To Have and to Hold by Anne Bennett

customer’s money, would be placed in a little metal canister that was somehow attached to wires crisscrossing the shop. It would swoop through the air to a cashier who was usually sitting up in a high glass-sided little office. She would then deal with the receipt and, if there was any change needed, put it in the canister and the process would be reversed.
    It was so entertaining, Carmel could have watched itall day. But Lois was impatient. ‘Come on, there is so much to see yet. Have you ever been in a lift?’
    No. Carmel had never been in a lift and when Lois had taken her up and down in one, wasn’t sure she wanted to go in again either.
    ‘I’ll stick with the stairs, thank you,’ she said.
    Lois grinned. ‘I’ll take you to some special stairs,’ she said, when they were in Marshall & Snelgrove. ‘See how you like them.’
    Carmel didn’t like them one bit. ‘They are moving.’
    ‘Of course they are.’ Lois said. ‘It’s called an escalator.’
    ‘How would you get on to it?’ Carmel said. ‘I prefer my stairs to be static.’
    ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ Lois demanded. ‘It’s easy, even children use them. Come on, follow me.’
    Carmel did, stepping onto the escalator gingerly and nearly losing her balance totally when the stair folded down beneath her foot. All the way to the next floor she didn’t feel safe, but still she felt proud of herself for actually doing it.
    ‘They have escalators in Lewis’s too, where Dad works. You remember me telling you?’ Lois asked. When Carmel nodded she added, ‘Well, that is where I am going to take you next.’
    Carmel thought Lewis’s at the top of Corporation Street a most unusual shop altogether. It appeared to be two shops on either side of a little cobbled street called The Minories, though Lois said they joined at the third floor.
    Carmel gazed upwards. ‘I can see they join somewhere.’
    ‘The fifth floor is the place to be,’ Lois said. ‘It’s full of toys.’
    ‘Toys?’
    ‘Yes, but toys like you have never seen. Before my mother took to lying on a couch all day long and moaning and groaning, she’d bring us to town sometimes and we always begged to go to the toy floor. I have to go again, if only to see if it has the same fascination now that I am an adult.’
    With a smile, Carmel agreed to go with Lois so that she could satisfy her curiosity, but she didn’t expect to be much interested herself. What an eye-opener she got.
    The first thing she saw were model trains running round the room, up hill and down dale, passing through countryside, under tunnels and stopping at little country stations where you could see the streets and houses and people. Then they would be off again, changing lines as the signals indicated.
    ‘It’s magical, isn’t it?’ Lois said at her side. ‘I used to watch it as long as I was allowed.’
    Carmel could only nod, understanding that perfectly.
    There were other toys too, of course, when Carmel was able to tear herself away—huge forts full of lead soldiers, or cowboys and Indians. There were also big garages with every toy car imaginable and a variety of car tracks for them to run along.
    Another section had soft-bodied dolls with china heads and all manner of clothes nice enough to put on a real-life baby, and the cots and prams and pushchairs you would hardly credit.
    ‘Did you have toys like these?’ Carmel asked Lois.
    ‘No,’ Lois said. ‘Our stuff was basic, nothing like these magnificent things.’
    Carmel wandered around the department, mesmerised. Teddy bears, rocking horses, hobby horses, spinning tops, skipping ropes with fancy handles, jack-in-the-boxes and kaleidoscopes were just some of the things she knew her little brothers and sisters would love. There were giant dolls’ houses, full of minute furniture and little people that would thrill the girls. And she so wished she could buy her brothers a proper football, for all they had to kick about were rags tied