Sweet Smell of Success

If you need a laugh I can highly recommend Carole Middleton’s Mother’s Day wish list. Writing in her column in Baby London, the mother of the Duchess of Cambridge (and Pippa and James) proposes a range of gifts your offspring might wish to give you with your breakfast-in-bed tray. Forget those garage-forecourt flowers produced, if you’re lucky, when the teenager emerges from his/her lair in the middle of the afternoon. Carole suggests an annual subscription from Harrods couture florist Neill Strain. A small bouquet delivered every month until next Mothering Sunday 2019 costs £1,020. The deluxe version comes in at £9,880. Sounds perfect. Although it would definitely help if your daughter was a future Queen.

For those of us whose kids have failed to marry into Royalty (what a pity Harry’s about to be taken, I’d love to have been his mother-in-law!), Carole has a few more reasonable gifts in mind. Rococo chocolates, Aurelia Revitalise and Glow Serum, and a cute, long-sleeve T-shirt from FMLY emblazoned with the word Mother. It costs £35, so the twins might just about stretch to that, even if ends up being purchased on Mummy’s magic card.

Joking aside, Mother’s Day means a lot. A friend admitted that she was reduced to tears last year when her two boys hadn’t made any effort and she got cross with them. “I was stropping about the kitchen like a four-year-old,” she said, “why did I mind so much?” That’s easy. Because motherhood, although it's the most important job we do, is unsalaried with no hope of promotion and the only point you know that you’ve done well is when your clients are so happy they leave you and move in with somebody else.

Actually, I just had the perfect Mother’s Day present, but it came from a charming friend, not a child. He gave me the gift of my own Eau de Parfum customised by Floris. The divine old, glass-bottle-lined shop at 89 Jermyn Street is smelly heaven. I was transported back to the 1700s as Nicola my Italian-trained perfumer – like a tiny mad professor – showed me the ledgers containing all the scents of kings and queens, aristos and celebrities down the centuries. In one, the Prince of Wales is crossed out and replaced by the Duke of Windsor after the abdication. There is even a secret passage under the shop that takes you to the Palace!

We spent two spellbinding hours debating different fragrances and I came away with my own personalised bottle of ‘Venere in Fiori’, named after one of my favourite paintings, Botticelli’s Venus. My thoughtful friend has spent many years now introducing me to various wine-makers across Europe and it turns out flowers are every bit as fascinating as grapes. I can take the bottle back for refills and my personal perfume is listed there forever, a tiny footnote in the history of hedonism.

Not only did the Floris Bespoke Experience give me a unique gift, which my daughter and her daughter’s daughters can go in and order long after my time, there was also the warm glow of supporting a truly wonderful family business.

In case we forget, there are five million family firms in the UK creating twelve million jobs. Some 25% of UK GDP comes from those businesses and an incredible 20% of tax revenues. In Scotland alone, the top 100 family firms employ 103,000 people and generate £16.6 billion in turnover. The UK Top 20 generate £49 billion, which makes my bottle of perfume feel like very good value! Many family businesses like Floris (established 1730) stand the test of time. The oldest direct lineage family firm in the UK is a 26th generation family butchers in Bridport, RJ Balson & Son.

At Sanlam, we pride ourselves on giving the good advice which helps a business to thrive over many generations. The key challenges are managing and financing exit/generational transition. Current owners standing down and becoming financially independent and the all-important engagement of the next generation. Not to mention navigating wider issues like Brexit, US trade tariffs and rather uncertain times.

Paul Andrews from Family Business United will be going on a Scottish Family Business Road Trip, from 12th-23rd March, travelling from Elgin to Broomhall and celebrating great Scottish family firms like Walkers Shortbread, Crieff Hydro, Broomhall House and Johnstons of Elgin. They really deserve recognition.

As it happens, I’ve had my eye on a cashmere dressing-gown from Johnston’s of Elgin for ages. I bet Carole Middleton’s kids would get her one. Whatever you do or don’t get on Sunday, just remember this: every mum is the CEO of her own thriving family business. Shareholders, please show appropriate gratitude. Happy Mother’s Day! 

For more information, please contact us at PrivateOffice@Sanlam.co.uk