Jane Caldow – Working on window displays

Simon: Christine [Fisher-Lathwell] used to do the windows for quite a few years.

Jane: She was Display wasn’t she?

Simon: And you also had that role.

Jane: One summer, it was a summer holiday job. There was a lady called Sue Arthur who did all the windows there. She’s now on the Mainland. We used to occasionally bump into her because she sailed. She ran the Department for a number of years. There’s also a chap called Cyril who was a Display Manager before that. Maybe Mr Creasy because if you look at some old … actually I’ve got a tea towel Pack and Culliford tea towel upstairs I’ll bring down and show you. There was Mr Creasy, I’m sure he was a Display Manager and then Cyril, and then Sue Arthur, and then one summer I said I’d like to do … because I was quite arty, and my mother had a word and Sue said, “Yes, fine” so I used to … my father would drop me in each morning and I did it and went out with them to some of the … did the windows, helped paint all the billboards and stuff, because remember the Cowes Week windows, they would always do these fantastic backdrops, paint the backdrops with sails and that sort of stuff and they she did some absolutely beautiful windows.

Simon: How did you get on with the … because it’s quite a skill laying a window out.

Jane: Yeah, well I enjoyed it. I used to help my mother occasionally with the West Wight windows. I used to go when she was doing the Sale windows. I was allowed to write the signs, and so we’d sort of … the first day of the Sales was always a really, really big thing as well, you know people would queue up outside you know that was the thing, when a Sale was a Sale. And certainly at Totland they’d be waiting outside for them to open on the first day of Sale and I’d go over the day before if it was holiday time of something on a Saturday and help do the windows, or help them write the notices out. Little things, you wrote the price down and you crossed it through and then put the sale price in red on the ticket, and it was all pinned on. But Sue did wonderful windows. But yes, I enjoyed it, I mean I just helped arrange things and did a bit of painting for them. I can’t remember particularly, it was either when I was 16 or 17 I think, but it was great fun and then went off, they were going to Shanklin to do the windows there I’d go over and help with those and …