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Old 18th Feb 2013, 6:46 pm   #81
Sean Williams
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Default Re: Bygone radio traders

In my memory there was only one at the lower end of Bancroft - will do a spot of digging - a lot of the family are Hitchin born and bred....

Other TV shop in Hitchin (stil going) is Orchard Television. We also have David Orton (audiophoolia) and we used to have the panasonic shop
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Old 18th Feb 2013, 6:50 pm   #82
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Default Re: Bygone radio traders

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Hi. Other bygone shops in Leeds City Centre included Newmart Electronics
Amazing, I'd completely forgotten about Newmart ! Didn't go in much but I do remember it. Did they keep valves because I'm sure I bought some there for a Rogers Cadet once?
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Old 18th Feb 2013, 9:00 pm   #83
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Seeing all of these posts reminded me of Tinys Radio on Dalston Lane, Hackney, London. The shop closed in the early 1980s . Bought a few Gov surplus bits and pieces from there.

Anyone remember the shop?

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Old 18th Feb 2013, 9:16 pm   #84
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In Harrow there was Odeon Radio.
Useful if one wanted the odd part without going to Lisle St or Tottenham Court Road / Edgeware Road.
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Old 18th Feb 2013, 9:38 pm   #85
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I lived near Staines in the 50s/60s and used to buy old radios from jumble sales for a few pennies. They were mostly non workers so I would remove the valves and take them to "Johnson and Clarkes" department store in the high street, they had a valve tester that used a series of punched cards which I found facinating. There was also "Haynes Radio" in church street run by a very nice chap who would help me with some repairs and sell me the parts very cheaply, I would have been in my very early teens at the time.
Does anyone remember either of these?

Don.
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Old 18th Feb 2013, 10:43 pm   #86
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Default Re: Bygone radio traders

Newmart?

I'm not sure whether the name rings a bell, but I remember a place opposite Leeds Corn Exchange which had loudspeaker drivers in the window.

There was also a second place run by the guy who had M&B, I think it wasn't far away, just South of the river... Bridge End?? Had a google around, the shop has a sign "Alia" if I've got the right one.

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Old 18th Feb 2013, 11:05 pm   #87
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Can't remember Newmart, but there were two shops around Bridge End/Meadow Lane.
I bought things in both, but I can't remember names.
There was also one up a side road next to the Town Hall.
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Old 18th Feb 2013, 11:24 pm   #88
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"Up the side road next to the Town Hall" was George Blakey's on Cookridge Street. The 2 shops in the Meadow Lane area were Malvern TV (which had a close association with M&B) and Mac O' Morley's. The nearest you'll get to them now on 'google' is the Red Lion Pub. Malvern was on the RHS viewing pub from the road, Mac's on the left and M&B's warehouse was, sort of, behind the pub. See earlier posts for George Blakey...
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Old 18th Feb 2013, 11:39 pm   #89
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Default Re: Bygone radio traders

Thanks, Nick.
I'd forgotten the name. Malvern TV was in the shop now "Alia" kebabs on the very end of bridgend where it joins meadow lane, right by the red lion. At least the building's still there. Back in the early 70's M&B had the guy in the white lab coat... Tom Stafford? minding the main shop, while the two that seemed to own M&B's were usually hanging out at Malvern TV.

They certainly seemed to be able to source a lot of interesting gear.

Because of this thread, I had a look around a few websites and spotted an HP spectrum analyser at Stewart of Reading. The boss's been looking for another one of those, so one of the few remaining interesting shops got a bit of extra business...

