When I was young, I received many pieces of advice from my father in law; unfortunately, most were far too forthright to mention here; although amongst them was one piece of advice that did make sense to me, and that was. Open your eyes.

I often opened my eyes when things were going wrong, when a business was failing, waiting until the last moment until I opened my eyes or when looking for new opportunities.

Those are the big things that don’t happen every day in business, but the everyday things you don’t see build-up by not opening your eyes to them, eventually becoming too big to handle.

Retailers are trying to get customers back into their stores right now; in every high street in the UK, I was in Cambridge this weekend, but where were all the shopkeepers? Yes, in the shops, but where were they supposed to be before the customers came out shopping, yes outside with their eyes open, seeing the filthy pavements the sick and pee up their doors, the debris from the rough sleepers the night before, plus the shabby paintwork.

These spillages were outside some of the biggest names on the High Street.

My father in law was a master baker; presentation is everything in that business; this attitude taught me the basics.

So every shop we had, I carried out an inspection well before the customers were even out of bed, ensuring everything was in order when they came down the street looking for the best baby shop in the UK, and of course, we didn’t want to disappoint them.