WHERE did you buy your first classical record/s?

[Petrushka]

Most of my earliest classical LPs came from WH Smith and Boots in Stafford or HMV in Derby 1971 onwards

Mention by Caliban of Boots in the Victoria Centre in Nottingham reminds me that I bought a CD from there just before they disappeared from Boots shelves for good.

[Tony Halstead]

Debenhams in Manchester.
They had a decent classical department and I had a Saturday job there,which was handy. (1973/4).

Oh dear I am now showing my ignorance of my 'home town' of Manchester from which I departed - 'for good' - in 1966....!
I had no idea that Manchester had 'sprouted' a Debenhams... is it still there ? as I will be visiting there next week to attend a 'reunion lunch' at the RNCM on Wednesday 25th June and it would be good to catch up on the various Mancunian 'changes and revisions'.
BTW - my 'Saturday job' was at the 'Avgarde Gallery' during approx 1959-1963 where my payment was very rarely 'in cash' but more usually in LPs from their hire library.

[Pianoman]

Graham Bennett's Classical Record Shop, when they were in Albion Street Leeds, Horenstein's mahler 4 on CFP (I think)

[antongould]

The ever resilient JG Windows in Newcastle upon Tyne. La Boheme with Pavarotti and Freni.

Where mine was also purchased - Best of Bach C/M For Pleasure!!!

[EdgeleyRob]

Oh dear I am now showing my ignorance of my 'home town' of Manchester from which I departed - 'for good' - in 1966....!
I had no idea that Manchester had 'sprouted' a Debenhams... is it still there ? as I will be visiting there next week to attend a 'reunion lunch' at the RNCM on Wednesday 25th June and it would be good to catch up on the various Mancunian 'changes and revisions'.
BTW - my 'Saturday job' was at the 'Avgarde Gallery' during approx 1959-1963 where my payment was very rarely 'in cash' but more usually in LPs from their hire library.

Yes it's still there,Market Street,opposite what was Lewis's (now Primark).
Debenhams may have been Pauldens in the mid 60s ?

[Roslynmuse]

My first records which I was at school were bought from Hickie's in Friar Street, Reading - it used to have a good selection of classical LPs with various bargain labels in special bins (MfP, Heliodor, Eclipse) and the main stock arranged by composer.

At university, it was the miraculous Gibb's Bookshop in Manchester. But that's another story.

I first went to Gibbs exactly 30 years ago today! I was paying a visit to a friend who was a student at UMIST and he left me there while he went off to sit an exam... I came out with a few scores and a secondhand LP of Heldenleben - Concertgebouw/Haitink (1971 Philips). Then I nipped up the road to the old Music Exchange Shop (there's a Wetherspoons on the site now, and Gibbs has been closed for more than ten years too).

My own first LPs were bought from the appropriately named Bargain Box Records in Wallasey - mostly selling budget labels or mid-price discs, with the occasional full-price Decca, EMI and DG LPs. I suspect my first purchase was Chopin - probably either Ashkenazy playing Chopin Ballades on SXL or Garrick Ohlssohn's 2 disc box of the Piano Concertos on EMI (£5.47 - not cheap in April 1976!)

[gurnemanz]

And long since gone from South(ish) Croydon, where I knew them.

Cloake's was definitely in the centre of Croydon quite near the Library (from which i remember borrowing Solti's Götterdämmering on LP). You may be thinking of the venerable Potter's Music Shop in South Croydon.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Swindell's electrical shop in Marple, near Stockport. The first one I actually paid for myself was highlight s from Swan Lake.

[Roslynmuse]

My first classical LP's came from the long-departed Rushworth & Draper, Whitechapel, Liverpool. Rushworth was a famous organ builder in the 19th Century - I think the Chester Cathedral organ is his best-known. The shop also sold musical instruments and sheet music as well as both classical and popular music on record. When I lived in Liverpool there were 3 record shops in neighbouring blocks of Whitechapel - Rushworth's, Beaver Radio (which also sold radios, TVs and record playing equipment) and NEMS of Beatles fame. All these have long gone. There have been other shops selling classical records/ CD's in Liverpool over the years, but on my last visit there was just HMV, now relocated (if it is still there given the company's problems) to the trendy Liverpool One shopping mall. Compared with HMV branches in other cities, the classical selection was meagre - and that in a city with a long-established professional symphony orchestra! Shops I have known in Manchester and Edinburgh listed in this thread have also closed and many of these closures predate the Amazon era!

I was a frequent visitor to Circle Records on Dale Street, and (for sheet music) Cranes Music on Hanover Street. As you say, nothing like that there now.

[EdgeleyRob]

I first went to Gibbs exactly 30 years ago today! I was paying a visit to a friend who was a student at UMIST and he left me there while he went off to sit an exam... I came out with a few scores and a secondhand LP of Heldenleben - Concertgebouw/Haitink (1971 Philips). Then I nipped up the road to the old Music Exchange Shop (there's a Wetherspoons on the site now, and Gibbs has been closed for more than ten years too).

My own first LPs were bought from the appropriately named Bargain Box Records in Wallasey - mostly selling budget labels or mid-price discs, with the occasional full-price Decca, EMI and DG LPs. I suspect my first purchase was Chopin - probably either Ashkenazy playing Chopin Ballades on SXL or Garrick Ohlssohn's 2 disc box of the Piano Concertos on EMI (£5.47 - not cheap in April 1976!)

Is it really 10 years,blimey.
I spent many lunchbreaks in that wonderful shop.

[Roslynmuse]

Is it really 10 years,blimey.
I spent many lunchbreaks in that wonderful shop.

Ditto...

In fact it was more than ten years ago, my last visit was Oct 2003 and the doors closed shortly afterwards. The premises became a Chinese cash and carry, not sure whether they're still in use; last time I went down Charlotte St it looked pretty run down.

[gurnemanz]

Ditto...

In fact it was more than ten years ago, my last visit was Oct 2003 and the doors closed shortly afterwards. The premises became a Chinese cash and carry, not sure whether they're still in use; last time I went down Charlotte St it looked pretty run down.

Charlotte Street always makes me think of Schmidt's - the only authentic German restaurant in London and long gone

[ostuni]

Vincent's, Needless Alley, Birmingham - the recipients of most of my birthday/pocket money in the late 60s/early 70s.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Woolworth's (and occasionally Boots) in Blackburn. "Real" record shops were three or four years away.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Debenhams may have been Pauldens in the mid 60s ?

Why yes. It was!