I DID something I haven’t done for years at the weekend: I shopped at BHS.

If anyone had asked me why I was there, I’d no doubt have said something about wanting to show solidarity with the store’s employees, all of whom now face the dole queue following last week’s announcement that the 88-year-old brand has collapsed into administration, putting more than 11,000 jobs at risk.

It would, of course, be disingenuous to say solidarity was the main reason I was in there. Nostalgia also played a part – when I was growing up, we were very much a BHS rather than a Marks and Spencer family. But what really lured me in on Saturday was also the reason the Sauchiehall Street branch was probably busier than it had been in years: few can resist a bargain, even when it comes on the back of somebody else’s misfortune.

Misfortune is something that the workforce of BHS know all about, of course. It has been plaguing them for years. And it looks like it will plague them for many years to come, in the shape of reduced pensions.

There is nothing the staff, most of whom – in common with others in the retail sector

– work for the minimum wage, could have done to avoid this. There’s little any worker can do when ruined livelihoods are nothing more than collateral damage in the big business deals and gambles played out every day in the City of London.

You could argue the writing was on the wall for BHS more than a decade ago when then owner Sir Philip Green appeared to put all his energies into taking massive dividends out of the business – totalling about £400 million – instead of reinventing the ailing brand for the 21st century.

When the profits stopped rolling in, rather than staying on to fight, Sir Philip abandoned ship, selling the company last year for £1 to

a venture capitalist consortium headed by Dominic Chappell, a twice-bankrupted former racing driver with no experience in the retail business.

Surprise, surprise, over the next 13 months BHS withered and died as the pension deficit mounted – that now stands at some half a billion pounds. The only consolation came for Mr Chappell and his fellow investors,

who somehow managed to pay themselves £25 million. I’m sure store staff were heartily relieved for them.

It emerged over the weekend that Sir Philip, his wife Tina – whose name appeared on the ownership documents – and Mr Chappell have all been asked to appear in front of MPs and explain what happened.

If they choose to appear – and it will be their choice – I don’t doubt that they will be asked difficult questions and made to feel uncomfortable. Who knows, they may even apologise to the workforce and sacrifice some of their wealth in a gesture of goodwill.

I don’t doubt that they probably feel bad about what happened. But ultimately they will go back to their gilded lives, the mansions and yachts, and simply move on to the next big deal.

The taxpayer, meanwhile, will be left to look after the BHS employees who lose their jobs, and it’ll be a case of “bad luck” to those who don’t receive the full pensions they worked so hard for.

What won’t happen is exactly what needs to: a root and branch review of UK and European company law that would require owners, and indeed former owners, to take real responsibility for all losses – including pensions – and for strict rules around who should be allowed to buy a business. Such rules would not have made BHS more successful, but they would have put more onus on Sir Philip to seek a better solution.

There’s no way a Conservative government will press for such change – its friends and donors in big business simply would not allow it. And with so many other big fish to fry, I can’t see the European Union having the will to enter the fray any time soon.

So, in the meantime, as has always been the way, the little people – the shop assistants, the steel workers, the City Link delivery drivers – take the brunt of the losses while the boss class rewards itself for failure.

To be honest, I felt pretty dirty as I walked up to the sales counter in BHS with my bargain bale of towels.

The wee woman who served me at the till told me she had worked there for almost

30 years – as she was hitting 60 she probably wouldn’t find another job. She was sad but stoic about her pension. She only became visibly annoyed when I asked her about the past owners of the business. I won’t repeat what she said about them.

I doubt either Sir Philip Green or Dominic Chappell will lower themselves to set foot in

a BHS store any time soon to hear these words firsthand, more’s the pity.