Anita Roddick: A tragic loss

There are few entrepreneurs in this world who live their beliefs in the way that Dame Anita Roddick, who died yesterday from a brain haemhorrage, did. She made millions from her Body Shop enterprises which now have nearly 2000 stores worldwide, having started in 1976 with one shop sandwiched between two funeral parlours and selling 15 lines of environmentally friendly animal fat free cosmetic lines.

Anita Roddick may have made a lot of money but she used it very much in the cause of humanity. She was an avid supporter of Amnesty International, Greenpeace, The Big Issue (which helps the homeless) and in 1990, after a visit to Romanian orphanages touched her heart, she founded the charity Children On The Edge which helps disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe and Asia.



Sadly Anita Roddick developed Hepatitis C in 1971 after an infected blood transfusion while giving birth. She knew this was virtually a death sentence, albeit a long delayed one as the disease is incurable and eventually creates other long term problems, in her case she developed cirrhosis of the liver.

It is easy to be cynical about people who have made money giving some of it away but in 2005 Anita Roddick gave away £51 million of her personal income to charity , selling her Body Shop business the next year to L'Oreal as she wanted to spend what was left of her life helping those in need.

I think the world has lost a genuinely kind and caring human being who lived her beliefs out and acted on them. We are poorer for her passing.