David
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Old 18th Feb 2013, 11:41 pm   #90
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Default Re: Bygone radio traders

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In my memory there was only one at the lower end of Bancroft - will do a spot of digging - a lot of the family are Hitchin born and bred....
Just spoken to a mate who lived in Letchworth, and he says the other branch was in Nightingale Road, and the shop was on a corner

Barry
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Old 19th Feb 2013, 3:03 pm   #91
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Hi. I am not sure if Newmart in Leeds sold valves.
I have also other memories of radio component shops in Ipswich, Suffolk in the 1980's, Eagle Street Electronics/Suffolk Sound Systems at Felixstowe Road, also a shop at Norwich Road (can not remember what the shop was called). There was also a useful shop at Spring Road that sold components, and a repair shop called Adams Audio (near the junction of Cauldwell Hall Road), that also proved to be useful with spares. I moved back to Suffolk in the 1980's, and lived for a while near Saxmundham, where I did some collecting and restoration work there until 1988.
I found that Mr.Burcher at the Eagle Street shop, later moved to Felixstowe Road, had the best shop I have visited, it was like an "Alladin's Cave", full of valves, etc. He was really helpful!!
Cheers
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Old 19th Feb 2013, 5:48 pm   #92
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Super thread, this.

In Kidderminster there was a radio/TV shop called The Butts Depot, which had been a car dealership then a wireless shop since the 1930s. It was taken over in 1955 by John Derricutt, who is still with us, and traded until the building was compulsorily purchased and demolished in the 1980s to make way for the Park Butts Ringway.

John is a great bloke and I regularly used to pop into the shop for a chat and order the odd component, which John would get in for me from RS. On occasion, I used to get my wife to go in and collect the parts - she hated it in there! John's sister worked behind the counter and sold everything from a card of fuse wire or a light bulb to a new colour TV. They also had a lot of sets out on rental. John also did TV repairs at the nearby hospital where I worked, which is how I got to know him. He was very laid back, and had a lovely catchphrase: "It's a 'ard life, innit Phil?"

One day shortly before the place was demolished, John showed me round all three floors, with endless rooms full of mouthwatering junk, old chassis, TVs and radios, which I guess all went in the skip at the end.

A nice conclusion to this story is that a few years ago I was given a pre-war Bush radio, together with the original receipt from 1938 - sold by The Butts Depot!
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Old 19th Feb 2013, 6:10 pm   #93
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Yes it's sad to recall the shops which closed down and the stuff which would end up in the skip. Frank Gough, an old friend & mentor, ran a Pye dealership in the post war era up to the start of colour when he decided he'd go into 'bric a brac' and just do kettle & iron repairs and sell batteries & bulbs. He carried on into his 80s, suddenly fell ill, died, and within weeks some 'fly by night' cheap furniture place had moved in & skipped everything. By the time I'd heard what happened and got there it had all gone. Why on earth don't the estate agents or whoever 'pass the word on' - they'd get most of the place 'cleaned out' for nothing. I shudder to think what went: 'pickwick candle' lamps, endless kettle elements, 5 & 15A plugs& skts, those weird lightbulbs which had 2pins at the base like a 2 pin 5A plug (what on earth were they for ?). One good thing, when he finally stopped servicing TVs in the 1970s he gave me most of his manuals so, thankfully, at least some of them survive.
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Old 19th Feb 2013, 7:10 pm   #94
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Default Re: Bygone radio traders

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I remember Mazel radio Manchester in my youth sadly now gone
Oh, I remember Mazel's very well, got a load of stuff from there when I was in schoolboy bands and the like. Seem to remember he had an excellent stock of valves but (to me at least) didn't come over as the friendliest of persons.
I looked at the landscape next to Picadilly station recently but couldn't discern where Mazel's used to stand.

There was a whole load of electrical bits shops on Shudehill too in those days and I also remember being a regular at a surplus place across the road from the top end of Tib street... Was it 'New Cross Radio'?


Crikey - I was young then!!!

Cheers,
Steve.
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Old 19th Feb 2013, 8:37 pm   #95
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I remember that in Hurst street, Birmingham, back in the late 70’s there were radio shops all down that road, mainly Army Surplus equipment, and one particular shop down there springs to mind which was ‘Laskey’s’.
I remember Norman H Field and Laskey's on Hurst Street, and the other shops but not their names. I was introduced to the delights of Hurst Street by a junior school pal who'd gone to a different school from me after the 11-plus and whom I met quite by accident a few years later on a bus in Brum and discovered that we had a mutual hobby. This set us up for exciting foraging trips all over the town and other adventures.

Before then I'd got all my bits and bobs from Chas. H. ("Charlie") Young's (G2AK) on Corporation Street.

