A friend and I used to make a yearly pilgrimage especially to see what was in Fenwick's window that year.
Not so very many long years ago, because I go back an awfully long way, but probably in the 1960s or 1970s, I remember Fenwick’s used to dress up their Christmas window They really went to town on it, and a friend and I used to make a yearly pilgrimage of this and used to go to Newcastle especially to see what was in Fenwick’s window that year.
Each year they took a different nursery rhyme or story and the windows were dressed to suit. They had the music playing outside of the windows, playing in the street so everyone could hear it. All the dolls or teddies or animals, whatever they had that year, were animated. They all did something, moving their arms and legs, swinging or riding about, all that type of thing.
I used to really enjoy going up there and all the mums and dads used to take their little children, but the poor little souls couldn’t get near the windows for the adults who were trying to get a look.
It was quite worthwhile and it’s a pity I haven’t been able to get there for ten or twelve years, but from what I hear they are still doing it every year.