Aisles full of noises

sir – I recently visited Marks & Spencer in Ipswich, where music was being played throughout the store. I asked a sales assistant whether this was a new policy, as I used to hear it only in the ladies’ fashion department.

She replied: “Don’t you like music?” I said that I did when I had the choice. She then said she thought that its purpose was to “lighten the mood during Covid”.

I wrote to the M&S customer relations department about this. The anodyne reply discussed “inclusion” and made use of the word “diverse”, as well as “diversity”. No mention was made of the in-store audio policy. John Brackenbury