Some of you may remember that I wrote a murder mystery novel set in World War Two London. In fact, because I posted a lot of the book here, and many of you read it as I wrote it… (Okay, it was for that crazy NANO-write a whole freekin’ novel in one month thing, and I am never doing that again, let me tell you)… and in fact, I wrote about 11 or 12 of you in as characters in the book… and it is supposedly being edited by my head minion as we speak… (Trent, how is that going, by the way?)…
Anyway, my older daughter, Jessica, the one who compiles and sends my books in to be published, read the book. And she liked it. But she thinks I need to add a chapter where two of the main characters go on a date. And I chose Selfridges as the place where this date happened. So I felt sort of cool visiting the store in London.
You could say that these pictures are actually research for my novel. Selfridges was built by an American, whose name, strangely enough, was Harry Selfridge. The history of the store is fascinating. There is a great two-hour documentary about it. And there is even a series, made by the BBC, about the store. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but if you are at all interested, Google the store, or watch one of the shows.
The store is also famous for its window displays.
Obviously these pictures are not research for the novel. These displays were not there in the early 1940’s. Also, the windows were bricked over then.
That window is extra cool… because it has a reflection of me in it… and that guy in the yellow shirt is someone we know… but you will have to wait for the next post to learn all about our English cousins, who, you might recall, had gone to see Les Mis with us the night before, and spent most of this, our last full day in London, running around the city with us.
Mollie had wanted to go to Harrods, but I somehow talked her into going to see Selfridges instead, and we had food, and shopped and it was awesome.
I even asked the information desk if they had any wartime photos of the store, and the nice lady led me to an upper floor where there were lots of posters from those times. I felt like a real professional author on a real research trip.
Anyway, you should learn about the history of Selfridges.
And you should come back later and learn about our relatives from the other side of the pond.
Pouring My Art Out 
Harrods was my first job in London, but I wasn’t based in the store, I was out in the offices in the sticks. It was pretty cool, I used to pay accounts for the sports, furniture and pet departments. I had to raise debit notes for dead rabbits.
I also paid quite a bit of money for Al Fayed to have dolphins handpainted onto the tiles of his yacht bathroom. Sure you could have probably bought some factory made in a tile warehouse store
okay… that is sort of cool…
Dead rabbits don’t pay for themselves…
How cool! I’m putting this on my must-see list next time I’m in London.
Look in to the history of the store and the guy before you go.
I’ve caught a bit of the BBC series, but I’ll definitely look up the history too.
It didn’t end well for Mr. Selfridge.
This is a learning experience for me – great photos and history Art. Thank You.
If I make on person want to learn one thing… winning
Cool place to go on a date, absolutely trumps the place my Londoner took me for dinner.
yup… too bad the girl gets murdered later that night…
Seen the show. It is quite a story.
(Wish I could afford a return trip….or flat there for a while) Cool pix
glad you like them
Awesome. Love the checkered one.
It doesn’t look comfortable.
That’s what’s cool about it.
oh
Abstract
yup