In 1707 a royal footman called William Fortnum set up shop in St James’s with his landlord, Hugh Mason. Three centuries down the line, Fortnum & Mason has become a leading London landmark and is the setting for the launch of a major new campaign by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) – the professional body for the UK recruitment industry.
This is an early morning gig, a breakfast event. A nice light at this time of the day and I love the pastel colours of this historic emporium. It’s always a pleasure to take photos in a famous venue, you really want it to do it justice and capture a sense of place as well as the overall vibe of today”s gathering.
Speakers and attendees start to filter in, emerging wide-eyed and expectant into the ambient surrounds of the fourth floor tea room. Although I was busy focusing on lenses and lighting and on getting some good ‘action shots’ of keynote speakers, I picked up the gist of what was being discussed. This is the launch of the REC’s Good Recruitment Campaign, the aim being to get businesses to think about the best ways of hiring staff. The idea is for employers to bring in people with the right skills and attitude and to make sure that those looking for work get real opportunities to get ahead and boost their careers.
On that note, I was interested to read about how William Fortnum kick-started his own career back in the early 1700s. Turns out that the Royal Family insisted on having new candles every night which meant a lot of half-used wax which William – as a royal footman – was able to get hold of and sell on at a profit. Nice work! The rest, as they say on the web-site, is grocery!
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