a baby was taken away from their mother and I always wondered what went on the other side of the wall so when I got the

opportunity to go into a prison as an employer about 22 years ago I think it was it was you know I really wanted to go and understand what went on and the the first person I met was this young young guy called Matthew who was 19 years old and he was about to be released in three months' time, didn't have a job. I thought his personality, coming back to what we were talking about, the personality was absolutely brilliant. So I offered him a job and it sort of went on from there. And you also, well, you now have a role with the Prison Reform Trust, don't you? You're still doing that? Yeah, I chair this wonderful Prison Reform Trust. So I've got one more year to go. And the work they do is so important, just representing prisoners and their families,

because we're dealing with the most complex people in the country in a system that is the most complex system in the country. Is the British prison system any good? I mean, I say that because I think just this week there was a report about Bedford Prison. I mean, it was literally rat and cockroach infested. How is that possible in a country like ours in 2024? So let me give you some positives first before I go on to the problems. If you speak to lots of people who work with us who've been through the prison system,

they will say that one prison officer helped change their life, was inspirational, showed them kindness, gave them direction and leadership. There are incredible things that happen in prison and people really do turn their lives around. But saying that, at the moment there are a lot of challenges in the prison system, partly because the numbers of prisoners in the system, it is full. I think last week there were 1200 spare beds, and it's got down to less than 50 in other weeks. And that means there's an awful, it's very difficult to actually make the system work. And then if you add on the problems of short staffing, it means that men and women are in their cells for far too long, they're not getting to education, they're not getting to education they're not getting to activities and that is when you get the problems the what you talk about with Bedford um um I know

Charlie Taylor um and I think he's a really good he is the chief inspector yeah he's excellent and um I've been on prison inspections before and I I've seen similar things. And it's about standards, and it's about decency. And while someone may have failed society, and they are locked up in prison, it doesn't mean that we can treat them in a way that's not going to help them come back into society as a normal person with an understanding of how society works. We need to treat them with decency. We need to give them an opportunity to turn their life around. That is why standards in a prison is really important. In fact, when I go into a prison, if I see litter in the grounds and on the grass, I always know there's a problem. There will be more self-harm in a prison the more litter there is.

And it is a real problem. Well, I think you take the same approach, don't you, to branches of Timpsons. I mean, do you make these impromptu visits? They don't know you're coming, do they? No. So what happens at the start of the day, I just turn, I always like to get to the first shop of the day before it opens. And by the time we get to lunchtime, the jungle drums have gone round. They know you're on manoeuvres. Yeah. So it's's so by the time the

afternoon comes, all the shops are spotless. My guest is the boss of Timpson's James Timpson. Now, James, actually, I was going to ask you earlier, and I apologise for going back to the subject, but you don't presumably employ every sort of ex-offender, do you? No, we don't. We don't employ sex offenders. We don't employ sex offenders. We don't employ people who've got significant drug and alcohol problems and we don't recruit people. The way I'd describe it is they haven't come to the end of their criminal life. So I would say if you think of 100 people who leave prison, we would be interested in interviewing maybe 20 to 30 of them,

of which we may take on four or five. That's sort of how the numbers work. 20 to 30 of them, of which we may take on four or five. That's sort of how the numbers work. And how revolutionary was it when you first started taking an interest in former prisoners? And who else does it now? Well, when I first started, it was only a few sort of engineering companies, road work, railway companies that used to employ people from prison.

So when I first started, I didn't tell anybody. And I probably did it for about four or five years. And then I told everybody in the business and outside because basically there were a few bad headline stories. The worst one I ever had was killer cobbler cuts keys in the Belfast Evening Telegraph. So I thought I needed to sort of fess up and tell everybody what I was doing. Right.

The reaction from my colleagues was, the people you've recruited are brilliant. Can you go and get me some more? And so we sort of made our mistakes along the way. We opened up some training academies and we sort of worked out how to do it. So now one in nine of my colleagues is someone with prison experience and they're all throughout the whole business and different levels of seniority and so on. So to be clear, somebody who had been someone who broke into houses is now someone who's trained to cut keys. Exactly. You know, when you said before about we don't have a marketing department, that's probably not a bad thing. But I think I think we do have probably some customers who know that we employ people in prison and choose not to come to our shops.

