Alice Pitman

Anarchy in the Aisles

Trolley Wars: The Battle of the Supermarkets

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Profile Books 258pp £17.99 order from our bookshop

The Farm: The Story of One Family and the English Countryside

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Hamish Hamilton 230pp £15.99 order from our bookshop

The day before he died, Sir Jack Cohen, founder of Tesco, paid a surprise visit to a big new store in Essex. After a triumphal tour in his wheelchair, he asked to be taken up to the balcony overlooking the shop floor. Here, the old man quietly surveyed the latest outlet of a corporation he had seen grow from a small market stall in London’s East End in the 1920s to the most successful retail giant in the country. Then, as tears rolled down his cheeks, he murmured, ‘I never imagined that this was how it would be.’ 

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