Skip to main content

Name: ligthninreed
Comment: I started off in Farmers in Luton - my first listen in their booths was to Steve Miller's Number 5. They soon faded in the 1970s though.

Comment: I loved the place when I was young, listening in the small booths.
(17 April 2014)

Name: Terry Sycamore.
Comment: I just Googled to see if I could find the name of the record shop where my friends and I used to hang out every Saturday in the 1960s and here it is! We would listen to records in the booths because we couldn't afford to buy them!
(12 August 2015)

Name: Jeanne Barker
Comment: Oh what wonderful memories, thanks Ron, like many, I spent many happy hours in here and listening in the booths! A fabulous shop!

Name: Jenny Hyde
Comment: Used to love listening to the latest records in the booths in our lunch hour to take home and play on my Dansette record player; it was red and cream. I also used to buy sheet music from there.

Name: Barrie Emmett
Comment: The shop was a magnet at weekends and after school and I bought my first Beatles and Rolling Stones records, in mono. Later bought the stereo versions and still have them sixty years on. They also sold sheet music and it was a Mecca for music lovers. Tragic to see yet another betting emporium.

Name: William Lupton
Comment: Teenagers flocked to hear all their favourite 45s in the booths located on the back wall. There were also the tea rooms above Farmers, with a separate entrance where black-clad maids with white aprons served the customers.

Name: Penelope Grippo
Comment: I loved Farmers . Every week my brother and I would go on the train to Luton, and go into a music booth in Farmers and listen to Buddy Holly. All the American music - Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison - and all the Merseybeat. They let us stay in the booth just listening to the 78s, it was the best store. My brother purchased all his Buddy Holly 78s there. He still has them today. He moved to Australia 60 years ago and he still has every single record Buddy Holly made. My brother was a Brown Eyed Handsome Man - still is.

Name: David Franks
Comment: The 'real' Farmers was an L-shaped shop round the sides of the tobacconists at the corner of Wellington and Upper George Streets. It had frontages in both streets and did not sell televisions. This photo is taken after they were bought out by Robinsons and were moved into the Arthur Day shop further up Upper George Street. Ceased to be a proper music shop and was just another electical retailer.

Name: Peter Brand
Comment: I used to go in there to listen to new chart release records in the mid /late 1960s in their record booths.


Comments

Dave Harwood
08 Oct 2023 at 01:07
I found an advert in the ‘Luton News & Bedfordshire Chronicle’ dated 21st January 1954:
“FARMERS for all your Records, Medium Play, Long Play, 45 r.p.m. and Standard 78 r.p.m. offer you a complete service – not only for all the popular discs but also those out-of-the-way foreign records like “The Happy Wanderer” Now on Sale at FARMERS LUTON'S MUSIC CENTRE Opposite the Town Hall.”

Details

Locations

15-17 Upper George Street LU1 Luton / Bedfordshire
2 Wellington Street LU1 5AF Luton / Bedfordshire
2 Church Street LU5 4RU Dunstable / Bedfordshire
... loading ...

Next in Bedfordshire: Soul Sense
Prev in Bedfordshire: Rumbelows (Bedfordshire)
A-Z prev: S. A. Moss Ltd.
A-Z next: S. Gold & Son