I imagine that in the real thing,each passenger would have their own switches,but the crew have the override switch to maintain overall control?

Regards,
Nick.

Nick,

In the 707 the main cabin lighting consisted of indirect lighting along the wall called COVE lights. There were also dome lights in the ceiling down the middle of the cabin. These dome lights were on dimmers so on night flights the cabin lights could be lowered for people to sleep yet enough light was available to keep an eye on the cabin. The dome lights had a dark blue glow position with stars that shown. It looked like you were looking up through the ceiling at the sky.

http://www.adastron.com/707/qantas/707-138-cabin.htm

The passenger seat reading light was controlled by the passenger only. You could open the circuit breaker in the cockpit to turn off reading lights as well as all the other lights in case of electrical fire.

In later aircraft (747+) lighting control of all lights was moved to the cabin at the F/A stations. The F/As could turn on or off areas of lights including reading lights if desired. Cockpit override was still kept in the event of some problem.

Lou