Author Topic: Lewis's  (Read 14905 times)

john2000

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Re: Lewis's
« Reply #77 on: January 11, 2009, 05:00:47 PM »
Phil... yes it was nice to be called a gentleman, even if we did'nt wash our hands..... :2funny:
Growing old is mandatory..........Growing up is optional

tramp

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Re: Lewis's
« Reply #78 on: January 11, 2009, 07:33:48 PM »
Phil,

My first wife spent the week wasting her time at the ''French Institute" in London as she was already fluent in French & Arabic (her English wasn't too foul either) but worked in Miss Selfridge on Saturday.  Her ma put a stop to all that as she did to almost everything - eventually also to her son's and her daughter's marriages - she shipped her to dad in Sierra Leone where we had met on her holiday from the FI a few weeks before.  He ran the local airline which was how I came to import the very, very best fresh fruit and veg from Poupart's in Covent Garden and have it on sale in Freetown by 5pm Friday - and we did very good business on Saturdays.  Pouparts supplied Harrod's and we (Unilever) also ran a gift exchange voucher scheme with Harrods.  An apparent cut above Lewis's in way out West Africa (ha, ha), but it was a dying trade, and I recommwnded closure though that was our first profitable year in 6.  We had a lot of big one-off sales, like recarpeting State House, exporting 60 S-L made dining suites to Nigeria, a windfall profit from  the Forcados River wreck, twice "Taking the Store to the Customer'' at the Yengema gold mine and the Sherbro aluminium mine, the Gbangbatok plantation celebration etc...all kinds of profitable sales promotion events including beauty competitions sponsored by competing cosmetics fouses.   It was mainly good fun, but the few low spots were bad, like my old C.O. from UN Cyprus ( a Peacekeeping Force) was imprisoned as the fall guy for the robbery of the weekly diamond mine shipment to London which went on the return trip of the Friday passenger (& fruit and veg) VC-10.  He was Brigadier (retd) Mike Harbottle and was at that time Chief Security Officer of the Diamond Mine... due to the State House job we'd recently done the local Gov Gen (Queeen's Rep in a Commonwealth country) was "well disposed" and it was arranged for him to be visited (but not by diplomats as that changes the rulesof the game very radically) and I dutifully entered his cell 3 times daily and we shared the food coffee, tea (and scotch) I brought, and kept the pot boiling until he was ''deported" but without "the stamp" in the passport.  He had a withered hand and one eye and of course had long been known as the one-eyed one armed bandit.. with his second wife and others, he became involved in the World Disarmament Campaign, was soon labelled a traitor ( yet another turncoat?)  he set up the International Centre for Peacebuilding was Vice-President of the United Nations Ass'n UK etc - the mainspring for all this activity was his experience as Chief of Staff at UN Cyprus.  Confirmation came when munching cold chicken one night in Padema Road Prison, Freetown (ironically enough).... the rest is history...just like Lewis's Brum and our place Kingsway, Freetown......and I went to Nigeria as Biafra was being killed off.

Ruthy

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Re: Lewis's
« Reply #79 on: August 10, 2009, 09:02:54 PM »
Worked in Lewis's in the early 70's my first job wanted to work in the make up department but must have been too ugly as they stuck me in the Toy depatrment but loved working in the book area


 

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