The fall of M&S might come as a shock but the chain’s downward spiral is nothing new

M&S’s biggest problem seems to be it still doesn’t know what it is, says Chris Blackhurst. A (non-fashionable) fashion retailer with food, or a non-essential food seller with fashion?

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Nothing lasts forever. Of course, I know that. But for someone who grew up in a family that, like many, worshipped at the altar of St Michael, the fall of Marks and Spencer and its brand still comes as a shock.

Our clothes were M&S, our food was M&S, my father even bought my mother shares in the chain – so much did we pour into its tills. For many years, until the arrival of an Asda, it was the only shop of any serious presence in the town. There was a Boots and a Tesco, but they were nothing compared to the Marks, sitting as it did in the plum position in the main shopping street. Now that branch has just closed, and coincidentally or not, M&S has dropped out of the FTSE100.

There’s a huge Tesco, an Aldi, a Lidl, a Morrisons, and still, the Asda. But the once grand M&S lies empty. Meanwhile, the company that was the first retailer to break through the £1bn profits barrier, no longer ranks among the country’s biggest 100 stock market-listed concerns. It’s a sad, sorry state of affairs. And once unthinkable.