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Name: John Lake.
Comment: The first records I recall buying were from Saville's of Bruce Grove & Dancys of Fore Street, Edmonton: Johnny Mathis's Chances Are, Sister Rossetta Tharpe's When The Saints Come Marching In, and Ray Bush and The Avon Cities Skiffle Band's This Little Light Of Mine. This was about the mid-1950s.

Name: David Lawson.
Comment: Savilles were a chain of music shops in London. I’m not sure when they opened a shop in Ilford but they were there until the early 1970s as far as I can recall. The Ilford shop was quite large and had racks for browsing but even more interesting was they had proper listening booths. These had folding glass doors and you could sit on benches and listen to your request. I have a distinct recollection of being with a friend of mine having asked the assistant to play us The Doors' Strange Days. This was a shop that also sold some instruments and sheet music.
(21 April 2015)

"[Mike Donaghue] joined the small London-based chain of Saville Pianos in 1954, as a service engineer. The chain was taken over by EMI in the mid-‘60s to be absorbed into the label’s HMV retail group, by which time Donaghue was managing its Ilford branch."
- from Former HMV manager Mike Donaghue dies, Music Week, 7 April 2017

Roger Graham-Leigh

July 29 ·

Forgive the length of this post, which relates to records shops around Palmers Green in the 1950s. I originally posted it on my timeline in April 2020, deep in COVID lockdown when we all had lots of time stuck at home! Maybe Jennifer is in this group?!

What’s in the attic today?

Among the 78rpm records in our attic are half-a-dozen evocative and charming record sleeves I found years ago in a charity shop, when I lived in Palmers Green, north London. The teenage girl (Jennifer) who bought the records in 1957 and ’58 wrote on each sleeve a sort of diary entry capturing the moment she bought each record – here are photos of them. Unfortunately the sleeves didn’t contain the original records.

One of them (fifth photo, record 8 in her collection) uses language which was everyday and neutral then, but today would be considered offensive.

1st record, Knee Deep In The Blues – two versions released in 1957, by the American Guy Mitchell and our very own Tommy Steele. The Mitchell version was more successful, but Jennifer seems to have been a Tommy Steele fan so I reckon it was his version that she chose. This was Jennifer's very first record.

‘K&R’ refers to the record shop, Keating & Rumens, 334 Green Lanes N13 (also a branch at 4 Dennis Parade, Southgate N14). Long since gone.

2nd Butterfingers – Tommy Steele. Miss Garret, the ‘square’ who was listening to the Skye Boat Song, was presumably a teacher at Jennifer’s school. Many versions of the Skye Boat Song were released over the years, and there was no hit version until 1986, so it’s hard to say which version Miss Garret was enjoying.

Saville’s Pianos shop had branches in Wood Green and Enfield – my older brother remembers the Enfield shop.

3rd All Shook Up – Elvis Presley. This was Elvis’s 11th UK hit and first UK number 1. Carol and Jennifer sadly had had a row, but soon made up. There was a Boyds record shop in Bond Street in central London, but I can’t find any trace of a local record shop named Boydes or Boyds.

6th Handful of Songs – Tommy Steele. Double-A side with Water Water. A birthday present from Carol.

8th Bye Bye Love – Everly Brothers. Their first UK hit, number 6 in the charts. 'Loving You' was Elvis's first film in which he starred.

15th Nairobi – Tommy Steele. Reads: “My 15th record. The record was bought at Savilles on 9th April 1958. I bought it with the money Jan & Brian gave me for Easter. I wasn’t with Carol she went to buy some socks in ‘Marks’.”

The record in the sleeve in the picture is not the copy Jennifer bought.

I love Saville’s record sleeve design. Many retailers used their own record sleeves for advertising.

Thanks to the British Record Shop Archive and British Hit Singles edition 6 1987, Guinness Superlatives Ltd.


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Locations

11 Church Street EN2 6AF Enfield / London
240 Hoe Street E17 3AX Walthamstow / London
365 Holloway Road N7 0RN Holloway / London
20 Cranbrook Road IG1 4DL Ilford / Essex
142 High Road N22 6EB Wood Green / London
4 Bruce Grove N17 6RA Tottenham / London
22 & 24 High Street N16 7PL Stoke Newington / London
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