Record and music shops in the city

RIP Jill Hanson

Your wife or her friend?

There was a record shop in the General Wolfe area, 1950's, was that Hansons? Remember an assistant worked there, name of Gwen? Remember sorting thru' loads of Parlophone records, looking for Humph's latest offering, I remember? Zzzzzz

The friend.

Keith, next time your wife talks to her friend, could she ask if her friend remembers a chap called Pete Star?

And Chick the DJ !

1981

Does anyone know what Jill Hanson's daughter Kit is doing these days?

I used to spend a lot of time but very little money in Jill Hansons prior to 71. Very lovely girls. I sold them some lovely little black dresses with lacey fronts, when I first ventured into the clothes business.

That must have been a record! Sorry!

I find it interesting that we keep seeing photographs of some the streets outside the 'precinct area' that appear to be filled with life and shops (Ford Street, Trinity Street, Gosford Street, etc). Nowadays there's virtually nothing on any of these streets, and some of them have completely gone. In most cities, outside the main business district there's usually a ring of businesses and leisure venues that cannot afford to be in the 'main drag'. Coventry appears to have lost all this when re-'planned' the city with the ring road. I think this is an important part of what makes a city, as well. If you don't have streets where people can set up businesses... what do you have? A decaying precinct and dual carriageway and large empty sites filled with cheap buildings and car parks.

Interesting how this thread has resurfaced apparently after more than year way down the list. I certainly remember buying sheet music at a shop down Far Gosford Street in the early 1960s. I had thought it was Paynes but looks more likely it was Cranes. I think Paynes did have a shop down that way, with TVs in it. Sure they sold records as well. I got most of my pop singles in the late 50s and early 60s from a hardware shop down Earlsdon Street. They sold everything from seed potatoes, tools, kitchen stuff to 6" nails. They had an island counter in the middle that sold records which could be played through a small speaker on request. Must have also sold radios as they had big posters outside between the upstairs windows advertising KB radios with the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary liners. The first record I bought there was "Hootsmon" on a 78, and the first 45 rpm single, Elvis Presley with "I got Stung", not one of my parents favourite records. I do remember the Payne family as the lived across the way from us in St Andrews Road. In the late 50s, they moved up market to a large semi-detached Edwardian house on the other side of the road. It had some grounds and several garages in which Mr Payne stored defunct TVs. These would be some of those iconic early TVs from the 1950s, and I remember him having a huge clearout a few years later. In the early 1960s, Mrs Payne led a campaign against the demolition of a grand Edwardian house round the corner at the junction of Beechwood Avenue and Rochester Road. It was unsuccessful and the site is now occupied by some flats, Beechwood Court I think it is. However, the Paynes had a change of heart in the early 1970s, and flogged their house along with their neighbours to a developer who built more flats called Lealholme Court or something like that. A few years ago the other four adjacent semi-detached houses (including the one we lived in) were knocked down for some retirement flats, so St Andrews Road has changed a lot, probably not for the better, since the Paynes made the first move. Sorry, this has gone a bit off topic!

Because this thread has expanded, the original title of "Record shop in the City Arcade, early 1980s" has been changed to encompass the more recent discussions

Correct me if I am wrong Rootes66 but in Cross Cheaping was there once a TV shop - Sutton & Jones also had a large painted sign of the Queen Liners, I do recall Dad bought our first Kolster Brand TV from there. I used to like opening the doors at the front ready for the evenings viewing. Don't remember any records being sold there though.

It was more Ironmonger Row, according to old photos Dreamtime, but on the corner with Cross Cheaping. Either Brown's Radio or Sparke's Electrical in Payne's Lane sold records. I don't remember which as the shop frontages were identical and only two doors apart. A friend bought The Beatles' "She Loves You" from there but when he got it home it turned out to be a cover version by an unknown group!