The John Lewis Monster Is Real, And It Lives In Their Stores.
I’m sure by now you have all seen the 2017 John Lewis Christmas advert. There was much hype about it in the months leading up to its release, and the build-up to that release seems to have become part of everyone’s Christmas build-up.
But for me, this advert is just another smack in the face from John Lewis. Another reminder that my son is not welcome in their stores.
You see they spent £7 million on this advert, despite telling families like mine that they can’t spend £10,000 on upgrading their stores so that we can shop with them.
This photo was taken by a friend in a John Lewis store last year. It shows the harsh reality that families like mine face when our children need the toilet when we are away from home.
Once our children get too big for a baby changing unit there is no where for us to lay them down other than the toilet floor.
They can’t stand up, their physical disabilities are too severe. So we have to make a choice. Do we leave the store and rush home? Or do we go against all our instincts and put our child on a dirty toilet floor to quickly change their pad and carry on with our day?
To me, the monster under the bed in the John Lewis advert is a visual metaphor for the hidden monsters on their toilet floors. The average publicly used toilet floor has 77,000 germs and viruses on it, yet John Lewis believe it’s the right place for a vulnerable child with complex physical and medical disabilities?
Today while everyone is watching the John Lewis advert, and considering what they might buy in their stores, there will be disabled children laying on their toilet floors having their pads changed. They might not even be able to give them any privacy as you can see in the photo above, the doors can’t even be shut as the space is so tight.
There will also be disabled adults who don’t have the ‘luxury’ of using the toilet floor, and instead will be in a John Lewis store sitting in their own mess until they can get home to use a toilet.
So, is it okay that John Lewis chose to spend £7 million on a Christmas advert instead of £10,000 to provide a hoist and adult sized changing bed in all their stores? If they purchased the equipment needed for all 44 of their stores it would cost them less than £500,000.
But they have no plans to do that.
The purple pound is worth £249 billion a year, if John Lewis spent just half a million, they would be able to rake back the cost of their Christmas advert JUST from disabled people because 1 in 260 people need this facility, far more than you’d expect.
But they have no plans to do that.
But until they do make a commitment to provide these facilities in their stores I won’t be shopping there, and no Christmas advert is going to change my mind.
If you want to help make a change you can sign this petition to urge the government to make changes to the law so that Changing Places Toilets are required in all large publicly accessible buildings.
Find out more about changing places toilets here.
Please note this issue is not exclusive to John Lewis, it applies to all large retailers as currently Ikea is the only national chain to agree to provide Changing Places toilets in all stores. This blog focuses on John Lewis because of the release of their advert back in 2017.
