Callers was established in 1897 by Roy and Ian Caller, initially as cabinet makers. It's main furniture store was located on Northumberland Street in Newcastle, with other branches around the North East. Callers was well known for it's festive Christmas displays; unfortunately, some mechanical characters in the display caught fire on the 30th of November 1969. This resulted in one of the worst fires Newcastle City Centre had seen for decades, causing £2m worth of damage. Whilst the store was rebuilt at the same location, Callers traded from Saville Row and Prudhoe Street in Newcastle. The new building on Northumberland Street opened in 1971. In 1972 Callers paid for a 4m high stainless steel four-sided clock tower on Northumberland Street, as a gift to the City to Celebrate the company's 75th Anniversary. Callers ceased trading in the 1980s.
The top floor of Callers furniture store, roughly situated where HMV has just moved from on Northumberland St was a record store in the 70s/80s run by Tony Bromwich who founded Hitsville. Comment: Marek.
1979, I was 13: so far I had dabbled with buying a few singles, but now it was time to get serious… I wanted to buy albums! ‘Plastic Letters’ by Blondie and ‘Armed Forces’ by Elvis Costello & The Attractions. I looked in all the shops to find the cheapest copies… Callers for Blondie and Windows for Costello. I would love these records and play them repeatedly and soon started shopping around to buy the bands’ earlier releases.
FROM THE CALLERS "NEW 1971 SHOP" PHOTOS ALBUM, click this LINK - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/... - this is an Interior view of the 1971 Store showing the Record Department (posted by Tom Land & Ian Caller)
... and this piece in the 22nd October 1978 edition: “GEORDIE comedian, Bobby Thompson, 70, has knocked heart-throb John Travolta from the North's top pop slot - no joking! The Grease soundtrack album has slipped to number two in the charts, and in its place is The Little Waster's first LP. Thousands of copies have been changing hands across record shop counters between Alnwick and North Yorkshire in the last few days. Such was the demand that shops ran out of stocks earlier this week. Many of them had underestimated the likely sales and had to re-order in a hurry, said Dave Wood, who runs the Impulse recording studios in Wallsend, who made the album for Newcastle record label, Rubber. Windows record store in Newcastle reported sales of 300 albums over a four-day period compared with 150 copies of the next biggest seller, Grease - even though the store was running a special cut-price offer on the John Travolta record. Callers' record department manager, Tony Bromwick said: The Little Waster is outselling any other LP by about three to one. People have been waiting 20 years for this record. The album is an hour-long live recording of Bobby in action, including his famous Army routine and other favourites like the usual chat about his wife.”
... also this piece in the 4th July 1981 edition:
“KIKI DEE will be appearing at Callers Record Shop in Newcastle on Tuesday at 12.30 p.m. to sign autographs.”