I arrived in London on British Airways from Newark, New Jersey via Cleveland, Ohio early in the morning of Jan 17th. I wanted to be there a few days early to familiarize myself with London since I had never been there before. I spent most of Sunday learning about the tube/underground which is really neat and state-of-the-art in terms of being on time all the time! :-) On Monday I set out to see "Big Ben" and the surroundings in Parliment Square and ate at "The Red Lion" pub which had delicious food!

Also stopped by a pub ran by Wendy's parents and visited by her as well. There is a plaque on the side of the building as seen here:

Tuesday, the day of the event, I arrived by train to Oxford Circus which is a few blocks from Selfridges. Since I was early, I spent some time walking around the area which has a whole variety of buildings. I saw Debenhams and Marks and Spencer-both not far from Selfridges.

I've never seen a department store as big as Selfridges-a whole block-wow! Everything all under one roof so to speak and really cool! :-) I think it would take at least 3-5 days to see everything there! I liked how they had the Men's Dept on one floor and the Ladies Dept on two!

On the outside was a window display about the event:

Sign by escalator to 3rd level:

There was a really nice turnout for the charity event and I was really pleased to see that. Most seem to be good friends of Wendy with a couple of fans like me among them.

We had a little wait due to the media doing their interviews and photography with the staff, but it was well worth the wait! The doors opened and we were in Grace Bros!

The first thing that caught my eye was the background scenery from the show that made the room seem very much like the set of AYBS. The display stands and the staff really added to the atmosphere of what the original set must have really been like.

I spent the first few minutes wandering around to get my bearings. There were a lot of people and it was fun watching the interactions between customers and staff. It was also fun taking pictures of the event as it unfolded. Hats, shoes, jewelry, purses and clothes were all on display and being snatched up quickly.

In the meantime I met Doremy Vernon (Canteen Manageress on AYBS), Fleur Bennett (Mavis from "Grace & Favour"/AYBS-Again!), Nicholas Smith (Mr Rumbold) as well as John Burns himself the organizer of this event. They were all a pleasure to meet and thanks to all of you for putting aside some time to chat and for pictures! The same goes to all the other staff members-some named and some not. :-)

I barely managed to get a collectible from Wendy since the collectible items were popular as well as the jewelry. It was a little challenge getting it home on the planes, but got a lot of smiles on the way back! :-)

Thanks everyone for putting together such a neat and unique event! If anyone that is pictured here that would like their name added, please feel free to contact me. Also, if anyone else attended this event and has pictures/info they would like to share let me know as well. Thanks!