When we arrived in Reims, 20 years ago, the High Street Marks & Spencers shop had recently closed. It was still fresh in people’s memories and they all loved it.

If I had 10 euros for everyone who has said to me, ‘I do miss Marks &Spencers”, I would be rich.

People loved popping it to buy Blackcurrant Sundaes. These were individual pastry tarts with a layer of blackcurrant jam, topped with a disc of sponge cake (if my memory serves me well) and powdered with icing sugar. My mouth is watering just thinking about them!

Men were particularly fond of Marks & Spencers because trousers could be bought in different leg lengths and different waist measurements. Normally, men would have to buy ill-fitting trousers and have them altered. Some stores offer free alteration services to cope with this problem.

One day I went to teach English to a group of adults and one lady said, ‘You bought those trousers at Marks & Spencers, didn’t you?’. They were a light velour pair of cargo jeans. It just shows how well she had known the range of fashion that used to be on sale.

It was nothing to do with Brexit that Marks & Spencers pulled out of their expansion into Europe. Apparently they had expanded too fast and perhaps couldn’t keep up with their success. A spokesperson for the store has said that exiting from Europe was the worst decision they ever made.

For a while small food shops were to be found at the mainline stations in Paris and one shop remained on the Champs Elysées. You have to know that French sandwiches are really boring and ham ones are the most popular. To make them sound better they are called ‘jambon/beurre’ . Yes, the butter gets a mention too! But British workers can pop out for ‘Egg mayonnaise’ or ‘Beef and horseradish’ or ‘Roast chicken and cranberry sauce with chestnut stuffing’! Parisiens were so thrilled with the variety of lunch-time snacks on offer that they would queue outside before the shop opened in the morning to be sure of getting their favourite, which was prawn mayonnaise.

Our little granddaughter is currently in Australia for a year with the family. One day this 5 year old said to her Daddy, ‘Do you know what I miss? Marks & Spencers’.