MrH wrote:As a child of the 70's I remember Lewis's Toy Department with great affection like most. There was one particular visiting display that I remember late 70's or early 80's which was a model airport. I seem to remember the guy who's display it was had been an Airline Pilot and his lovely assistant (his Wife, not Debbie McGee) had been an Air Stewardess. The whole thing seemed large to a child my size at the time. The model aircraft slid down wires to land on the runway whilst the guy did the Air Traffic Controllers voice via microphone. There were moving vehilcles and the whole thing was really impressive. I visited it twice with my Parents (must have been there for a few days) and we bought a postcard iamge of the layout which I have long since misplaced. Does anyone remember or know more about this?
Apparently this was former pilot Bryan Carney. Article in World Weekly News here:
Hi Geordie-exile.
Only just seen your response, many thanks and spot on with your detective work. Its amazing just how well the pictures brought the memories flooding back after so much time. I guess given the passage of time that tha Captain is no longer with us? Wonder what happened to his creation as it should have taken pride of place in a toy museum somewhere!
Thanks once again
My memories of the store go back to the 40's. To a boy it was a magical place. We used to use the escalators to ride up and the lifts to come down for as long as the staff would allow. All the toys were on the top floor and they always had an extensive model train layout. The lifts incidentally were manually operated with the operator announcing .......lingerie. men's wear, furniture. haberdashery whatever. The restaurant was in the basement and we always visited. Their Father Christmas was the real one !!
