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He compares restoring M&S to its former glory to renovating a house. “We’ve gone right down into the foundations and are building it again, which is why this improvement is sustainable,” he said, rejecting claims from some observers that last week’s results were yet another false dawn for beleaguered shareholders.

He has also cut through the bureaucracy. Approval of a new garment, for example, used to require 27 steps, today it involves only six.

“Retail is a simple profession made difficult by management. Which is why I went into it — it was something I could understand. Our job is to buy things for £1 and sell them for £2,” he said.

Despite the progress, Rose refuses to talk about recovery. “If we get into the first quarter of the new financial year (April-June 2006) and we’re still growing, then I think we would be prepared to say we are recovering,” he said.

In the longer term he would like to deliver “steady growth over four, five and six years”.

The past 18 months have not been plain sailing for Rose. Fifteen years ago he had walked out of M&S frustrated by the bureaucracy and the politics.

“He found it difficult to play the political game,” said one M&S lifer who worked with him in the 1980s.

On his return he found that the culture that had forced him to leave still survived.

“People were in denial. They said you can’t do that: It’s not M&S,” explained Rose. “And there were too many people who said, ‘I will do it the day after tomorrow.’”

But the biggest blow came in July, when Charles Wilson, his long-standing right-hand man, announced that he was leaving M&S to join Booker.

Rose and Wilson had worked together for more than a decade. Highly respected in the City, Wilson had been instrumental in delivering more than £300m of savings and overhauling the M&S supply chain.

So does Rose miss Wilson? “I miss him as a friend and someone to have chit-chat with, but I’m not worried about whether the levers and buttons are being left unattended while the train runs down the hill without anybody behind the engine.”

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