Early Life and Education
Portas was born and brought up in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, in a family of five children. She was educated at St Joan of Arc Catholic School, Rickmansworth. Her mother died of meningits when Portas was aged 16, and her father, a sales director of Brooke Bond, the tea manufacturer, died of a heart attack two years later forcing Portas, aged 18, to turn down a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in order to look after her younger brother.
Read more about this topic: Mary Portas
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