My memories of the shop 'Broadmeads' in the 1960's is that it mainly sold TV's, Radio-grams, Portable Record Players, Radios etc., these items were on the ground floor of the shop.
Upstairs, there was a large open space which was where they sold LP's, Ep's & singles. I bought several records from there in my youth, all singles & EP's. Mainly on Saturdays when I wasn't at work. Some of the records that I purchased there were by 'The Shadows', my favourite instrumental group.
My late mother bought an old radio-gram for me from a local neighbour when I was about 15 or 16 years old?, back in 1961/62. It had a dated turntable record deck built in and a really good 'Armstrong' radio, which had a green Cats Eye tuner as they were known. A clever bit of technology for the time, the illuminated green coloured Cat's Eye changed shape, & when you were tuned in correctly to a radio station it appeared very narrow, it went wider when not tuned in.
'Broadmeads' sold BSR turntables, one of which I purchased. My mother got a local neighbour to take the old turntable out of the radio-gram & put in the the new one. He charged for doing the work, it wasn't too costly. He actually had his own TV & Radio repair shop in Southampton Way, Peckham in those days, he had the same surname as a very famous manufacturer of TV's, Radios etc., which was Ferguson. He lived at home with his ageing parents & they owned a large old car which was probably made in the 1930's, & was one of the only cars in our street. It was very rare for anybody to own a car in those days, not like the times we live in now!!
I also remember a record outlet inside the large arcade in Rye Lane, the arcade still remains to this day, sadly not the same now!
In the late 1950's I purchased on record the song about 'Tom Dooley' by the late Lonnie Donegan & his Skiffle Group, it was from that record outlet in the arcade. It was a 78 speed record on vinyl, not the hardened shellac versions that were usually on sale. At the time it was a novelty to get a 78 speed disc on vinyl & we only had at the time an old wind-up gram-a-phone player at home which belonged to my late grand-parents, they lived downstairs & I lived upstairs with my mum, step-father & half sister. The record played quite well on the old gram-a-phone.
There was also Broadmeads at the back of Woolworth Brixton.
Gonzo-Geezer Aziz used to be Broadmeads electrical store in the 1950/1960s. Our mother bought our first television set, and record player there when we moved to Stockwell in 1957. I later bought my first 45s - 7" chart singles there, December 1961, blew all the money I had saved from my 13th birthday.........
Comment
I worked there in the 60s. Upstairs in the record shop but mainly downstairs selling TVs and Radios. My memories of the Blauepunkt Radiograms are still vivid...we used to sell a lot. I only worked Saturday.
Name
John Nutting
(2022)
