Shop owner reunited with Noddy sign after 38 years

Roger Salter's wife surprised him with a sign he had not seen for 38 years

A man who owned a toy shop has been reunited with the distinctive 'Noddy' sign that was above the door, 38 years after he sold the store.

Roger Salter's family owned the Phillips shop in Penzance, Cornwall for 95 years, and had the Noddy sign above the door from the late 1970s until it closed in 1987.

The sign ended up in a garage until an unnamed local man recently got in touch with Mr Salter's wife, who arranged to collect it.

Mr Salter said he was "blown away" when his wife gave it to him as a surprise.

Local children knew Phillips toy shop as "the Noddy shop" because of the sign

When the family sold the business, the sign and the frontage of the shop on Market Jew Street were taken down by the landlords.

Mr Salter said it was a "very sad time" but running the business was "getting very hard".

He recently posted a picture showing the old sign above the shop on a local Penzance nostalgia Facebook group, which generated a number of responses.

Among the responders was a neighbour, who realised the sign had been sitting in his shed gathering dust, and got in touch with Mrs Salter.

Mr Salter said: "I was out and my wife told me to go and have a look in the garage and I couldn't believe it when I saw it - I was blown away."

The shop originally sold prams but started selling toys in the 1940s

The shop was first run by Mr Salter's great-great grandfather in 1892 and initially sold prams and sewing machines before moving into toys after World War Two.

Mr Salter said: "The sign went up in the late 1970's and local people didn't call it Phillips , they called it the Noddy shop because of the sign."

He plans to hang the sign in his garage and said "when I'm gone it will be donated to a local museum".

The shop now sells mobile phones.