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London escapades: Color-bar mishap
The "strangest thing" that could happen to a traveler struck me at about 4.45 p.m. on Friday, July 20, 1990. It shattered the image of London that my father had impressed on me as the "greatest" city in the world.
I purchased a few groceries from Marks & Spencer in Hammersmith and was about to leave the store to walk toward the tube station along King Street when a security guard (later identified as George Cox of Storewatch Ltd.) pounced on me to search my waist for "shoplifted goods."
It had never occurred to me that anyone could ever suspect me of being a shoplifter. But a suspicious Cox had been watching me moving to a quiet nook of the store to open up my waist. The prejudiced mind of the white security guard instantly made him cocksure that I, a colored Asian, was stuffing my waist with goods to avoid payment.
True, I was meddling with my waist away from the crowds. But I was merely counting the bills in the money bag wrapped around my tummy—a safety measure suggested by travel experts to elude the wily thieves and pickpockets of Dickensian fame.
By a strange coincidence, a passerby took offence at the manner the security guard was searching me on a public street. Using his high-decibel vocal chords, he demanded an explanation from the store personnel, who seemed relentlessly unapologetic about their foul procedure despite my explanation that I was merely searching my money bag.
It tuned out that the passerby who came to my defense was a gentleman by the name of Bryan Labrooy, a Dutch Burgher who had left Ceylon in the late ‘50s. To show my gratitude, I bought him a drink at the nearest pub, and we talked about our mother country. Labrooy volunteered to be a witness in case I decided to file a suit against the store.
When I told Martin Axon, my English brother-in-law, about the lack of remorse that Marks & Spencer personnel showed through their self-righteous behavior, he decided "to make a fuss over this matter." Three days later, he lodged a complaint with the company protesting its callous treatment of a customer of color.
On Aug. 2, I received a set of gift certificates valued at £100 from Marks & Spencer as a "material gesture" of regret for the indignity to which a security guard subjected me on July 20. F. J. Kieran, solicitor for the company, in a letter dated July 25, said, "We wish to offer you our unreserved apologies … Our staff who were involved in the incident have specifically asked that they be permitted to associate themselves with the apology."
We decided not to pursue the hassle of legal recourse for higher compensation.
I used the gift certificates to purchase a St Michael brand jacket (£ 49.50) and a pair of shoes of the same brand (£ 17) at Marks & Spencer in Marble Arch. On another shopping spree at Marks & Spencer on Kensington High Street, I exhausted the gift certificates to buy more St Michael brand products, including another pair of leather shoes (£ 20) and a pair of trousers (£ 19).
I never went back to Marks & Spencer in Hammersmith, which was the closest to Shepherds Bush where I stayed during my London visits.
