Hello all,

Last night I spent a very enjoyable evening with the Current Mr Bell and Mother Bell at the Orchard Theatre watching “That’s Amore” - with the guy from the Rat Pack in Vegas playing Dean Martin, very enjoyable and very entertaining.

Whilst we were foot tapping along, Mr Martin began to sing “Sway” and I heard Mother Bell pipe up to The Current Mr Bell, “Oooo this was the first record that I ever bought” (Mother has been an avid Deano fan since she was 13).

This got me thinking about the thrill of on a Saturday, taking my hard earned pocket money up to the record shop in Trafalgar Road, Greenwich and buying a “single”.

Does anyone remember that shop? I remember the counter and then behind it was a labyrinth of cubby holes stocked with the precious singles. The disappointment when you went to buy No 5 in the charts only to find the cubby hole empty… (In later years it was trips to Lewisham to Our Price and HMV to buy picture discs and various coloured vinyls).

I was thinking of my early collection of singles, “Monster Mash”, “Ernie”, “The Ballroom Blitz” anything by Wizard, yes indeed I had very mixed tastes back then, but the first actual record that I can remember buying was “MY DING A LING” by Chuck Berry (hmm so my mum has Sway and I have that!!??) I must have only been about 4 at the time, and I obviously loved the song and I think I must have hounded my nan to take me to the shop to buy it.

So come on “Fess” up, what was the first record you can remember actually buying yourself? Some Friday fun!

Tinks

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