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How Anita Roddick Helped Change Lives
The year I turned 12 was a life-defining moment. I became a vegetarian (I still am), and I joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I also joined Greenpeace because wanted to change the world. I often question what it was that inspired me to challenge the things I saw around me that I didn’t like. Looking back, I realize it was a combination of factors: I’d seen a particularly horrific TV documentary on slaughterhouses, my best friend’s mom had a house full of cats and dogs and a passion for animal rights, our own house had always been full of waifs and strays, (of the human and animal variety…) and then there was Anita Roddick.
When I was growing up, The Body Shop was beginning to take off in the UK and my best friend and I would spend our Saturdays in the London Kings Road store, playing with the plum and apricot lip balms (remember those?), spraying White Musk and soaking up all the activist signs: Stop Animal Testing, Stop the Burning, Save the Whales, Reuse & Recycle and so on. Anita was always in the newspapers and magazines speaking out on all sorts of issues, shaking up the establishment. She was truly an inspiration to us, and a whole generation of young girls growing up who were trying to find their way in the world - we were opinionated, confident, and had an incredible sense of justice. We were not scared to upset the status quo. Anita didn’t pander to the media or the traditional business community (she called them “dinosaurs in suits”) and batted back any attacks with her wicked sense of humor and mischief.
She was the sort of woman we wanted to grow up and be, and The Body Shop was the kind of shop that represented what we stood for. So, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that years later, I came to work for The Body Shop. The biggest privilege for me was to have the chance of working and traveling with Anita. It was no easy task, but oh so rewarding. She was a challenger by nature.
“Why aren’t we doing this?” she would say, “Are you too scared to take this on? Think bigger…” and so on. What she ingrained in us, those whose lives she touched, was a drive to do better. She taught us to do more, to take risks and think about the goal of making a difference in this world– like a huge Mexican wave of full-on energy. One of her favorite quotes was, “If you think you’re too small to make a difference in the world, try going to sleep with a mosquito in the room.” I still remind myself of it now every time I think I’ve hit a brick wall… Thanks Anita!
