Leading Lighting Stores

Name: Brian Peters
Comment: When I started buying records at the age of 11, I used Cross Street, which was quite small, but stocked all the new releases, I remember getting Surrender by Elvis [Presley] the day it was released, it was still trading in 1968. I also used Leading Lighting in Chapel Market, and also a stall in Baron Street off the market run by a man called Will who got his stock from Albert Records on Holloway Road. I got some great soul records from him. He stopped trading in the early 1970s.

Leading Records at 75 Chapel Market. The shop was founded in 1913 by my grandfather, as well as records, it sold fittings for gas lighting and heating, and was known as The Leading Incandescent and Record Shop, the Incandescent part was later changed to Electric. We were one of the first retail customers of HMV Records with account No.13. My first memories are from when I was about six, when as well as records the shop sold radios and light fittings. I came into the shop when I was 16 in 1948, after leaving school. My father ran the shop then with my mother as cashier, and one assistant. We specialised im popular music ,78's of course, with very little classical trade, except Italian recordings for the local Italian population. We had a huge stock of 78's as my father could not say no to a customer.For instance at Christmas time we must have sold over 500 copies of Crosby singing White Christmas. We also still sold light fittings, light bulbs and batteries. We were among the top retailers of pop music, sending our chart listings every week. However when my father retired I dropped all these sidelines and became a 100% record shop. When Capitol Records started in the U.S. I imported some mainly jazz recordings, hoping to have a dedicated jazz section, but this never happened. Instead the arrival of West Indians to this country started us selling West Indian music, starting with calypso, and moving onto Blue Beat and Reggae. In fact this gradually increased and eventually took over from Popular music. Eventually the lifting of Retail price maintenance in 1976 was the end of us smaller record shops, as we could not compete with the multiples, with their price cutting. Our main rivals were a shop in Peckham and one in Walworth Road.