But I think we probably have more people that do choose to come to us because we give people a second chance. We probably have more people that do choose to come to us because we give people a second chance. But when you meet these people and understand why they have committed crimes and why they went to prison, there's lots of cases of people being in the care system, mental health, addiction problems and so on. I'm sure you're well aware of all these issues of people you've spoken to over the years. And they just need a second chance so if you talk about where we are now there are more companies employing people from prison than ever before um over 30 percent of people who leave prison are in a job after six months and they're amazing businesses you know greg's um halfords um a lot of retailers cook and and

um it's got to the stage now where i think if you don't recruit someone with a criminal record, you're not a diverse employer. Because one in four men over the age of 18 in this country have a criminal conviction more than a driving offence. So we're talking about a lot of people, a lot of talent. It is true, though, isn't it, that there are absolutely no votes to be won in prison reform and in making prisons better, better at rehabilitation? Exactly. And the real problem is we're addicted to punishment in this country, despite there is no evidence anywhere in the world that increasing prison sentences reduces crime, but we keep increasing the length of time people go to prison for. And, you know, our prison population,

I think it's 84,000 men and women locked up tonight, is going to be pretty soon over 100,000. And that's 100,000 people, of which 99% will come back into society. And when I go around prisons and meet these men and women on the wings, a lot of them are there for so long, they just lose complete hope. They lose their families, they lose their careers, and they lose their sense of purpose in life. So when they are released, it's going to be hard for them to get a job and they're going to be more reliant on the state than ever before. You do acknowledge in The Happy Index, your book about running, on how to run a happy place of work that you have made

mistakes and uh yeah i think you find yourself guilty of something called entrepreneuritis just define that for me well it's an it's a word i invented so it's probably grammatically incorrect but one of the problems about business people is when they become quite successful they have this fear that it's always going to go wrong. Because like, in our business, like lots of other businesses, you know, we've run out of money a few times, and you think everything's going to be a disaster, especially in COVID, when we thought we're going to go bust. And there's this sort of, you want to cash in your chips and de-risk everything. So there's this incentive to always want to sell the business. And then I've seen it so many times, people sell the business.

They have this dream of taking it easy, buying a house in Mallorca, going on lots of holidays. And within six months, they're desperate to get back into business again, because that's what they love. So I'm a big believer in, we're a family business, we keep going despite the ups and downs. Yeah. And in the COVID and pandemic period, you obviously were assuming that, you know, really the worst could happen to you because you did have to shut, didn't you, for quite a chunk of time, but you carried on paying your rent. Yeah. So I was a bit naive, really. I thought, oh, this is going to last for three or four weeks. I'm always sort of on the positive side of things and so I said to all my colleagues I'm going to pay you 100% all the way through and I wrote to all of our landlords and all of our suppliers to say I'm going to honor every contract

we signed I'm going to pay every bill that's due thinking as I said it'd be like it lasts about three or four weeks and then when we were on week 14 and I'd lost I think think we lost £29 million until things started to turn round. But I knew the values of the business and the culture that we had, that it was more important for me to look after everybody and do what we'd promised than go back on that. So it cost us a lot of money, but I know we supported our colleagues

during difficult times, but it was pretty hairy. Yeah, I love the fact that you also acknowledge that you do make mistakes and you bought a hotel for your workforce and everything was free there. I think they got a free holiday, but the only problem was that although they loved their colleagues, they didn't necessarily want to go on holiday with them. Yeah, I hadn't worked that one out. I assumed everyone would really like it because John Lewis, the John Lewis partnership have four hotels. Right. I remember speaking to them about, you know, everyone loves it and it's great. So I bought this hotel and realised pretty quickly that it wasn't going to work. So then basically we knocked it down and built a restaurant.

It's a place, it's a restaurant called the Oyster Catcher in Rossniger. So it's actually fortunately in the end it's turned out OK, but it was a bit of a disaster at the time. Right. And you're like, very finally, you'll like the story from Lois James. I love Timpsons. Employing ex-prisoners worked out well here in Taunton when the upmarket jewellers next door to them were the target of an armed raid. A member of the public told the staff in Timpsons who ran next door, floored the criminals and called the police. Brave and charming staff. There you go. There's a very positive ringing endorsement there from Lois. Well, that was a really good text that just basically backed up the notion

that Timpsons was a great shop that employed great people. And that was from Lois in Somerset. So thanks to her for texting in. You are free to listen to Times Radio. There's an app. It doesn't cost you anything. And there's a range of stations available.

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It's free, all right? God's sake, it's free. Times Radio app, it's free. Right. Have a lovely, embracing couple of days. Weirdly, it's turned very spring-like here in London. It can't last, can it? Oh, God, no.

It'll be raining tomorrow. Yes. Saturday, whatever day we have off. And it'll be bleak and insufferable next week. Snowing by Wednesday. But Fee Glover's back after her, I'm sure it'll have been

a very... Which is the real arrival of spring, surely. Which absolutely is. My personal crocus will burst forth. Right, Jane, thank you so much

for your company. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'll be listening in next week to hear all about Brass Sex and everyone's opinions. Brass Sex.

That was Jane's idea. Jane and Fee at Timestock Radio. next week to hear all about brass acts and everyone's opinions brass acts that was jane's idea jane and fee at times.radio well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know ladies don't get behind us. A lady listener. Sorry.