Once again it is the time of the month that the generous sellers on ebid.net are taking part in their charity auction. As usual I have listed some items. I am supporting the nominated charity Breast Cancer Care and NoRSACA.

To support Breast Cancer Care click on pic above and make a bid.

To suppost NoRSACA click on the bus above

I have other items listed for both charities so please feel free to bid and help me support two very worthy charities.

Watched a really good program on the TV last Friday, BBC Four, "Pop charts Britania : 60 years of the top 10"

Not sure how long the link will work, so if you missed it watch soon. It brought back lots of memories of working at Prides and later in my own store Diskits. It was followed by another great program "Sound it out" a film about an independent record store of the same name in Stockton-on-Tees. I watched it with my wife Jenny and she commented, it's just as untidy as your shop was!! My comment was, it's not untidy, that's what a good record store looks like, make the customers search for those bargains and rare treats. Too organised and people miss seeing little gems.

The range of customers were as varied and wonderful as those we had pass through our door. Asking for the bizarre and the obscure. As with us at Diskits everything asked for was greeted with if we haven't got it we'll do our best to. 

Going back to Prides, I remember the first Christmas that the Grimsby store opened a little old grannie coming in with a piece of paper and asking if we had the latest Jet Throttle record. Looking slightly puzzled the staff asked to look at the piece of paper, it said, "latest Jethro Tull LP please grandma"

Some days we got asked for things that the person asking didn't know the song title, the artist and couldn't even remember what it sounded like, but were a bit annoyed that we didn't either !! It became a bit like twenty questions, until somehow one of us worked it out. 

This must be a good time to thank my team at Diskits for all the great work they did over the nearly 19 years we were open. Vicki, who was my first employee, started as a Saturday girl while we were still in The Trading Post market, and started full time on leaving school at the time we decide to move across the road into number 7.

A couple of pictures of the Trading Post stall.

Every bit of space was taken up, Saturdays were great, when it got busy not much space to move, but no seemed to mind.

A rarity, a sunny day in Sutton !!!

Once we moved into the shop we needed extra help and Mark started coming in on Saturdays, after he had previously done his work experience with us. What an experience working with a couple of loonies like us !! He soon fitted in and sad to say for him, became just as daft as we were.  Fairly soon after this we needed another full time member of staf and after interviewing dozens of applicants, this quiet long haired young man arrived one Saturday morning asking if the job had gone yet. I said no, would you like an interview, and the rest as they say is history. We had found our missing link KP, Kim. 

It's funny how when you hear a tune or song what memories are triggered. Only the other day I heard on the radio Lee Marvin's "Wanderin' star" and was instantly reminded of a scout camp on the Isle of Wight, sitting on a cliff top looking out to sea whilst listening to a tiny pocket radio. As a scout group we had a couple of great camps on the island and some great laughs. On the pier at Ventnor when me and my mate John singing "Whispering Grass" wearing daft straw hats, and getting a great round of applause from the crowd of old folk watching !! This sadly became our party piece for several years after.

The late seventies and early eighties were a great time for parties. Large amounts of alcohol was consumed and lots of loud music listened to. Many a party at the Cator Hall in Eakring were enjoyed. One great favorite of the time was Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird"

As a DJ at the time it was great to see fifty or so drunken folk all in a mass dancing and sing along to this and many other great tracks. Other favorites were Bob Marley's "Jamming", Eddie and The Hot Rods "Do anything you wanna do" and pretty much anything by Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Stones and Black Sabbath.

More often than not after these sessions a bunch of us would move on to somebody's house and party on for many more hours crashing were we could.

By this time I was working in a record store "Prides" in Newark. While working at Wakefield's as manager in Newark I used to go to "Norman Prides" record shop on Appleton Gate and also another shop on the Market Place, that sadly I can no longer remember the name of. Anyway after going down to Norman's shop for a good while buying the odd single, (he catered for more middle of the road buyers), one day a young couple appeared behind the counter and more current new releases also appeared. This meant more visits, and more money spent. I soon got to know the couple well, Mario and Lynne. Fairly soon they told me they were moving into new premises in the new shopping centre being built and were looking for someone to join them., would I be interested? At first I said no, I was earning good money as a manager at Wakefield's and was happy there. Mario pretty much each time I visited asked the same question. After a while I said let's talk money and details and eventually began working at the now renamed "Pride Records and Tapes" in the new shop. Thus began just over eight great years, gaining a huge knowledge of the music scene. Meeting various record company reps, each a character in their own right, many who I would know for years to come. Mario and Lynne were great people to work for and very soon had four shops, Newark, Lincoln, Grimsby and Grantham. At this time I spent most of my time going around each store as a kind of area manager, all the time picking up more knowledge of past and current music. If you wanted to learn about the pop music industry working in an independent record store was the place to be.

This was at the time of the early independent record label boom. Rough Trade records being the main one followed by Beggar's Banquet. I can remember ordering the first Tubeway Army LP on Blue vinyl and Stiff Little Fingers "Inflammable Material" album.

    

A day to remember.

Here are a few songs that will help.

 Eric Bogle "No man's land"

  Eric Bogle "And the band played Waltzing Matilda"

  Mary Black "My youngest son came home today"

This last song was also written by Eric Bogle, but as Eric himself has said, Mary Black's version is all the better for coming from the point of view of a mother.

