The sad decline of the British Department Store

 This piece of mine appears in the Daily Express.

Ground floor: perfumery, stationery and leather goods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food. Going up...

So begins the theme song for the classic television comedy series Are You Being Served? currently being repeated on BBC2 on weekday afternoons.
The popular sitcom takes us back to the Seventies and life in the fictional Grace Brothers emporium. But for a more modern view of department stores there is a new series called Liberty Of London which begins on Monday and which shows the staff of the famous shop preparing for Christmas. Meanwhile the Sunday night drama series Mr Selfridge and The Paradise, both set in stores of yesteryear, have proved to be big hits with audiences.
But while such retail enterprises are thriving in television schedules, in real life it's a different story. Many have closed in recent years as our shopping habits have changed.

You can read the whole piece here.