Christine Fisher-Lathwell – My first window

It was exciting and I learnt to run up the stairs and run down. I was really fit because there was several areas of stairs. We had the Display Room upstairs and the Display Room downstairs and the Display Room was on top of the Sewing Room, so the experience of going in there and actually being allowed to open a drawer, go behind the counter, or even pick things out, and Mrs Brown would say, “What do you want for the window?” and I would think, ‘I don’t know, what do I do?

Do I put boys things in, baby things in, so I said to her that I would like to dress a babywear window, simply because I loved all the little dresses that they’d got on little hangers, and so she said to me, and that would be my first window, which (laughs) was quite a calamity.

I was trying to get nylon thread hooked onto the ceiling and then bring it down and the little dresses were on coat hangers so I would hang one and then I’d have to hang more nylon thread to do two either side and then I would hang nylon threads from other nylon threads and sometimes that would collapse (laughs). It was a nightmare and the ladders used to wobble and I was just petrified the first time it started to sway towards the window and it swayed back and I was able to hold the wall.

And Mrs Brown came down and said, “Are you alright?” but those were the feelings that stay with me. It’s not … the experience was somewhat frightening but it just gave me some … I would go to bed at night and dream when I knew and start thinking about how I would display the next window.

How would they want it? And then Miss Guy would come into the windows, especially her dress window, and she would tell me how she would like the models placed and then she explained to me it’s a good idea to arrange accessories down by the model’s feet. So, she really, really helped me when it came to display and after about a year, I felt confident enough to go up and if she wasn’t in, I would choose clothes to go in the window.