Comments
Name: Janice
Comment: Sydney Scarborough in particular was where you could pick up those singles that came in paper and plastic rather than proper sleeves - such as the Soup Dragons and The Shop Assistants.
Name: Paul Wright
Downstairs at Sydney Scarborough's in Hull, is where I used to buy most of my records - including ordering Joy Division's Transmission, and the Human League's Being Boiled on the same day.
Name: Tracy Hart
Comment: I probably sold it chicky! Still miss it now, was a total legend of record stores. I was there from 1978 to 1989 and in Leeds for same company 1990 to 1992.
Name: Terry Allen
Comment: I worked in the service department in the basement. I was a apprentice, 17 years old in 1963, we started at 8:30 in the morning, had an hour dinner and finished at 6pm, had Thursday afternoon off half-day closing. Some of the people I worked with were Jeff Grassby, Alan Huwson, Ken Dixon, John Weight, Frank Arnold, Dennis Mitchell, and Will Appleyard. I married one of the office girls, Linda Warhurst in 1967. I am now 68. Happy Days.
Name: Varenka Allam
Comment: Worked here 1969 till 1975 then kept going back after having having kids. Still there when we closed down in 2000. Great memories, great people, many changes through the decades, very strict back in the day, Mr.John was always on the warpath. Woe betide if you were talking when he came down those stairs! Fantastic memories of this iconic place... Worked there from 1969, I remember Ken Dixon in the repairs department, Mrs. G & Mr. Arnold in the radio department, Alan Wilson, manager of the record department... Worked with Collette Jessop, Liz, Jeanie... The booths were great, always full, always playing the latest sounds.
(3 February 2017)
Name: Brian Collinson
Comment: I worked there in 1956. I remember Mr John who was a fearsome figure. Used to go to lunch with the lads from downstairs - names forgotten. My 'pash' was Sheila H. who was in charge of record sales. I remember some of the other names mentioned. The whole thing is somewhat reminiscent of Grace Brothers in Are You Being Served?. Great times, before I moved to Beverley with Sheila to work in a record shop there. Business failed and I left to join the Royal Navy. Now living in France aged 77.
(2018)
Name: Phred Goodhead
Comment: I worked at Syd's from 1976 to 1980 when I left to become manager of Fox's in Washington. Loved it there. Wish I had known about the exhibition sooner. I kept in touch with my co-worker Rene Tute until her death. I was in touch with her daughter Di but I lost her address. I think that she lives in Hessle. Can anyone help me find her?
(2020)
Name: Varenka Allam
Comment: I started here in 1969 and worked a few years in every decade until we had to close our doors in 2001.
In the early days we had five booths along the back wall with five record players on a shelf behind the counter, we put on whatever the customer wanted, again teenagers cramming in to listen. Booth 1 was used a lot by us, if there were no customers in, to play our favourite tunes.
Later on after Fox's Music took over in 1974, it was fully refurbished and made into a three-storey music centre. The booths were ripped out and the customers given headphones to listen to whatever they wanted.
We had a big exhibition in Hull's Year of Culture 2017, it ran for a month.
(2022)
Name: Trevor Tanton
Comment: My mother was Betty Scarborough, sister of the late Mr Scarborough.
(2022)
“TWELVE YEARS AGO there was opened at 12 Anlaby Road, Hull, a modest little shop for the sale of gramophones and records. Believing that Hull's music-lovers deserved wider musical facilities than were then available it was decided as a result of lengthy investigations to concentrate upon the presentation of the Columbia range of gramophones and records. The first week the takings were £15, but by the Christmas of that year (1915) the little business had become established as one of the most promising musical institutions of Hull. Through the various stages of Columbia development, the store of S.S. Hull kept pace with amazing progress. First the no-scratch Columbia records, then the wonderful Grafonola of 1923, followed by the Columbia Electric Recording triumph in 1925, and finally the now famous scientific gramophone, the VIVA-TONAL COLUMBIA of the present day. Many, many times was the little shop crowded out with enthusiastic music-lovers anxious to see and hear some new Columbia achievement - taking advantage of facilities which had not before been available. For that support we are grateful. For the kindly encouragement offered by our friends we are especially grateful. TO-DAY we offer Hull a wonderful new gramophone salon in a more central and convenient position UNDER THE CITY HALL, and to celebrate the occasion we use the individual name of SYDNEY SCARBOROUGH.”
… and this advert in the 'Hull Daily Mail' dated Tuesday 31st January 1939:
“RECORDS: HULL AUTOGRAPH OFFER opportunity for music lovers to have autographed records of Reginald Foort offered by Sydney Scarborough. Friday next, Reginald Foort will visit the showrooms under the City Hall. Hull, 3.30 p.m.”