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Lewis's Department Store

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kandor
  • Start date Start date
My nan used to take me to town shopping and often took me to Lewis's to have a knickerbocker glory on the top floor. My uncle worked in the restaurants there until he was promoted to Restaurant Manager in Liverpool.
Here are 2 Post Cards I bought for him recently to go in his scrap book.
 
Love the postcards David.

I seem to remember in the late 1950's maybe (?) having a large knickerbocker glory in Lewis's Ice Cream Parlour on the lower ground floor near the underpass. I was with my sister, and we were spotted through the window by two boys we liked going past and felt really embarrassed to have been caught tucking into them with gusto:sweat:
 
:2623:Watton. You have brought backk something I had completely forgot about. I too hated having my hair cut but do now remember those chairs.:2623: TTFN. Jean.
 
My father was a maintenance electrician at Lewis's from about 1923 until his death in 1957. He used to build the animated displays for the grotto and would probably have had a hand in the train layouts. After one Christmas one of those train layouts finished up in our front room. He was called up in 1941 so I presume it must have been prior to this date. The layout was a mixture of Hornby and American style locomotives.
 
more fond and happy brummie memories. Loved Lewis's and Rackhams and spent many a pound in the Virgin shop. Is Reddingtons Rare records still going?? think it was in Moor Street and they sponsored a local band-whose name escapes me... could be Jamiesons raid or quartz?????
Loved the markets near the church in the bullring( have forgotten its name) and the rag market in Digbeth(?? again not 100% sure)
I actually nursed a women who did jump from Lewis's and landed on a passer by. She killed the passer-by and ended up paralysed in longterm care
Please keep those happy memories going as I just love them
 
Reddington's Rare Records has now closed their premises but continue to sell online. Ironic, since it was the internet that brought them down.
 
Nursesue, Reddington's moved to Cannon Street into the old Kay Westworth's music shop. Then they moved again in more recent times to the building opposite Digbeth police station.........a strange move as there was no place to park. Finally, closed altogether. As Jennyann says he's online.
 
Hello, I remember Lewis's very well for many reasons. When I got married in 1968 I had my wedding & bridesmaids patterns from the Womans Own magazine & the material was from Lewis's it was treebark satin white for my dress & pink for my 3 small bridesmaids aqua for the 1 adult the cost in total for all material was £15! I still have my wedding dress & we will have been married 40 years in September. The gentleman mentioned who committed suicide was a fostering friend of ours, it was such a shock to us all a lovely young man not long married:(. I used to take my chidren when they were small to Lewis's every month at least to shop look around visit the pets corner & the highlight of the year of course would be queing to see Father Christmas but first of all to walk around the grotto then see Father Christmas have thier photo's taken with him which they still have today this around 34years ago. It was fun & exciting with good memories for us all. It really is good to hear other peoples memories of times gone by which can be passed on.Thank you Twinkle Toes :)
 
Justr come across this thread...Lewis's was my favorite shop as a child especially the Toy Fair at Christmas time with Father Christmas (the real one of course) in his grotto and a queue that would wind down five flights of stairs.
Dad had a part time job in the DIY department in the basement and his claim to fame was serving Ken Dodd a plank of wood...why I don't know but I guess he was on at the Hipp or Alex and wanted it for his show
 
This young lady holding a monkey in Lewis`s seems a little bit worried, sorry not a very good photo.
 
Hi All.

Can anyone clear up a nagging that's going around my head regarding Lewis's?
One of the high points of my week in the 50's was to walk to the town from Arthur St Small Heath with a gang of mates and try to get into Pets corner on the roof, more often than not we did not succeed as the security man used to clear us off because we were not accompanied by an adult.
So to compensate we used to go to the back stairs and slide all the way down to the basement on the handrail it was a sort of a "dare" as when you were at the top it was I think 5 or 6 floors to the basement.
We went there the one week and everything had changed there were studs on the handrail and bars over the drop and we were told that a lad had done what we always used to do and fell over the edge to the Basement and was killed so we never returned again.

So the nag is did it happen or was it just a tale?

Regards Steerboy
 
Hello Steerboy - Yes I think it's true that a boy fell all the way down the stairwell and was killed and that is why they put up the bars over the drop, as I heard that story as well. As a child we used to queue for ages up those stairs waiting to see Father Christmas, and used to look right down over the banisters to the basement I think. I think it was after the boy fell down that the queuing on the stairs was stopped, but I'm not sure.

I can't believe that you and your mates used to slide down the handrail for a dare - how scary is that:shocked: It was a long way down!

I also remember that there used to be a cafe on the roof, but that was closed after a couple of people jumped off and committed suicide at different times. Judy
 
Judy is correct as far as I can recall and whilst I never got up the nerve I was a bit miffed when the studs went in as it meant that choice was taken away from me.
 
thank you - my mind went blank or is that "having a senior moment"??:shocked:
 
I remember my mother taking me up on Lewis's roof on our regular 'up town' shopping trips in the 1950's. I think it must have been the tallest building in Birmingham in those days.

In the late 60's me and a mate got Saturday jobs in the run up to Christmas. We did this for 2 or 3 years and usually started mid October.
We had a great time there, especially with the girls who also worked just on Saturdays.

One year we worked on the fireworks counter until bonfire night and then just before Christmas, we were given the job of stopping kids jumping the queue on the staircase leading up to see Father Christmas.

