It’s not what she would’ve wanted

THE grief police were hard on anybody not showing the right respect to the late Queen Elizabeth II, so perhaps it was no real surprise that every organisation, institution and businesses tweeted some sort of tribute.

It was unsurprising also that when Ann Summers – the lingerie and sex toy chain – did this, it was mocked and asked whether it was appropriate.

Maybe none of the corporate sorrow was appropriate but it all offered a bit of silly relief from the national period of mourning, if that doesn’t sound too seedy.

Fifty years ago this summer the actual Ann Summers – or Annice Summers, she was a real life person – was fronting the opening of a new store in Queensway.

She told the Marylebone Mercury that she answered 60 letters a week from people who appreciated that such a range of shops was accessible.

Asked at that event what she thought of “women’s lib”, Summers replied: “I think most of those women should put their bras back on very quickly. They’re missing out on such a lot.” Still quoting from Mercury’s slathering article, she apparently added: “I want to be a man’s plaything until the day I die.”

Sadly, that didn’t appear to reflect the whole story. Her name had been used for the stores by her then partner Michael Caborn-Waterfield – and then she was stuck with it after they went their separate ways.

She told how she was concerned about the nature of some of the products sold under her name but it was too late.

So having been so chatty in those store-opening interviews, she later took refuge in Italy and was hardly heard of again – until her death in 2012.