My pal then told me about shops in the Alum Rock district because he had relatives over there and so we took a No. 55 (?) bus to this foreign and forbidding land. I remember him telling me to expect to see policemen on the beat in pairs every few hundred yards - and he wasn't wrong! There were several shops selling components, etc., and a large ham radio showroom - Amateur Electronics - which I think was owned by G3FIK. My brand new Trio JR-310 came from there one Christmas and it is sitting on a shelf about six feet from where I am typing this! (My father is dead but I now know how much he was earning at the time and realise what a sacrifice it was to shell out for this set.)

AH Thacker - I remember it well! Even in the early 1970s Cheslyn Hay seemed to be a derelict sort of place that time had forgotten and Thacker's seemed to be a sprawling military and electronics junk yard. I pursuaded dad to drive me up there and I bought a 30 ft aerial system made of three foot screw in sections with a tank whip to go on top. It was a disaster. Within days of erection we had rain and a gale - the tank whip acted as a massive lever, all the guy ropes stretched in the wet and the mast bent horribly becoming a twisted and tangled wreck. I found a few of the remaining reasonably straight sections not so very long ago.

There were component shops all over the place. I remember one in Halesowen, opposite the Lyttleton Cinema, and there were a string of shops called WMEC where consumer goods and parts could be had. One WMEC survives in Blackheath, and then there is Felton's in Smethwick which is still there!
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Old 19th Feb 2013, 9:01 pm   #96
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Anyone remember Ben Salmon Radio in Romford Rd Manor Park and also Duke & Co also in Romford Rd Manor Park.

Ben Salmon always had loudspeakers of all shapes and sizes.

Dave
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Old 19th Feb 2013, 9:20 pm   #97
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Default Re: Bygone radio traders

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Originally Posted by telstar View Post
I have also other memories of radio component shops in Ipswich, Suffolk in the 1980's, Eagle Street Electronics/Suffolk Sound Systems at Felixstowe Road, also a shop at Norwich Road (can not remember what the shop was called).
I found that Mr.Burcher at the Eagle Street shop, later moved to Felixstowe Road, had the best shop I have visited, it was like an "Alladin's Cave", full of valves, etc. He was really helpful!!
Mike, the shop in Norwich Road was "Wakelins Wireless", I spent a lot of my pocket money there. Getting on the train in Woodbridge (1/- return to Ipswich in the 60s) and walking from the station (a couple of miles) most saturdays.
Mr Burcher's shop was a tool hire place last time I passed, and what was Wakelins is in a row of takaways.
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Old 19th Feb 2013, 9:22 pm   #98
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Just spoken to a mate who lived in Letchworth, and he says the other branch was in Nightingale Road, and the shop was on a corner
That would now be Orchard Television, I guess - it is still there to this day, and visible on google maps

Im not sure it was ever Logans, but I guess it is possible - sadly the owner of Orchard TV is a grumpy old sort and has little time or interest in old stuff (despite easily being of an age where he would have seen most of it)

I wonder if anyone here has ever dealt with a company that used to trade as "Technical Surplus", or Crawshay Engineering? both based in Arlesey Bedfordshire

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Old 19th Feb 2013, 9:54 pm   #99
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Default Re: Bygone radio traders

Alan Stepney recalls Odeon Radio opposite Roxborough bridge off College Road in Harrow. When I was 13 - 14, 1960 or so this was the only place local to Bushey where we lived that sold components. My Dad was shocked at the cost of an 1T4 valve I needed to make one of F.J. Camms confections, 15/6d if I remember correctly. Poor old bloke was only earning £12 a week potting transformers at GEC's research place at the Grove in Stanmore, with the other bits I hit him for it was a big bit of the family budget.

Just as well I messed about with making stuff, it got me a job as a trainee wireman at the same place Dad worked after I left school in 1962.
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Old 19th Feb 2013, 10:08 pm   #100
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Sean, As soon as i started to google map, I saw something that rung a very loud bell - Grove Road! Pretty sure Logan's other shop was up there somewhere on a corner on the left going from Nightingale Rd.

Barry
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