Let us remember all of the casualties of war, whatever their nationality or religion, may those who gave up their lives rest in peace, and those who have suffered horrendous injuries may their lives improve with time. Wear your poppy with pride.

Just a bot of promotion for a very worth while charity

NORSACA

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Yes £500 cash!– That’s the first prize up for grabs this year in NORSACA's Christmas Prize Draw; the second prize is£100and the third prize is£50. In addition there are many other prizes kindly donated by local businesses and individuals.

Just been sent a link to a very talented young "Mansfield" guitarist Liam Johnson.

Take a look at his video's on you tube.

As previously mentioned in an earlier post my first job was working at Wakefield's Army Stores on Westgate in Mansfield. I started as a junior and among the many jobs I had to do was sort through bags of used army boots, matching them into pairs and then polishing them ready to be sold. Also at stock taking I remember having to count shoe-laces and tins of ex-army dubbin. Another job was to un-pick ex-army string vests, to make balls of string. We could double the profit by doing this, two balls of string sold for more than one vest! 

Not only did I work with my friend Mark's mum, but a really great bunch of ladies and our very camp manager Mr. Crookes. He was the first openly gay man that I had ever known (what a sheltered life we led back then). He was a great man who had a tremendous sense of humour and would try to make various members of staff laugh while serving unsuspecting customers by popping up from behind the counter opposite, usually wearing some daft hat or other. Also the first Christmas working there I was treated to lots of leg pulling by the ladies and at lunch time on Christmas Eve large amounts of lager.  I remember that at one point during the afternoon Mr. Crookes singing and dancing on the stairs to the upper floor "I'll build a stairway to paradise" from "American in Paris"

This was also the day that Mark's mum and dad deposited me on my doorstep and after knocking on the door quickly drove away laughing. Let's just say mum & dad were not best pleased !!

After working at the Westgate branch, I spent sometime at the depot on Kirkby Folly Road in Sutton helping sort out the Ex-Government supplies store, which was basically a large barn stacked floor to ceiling with boxes, bales and crates of all kinds of wonderful items. Everything from bars of soap to huge size 24 commando boots. These would have fit Herman Munster no problem and not many others. Also ex RAF plimsolls also in extreme sizes. Metal shaving mirrors, sewing kits and Ex-Canadian Army signal tents.

After this I did a spell helping the window dresser Mr. Brookes who was a huge Shirley Bassey fan and took his portable tape player and a selection of Shirley tapes wherever we went. This along with the fact he was pretty much a chain smoker led to some interesting incidents. Let's just say it was always a good idea to have a fire extinguisher near by.

It was not long before I started doing relief management at local branches, covering holidays and sickness. I have fond memories of working at Sutton in the Idelwells shop and the tiny store at Kirkby. Whilst at Kirkby I spent most of my time and a good amount of my money at Norman Daines shop just down the road. A strange little shop that sold most things, they always had a good record selection and it made up for not getting into Syd Booths. All this time we kept doing the discos in Bilsthorpe and I was building up a bloody great collection of singles. So much so that most weeks I could say I had pretty much all of that weeks top 40 singles.

Eventually I was offered a promotion as manager of the Newark branch and it was time to say goodbye to Mansfield. Looking back this was one of the best moves I made. More of which will follow.

But let's have a few tunes from those days at Mansfield.

          

      

So it's almost sixty years since the U.K. singles chart started, and the scary thing is I've been living for fifty eight of those. The first U.K. singles chart was in 1952 was published in The New Musical Express from a collection of fifty two record stores who divulged their sales that were collated by Percy Dickens and published on November 14. The "first" number one being Al Martino's "Here in my heart"

Since then there has been over 1'200 number one singles, taking us from the days of the 78rpm, 45rpm, cassette, & CD singles to the present day when downloads provide the bulk of sales.

Lots of us can say what the number one was when they were born, for me it was David Whitfield's "Cara Mia" that was just ending a ten week stay at the top. The fifties and indeed the very early sixties was still the age of the great ballad singers, as most records were still being purchased by moms & dads.

The official charts company to celebrate sixty years have compiled an official list of the million selling singles since the charts began. To take a look click here

Just been listening to some classic soul, r'n'b, from the sixties. 
Eddie Floyd "Knock on wood", 

Wilson Pickett "In the midnight hour", 

Booker T "Green onions" 

and a few more. Got me back to the youth club days in Bilsthorpe. This would be were I first heard these tunes along with earl reggae and Bluebeat tracks. Stuff like Roland Alphonso "Phoenix City", Prince Buster "Al Capone", all great stuff. I was hooked pretty much straight away. I was soon looking out for new tracks to spend my spare money on. Then along came all the Harry J and Trojan tracks, all though it became more commercial sounding, it was still pretty good stuf to listen to, and through into the seventies Trojan put out some great tracks.

Among my favourites was Dandy Livingstone "Suzanne beware of the devil"


This was a track I played many many times at the Friday night disco's. The seventies, looking back really did have a lot of great and varied music. Beside the continuing growth of reggae and soul and Motown, there was the Glam Rock and Heavy rock scene. All got played and everyone seemed to like pretty much all of it.

To finish off today's entry, just one more piece of classic early reggae from the mighty Dave & Ansell Collins "Double Barrel"