I CAN empathise with Sara Diffey (‘Clothes firm threat over similar name’, Daily Echo, September 6) who has been forced at great expense to change the name of her small Christchurch fabric shop, Zara’s Fabrics, because multi-national giant Inditex, owner of the retail chain Zara, is terrified that her shop could be harmful to its business!

Thirty years ago when I was living in San Francisco friends of mine opened a small coffee shop – just a counter, two tables and half a dozen chairs, on Mason Street, calling it Fortnum’s on Mason, a clever pun I thought. A few weeks after they opened they were contacted by lawyers acting on behalf of Fortnum & Mason in London informing them that they would have to change the name of their business.

Having spent everything they had on opening their tiny coffee shop, they had no money to fight their case or pay the costs of changing the name of their business and had no option but to close down.

The management at Fortnum & Masons at the time were obviously totally devoid of any sense of humour and incapable of realising that far from being detrimental to its business, Fortnum’s on Mason would have actually promoted it.

Likewise Zara’s Fabrics in Christchurch would have posed absolutely no threat to the retail chain Zara.

ROBERT READMAN, Norwich Avenue West, Bournemouth