Another year, I worked a few weeks in the carpet department (4th floor I think) and I got to know one of the salesmen quite well.
One night, he happened to be on his own in the same pub as me having a drink and so I joined him.
He told me that he didn't work at Lewis's any more. We started talking about some of the customers and I mentioned one old man in particular,
who came in every week and always bought a couple of expensive rugs.
I said I thought he always looked very shifty and I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.
My friend always seemed to serve him and he'd get a porter to carry the rugs out of the store for the old man.
Imagine my horror, when a few minutes later that same old man came into the pub, walked up to my drinking companion and said to him 'Hello son, can I get you and your friend a drink'.

Suddenly realising why my friend didn't work at Lewis's any more, I made some excuse and left!
 
I would love to show this thread to my father in law, however he is 85 and thinks the internet is a dangerous thing....He was the advertising manager at Lewis's throughout his working life...Liverpool, Glasgow and finally in Brum. My wife tells me he met numerous famous people in his role but the best one in my mind is Adam West..... He was to appear in the store for a special toy display and had to be taken to the store by my father in law...Imagine his neighbours faces when Batman walked out of his house.
Also, does anyone remember the coloured light information system used by Lewis's...I remember 4 lights red, green, blue and orange...different combinations of these had a meaning to the shop floor workers.
 
Hawkmoon,

You could of course print this thread and show your father in law a paper copy.

Just use the 'Thread Tools' button at the top of the thread.

sparky
 
I well remember the coloured lights on the clocks over the lifts, they were in fact to tell some of the senior managers that they were required and they would contact the store switchboard to find out who wanted them. they were for the position of merchandise manager upwards. The Floor /merchandise Manager for the basement in my day was a Mr Frank Cashin and if you needed him and he wasn't in his office you asked the switchboard to "put Mr Cashins lights on"
 
Hi Cornwall Col,
I was assistant sales manager on the D.I.Y department in the early 60s, Paul Whitfield was the manager of the D.I.Y and Jerry England was manager of the tile and tool dept next to it
All the best Chris B
 
I will print the thread off and see what reaction i get from him. He has told me many stories of his life at Lewis's, including bombs being dropped into the Liverpool store during the war, not exploding and found resting against the store managers desk. The managers canteen in Birmingham being in the same room as the shop workers, but being partitioned with a curtain. He tells me that many years ago, the store sold off a number of fixtures and fittings to the staff and he managed to get hold of a workbench from DIY which he still has in his shed, an oak door which still hangs in his garage and a few other bits and bobs. For those of you who may remember him, his name is Don Pickavance (advertising manager untill retiring in 1981) and I believe he worked for Don Aeron (spelling). I will update once i have spoken to him.

Andy
 
Oh how magic Uncle Holly and Father Christmas seemed in the 50's.
I think it was also Christmas when either Lewis's or Greys had a helter skelter which i also used to love.
 
Some fantastic memories on here.

I had a girl friend who was the manageress of their record store, in the subway I think. She used to get all the LPs that were not selling and warp them in front of the electric heater then give them back to the rep as damaged so the company would get the money back!

She is now the chief executive of one of the biggest fashion compaines in Europe-- warped or what?

Some more history for you

Lewis’s was first started in Liverpool in 1856 by David Lewis as a men’s and boy’s clothing store. The company manufactured most of its own stock. In 1864 Lewis added women’s clothing. In the 1870s the store expanded adding extra departments including shoes in 1874 and tobacco in 1879.
In 1877 a branch was opened in Manchester. In 1877 Lewis was asked by Joseph Chamberlain to open a store on his newly created Corporation Street in Birmingham and this branch opened in 1885. Lewis’s by this time was a very successful chain of department stores but its first failure was the Sheffield branch, which only survived four years after opening in 1884.
After David Lewis’s deaths Louis Cohen took over the company, opening new stores in Glasgow in 1929, Leeds in 1932 and Hanley in 1934.
In many locations and especially Birmingham, Lewis’s were the largest department stores. Aerial photographs of Birmingham shew the Lewis’s building to be the most prominent in the city. Birmingham was unique in that it had a public road (The Minories) running beneath the upper floors of the middle of the store. The Minories is now closed and forms part of the retail complex. The Minories road surface was once laid with rubber block bricks as an experiment.
In 1951 the Lewis’s group bought Selfridges in London, later becoming part of Charles Clore’s Sears Group.
In 1964 a branch was opened in Blackpool next to the Tower, sadly it closed in 1993. The building survives with Woolworths occupying part of the ground floor.
The company went into liquidation in 1991, it had simply failed to move with the times. Owen Owen bought several branches and continued trading under the Lewis’s brand name but unfortunately the Birmingham branch was closed.
Lewis’s in Leicester became Lewis’s of Leicester after a management buy out but did not last long.
Only Lewis’s in Liverpool remains, soldiering on after several ownership changes and was in liquidation by February 28 2007. The store is presently owned by Vergo Retail and still trades as Lewis’s, so the name of Birmingham’s most loved department store is not dead yet!
 
Very interesting to learn the history of Lewis's, Malvern (as well as the Odeon!) I remember well the rubber road in the Minories that ran between the two bottom sections of the store. When I was growing up Lewis's was THE store in Birmingham, and we went there for nearly everything! Even had a little zoo at the top at one time. I can visualise most of the store as it was, even now - I think it was very sad that it had to close.
 
Hi Austin,
Lewis's Birmingham - closed 13 July 1991, currently on the ground floor is a pub, The Square Peg, with offices above including the probate court. The Minories as stated previously did have a road surface made of "rubber bricks" or blocks, I far as I know this was to deaden the noise of the traffic passing over the surface as it was a busy through road in those days and the the basement sales areas operated underneath the minories surface.
Regards Chris B
 
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