Bostock's

"When I was fifteen I got a job at a clothes shop in Bradford and on the market there used to be a market stall called Bostock’s, and they used to do 20 records for a quid, American imports, with no centres in. At this time I used to buy records, even if I didn’t know what they were. Bostock’shad a chain, one in Huddersfield, one in Leeds and they had a lot of US and Canadian cut-outs, so I started buying all the Four Tops, Smokey, and Stevie Wonder records that hadn’t come out over here. Anything, basically, on that label. Every Saturday for about a year I used to go to Bostock’s in my lunch hour, come back with a bag of 40 records, and my entertainment for that night was sitting down and playing the A and B-sides of these records and having my parents moan at me about saving money." - an extract from Ian Dewhirst's interview in DJ History.

Name: Carl
Comment: I was the very last customer at the Leeds store in the early nineties. I was buying a copy of Rush's Power Windows on cassette when the staff informed me of this. Sad to see the general decline of local record stores. Digital downloading & streaming is about the last punch in the guts for record shops but good to see that a certain class of consumer still values the joy of buying a physical format - long live the surviving stores.
(25 February 2014)

Comment: Paul Bostock, what a nice guy and a good friend of Geoffrey Ali who also passed away like Paul way too early. Jim Ali and Tom Skinner still miss and talk about Paul.
(24 October 2013)

Name: Jonathan Bostock
Comment: That was my uncle's chain of shops, we called him Gerry. He and his son, Paul started it off in Bradford.
(15 February 2013)

Name: Kendo Nagasaki
Comment: The Leeds branch was in the Merrion Centre, just opposite the infamous 'Phono' nightclub/dive. It ran up until the early 1990s. They stocked a lot of rubbish but it was well worth a visit as you could come across some real gems!
(25 January 2013)

Name: Fan
Comment: RIP Paul Bostock - A light that went out far too early.
(12 July 2012)

Name: John Bairstow
Comment: I was manager of the shop at the time it closed. By then it was a subsidiary of a London company, Dynamite Records. The owners name was Marc Fisher. Unfortunately they decided to launch their own label of cds, albums and cassettes but they didnt take off and their subsequent outlay on tv advertising meant the end for the once popular chain. Happy memories though :-)
(8 June 2015)

Name: Gary Shaw
Comment: I used to visit the Bradford one at John Street every Saturday morning, I picked up a lot of ELO imports as well as Queen. (19 May 2017)

Name: Jake Briggs
Comment: My grandad (Paul) and my great-grandad (Gerry) owned this company.
(2018)

Name: Steve Dixon
Comment: I used to make a beeline for Bostock's in the Merrion Centre during what must have been the late 1970s. It was exciting to look for cheap singles and I remember buying a cheap copy of ELO's seminal Out of the Blue double album on vinyl there. The album sleeve had been notched which I now read was a way of marking overstock/non-return/heavily discounted records. Still played great though. I still miss that bargain-hunting excitement.
(2018)

Name: Mark Connors
Comment: As a record-buying 12-year-old, Bostock's a was life-saver for a budding record collector. They had a great selection of older classic rock and metal albums, between £1.99 and £3.99. I bought one most weeks. I liked the shop so much, I ended up working there some six years later. I managed the Bradford Market Stall at 18 but got tired of working on my own so transferred to the Leeds shop to work with John, mentioned above, Sharon and Amanda, who became close friends. Fond memories indeed, apart from the bloody musical flying machine in the glass case that did its thing, on the hour, every hour. I was promoted to run the Shipley shop and worked there until the summer of 1991.
(2020)

Name: Peter Haigh
Comment: I remember Bostock's and getting 40 records for £1. I sold one of them recently for £25 on eBay.