• last year
The former boss of Harrods Mohamed Al-Fayed has died.
Transcript
00:00 Yes, so what I knew about Mohamed El Fayed was that, well of course he's got brothers
00:06 and he's got other children and it was quite upsetting really when the whole world was
00:14 sort of saying how bad everything was when, you know, obviously Diana had died but his
00:19 son had died and it was like, didn't seem to mean much in the news but it was quite
00:24 a devastating thing. But yeah, so I can say that he was a real businessman, he was hard
00:31 nosed, he really was a tough businessman and people know him for Harrods and they know
00:38 him for Fulham Football Club but he had lots more businesses and he brought a lot of money
00:44 and work to the UK.
00:46 The former owner of Harrods and the father of Dodi El Fayed who died in the crash with
00:51 Princess Diana has sadly died aged 94. One of his former staff have shared his memories.
00:59 Yeah, that's right, back in the 80s I was his receptionist in his residence in Park
01:07 Lane in London, yes.
01:08 What was that experience like?
01:10 Well, it was quite a learning experience because he's probably the most powerful and richest
01:16 man I've ever known and he was always really good to me and there were times he would just
01:22 come down and talk to me and say, just check everything was alright, are you okay, is your
01:28 family okay, let me know if you've got any problems and that's the sort of relationship
01:33 but I never had any problems, I never took anything to him like that but that's how he
01:38 was, you know, with me.
01:40 And what was it like because he's in the top 1500 most richest people in the world, what
01:47 was he like in that sense?
01:49 Well, you have to recognise I was his receptionist and he would come and he would go, yes I would
01:54 get to know him and what have you but he's a businessman and he was a hard businessman
02:00 and yeah, so I didn't know him intimately, I knew him, he'd recognise me, he would know
02:07 me but I can't really say about what it was like.

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