How Anita Roddick turned principles into profits

Obituary of Dame Anita Roddick, the accidental entrepreneur who brought green consumerism to the public via The Body Shop.

"A leading light of the modern green movement" was Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper's apt description of Dame Anita Roddick, the woman who brought green consumerism to the public. Born in 1942 and raised in Littlehampton, West Sussex, Roddick's parents divorced when she was nine. Her mother married her ex-husband's cousin, Henry. He died a few years later, leaving it to Roddick's mother to reveal that Henry was in fact her biological father. But despite the upheavals, Roddick described her childhood as sublime. It also taught her the dedication she would need to set up her own business. Her parents' work ethic "teetered on the verge of slave labour" she rose regularly at 5am to help make breakfast for local fishermen at the family cafe.

Roddick gave up an early dream of becoming an actress and pursued a career in teaching: "if I couldn't perform on stage, I decided I'd perform in the classroom". But after two years, she gave it up to go travelling. On returning to the UK, she met Gordon Roddick in a nightclub; their bond was "instant". They married soon afterwards but their life could never be described as conventional. Shortly after the birth of their second daughter, Gordon decided that he wanted to ride a horse from Buenos Aires to New York. Roddick gave him her blessing but before he went, he helped her get a £4,000 loan to open a small shop.

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