Anita Roddick – answers to the exercise
1 It shows she was considered an important national figure.
2 A brain haemorrhage.
3 As ‘one of Britain’s true pioneers’.
4 He was away – ‘away’ means he was away from home. Gordon Roddick, her husband, was in the United States, having arranged a loan of £4,000 to help his wife start up the business.
5 "It was a bit of a hit-and-miss affair to begin with."
6 As a ‘niche hippy outlet’. This means only customers who were also a bit ‘hippy’ themselves would be interested in this sort of product.
7 A familiar brand on the high street.
8 Environmentalism – 20 years before anyone else had even really thought about it.
9 It is now ‘mainstream in most retailers’ i.e. most businesses have accepted some of these ideas in their strategies
10 She was a woman ‘ahead of her time‘.
11 The environment.
12 Because they were good products – ‘nice products’.
13 Because customers felt they had done something positive and responsible by choosing to buy them.
14 ‘The caring face of capitalism’, i.e. the idea that capitalism could be caring, could be environmentally aware and socially responsible.
15 Anita Roddick came in for a lot of criticism.
16 To influence a large corporation from within.
17 No, with the purchase of The Body Shop by l’Oréal people lost faith in her.
This purchase caused controversy, because L’Oréal is involved in animal testing, and because the company is part-owned by Nestlé, a Swiss company which has been criticized for its treatment of third world producers. Some people considered she had sold out – to sell out = to abandon one’s principles for reasons of convenience
18 She was one of extremely few businesswomen.
19 She floated her company in the City.
20 As being completely different from anything the City had ever seen before.
21 The fact that she looked like a hippy and sounded like a hippy, and not at all like a typical businessman.
22 People didn’t know what to make of her – i.e. could not be sure they understood her.
23 That it probably would not have existed if she hadn’t provided the inspiration for it.
24 That she 1) inspired a range of people to create compassionate businesses, 2) was one of the very first so-called social entrepreneurs, 3) gave away a lot of her profits and started businesses such as the Big Issue and 4) remained very active in these philanthropic causes up until her death.
25 She says it will, that it is more likely to survive run by a very big company, but will not remain quite as true to its initial ethics.