I grew up in Reading, and in the 70s there were loads of excellent record shops. Hickies in Friar Street was very old-fashioned, and was principally a seller of musical instruments, but they had a record department on the first floor which was really a balcony running around all four sides of the shop.
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Robert Goodchild
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Found this recently from sixties or seventies. Always bought my Jack Bruce, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Yardbirds and Groundhogs records from Hickies in the sixties and seventies.
great shop Bryan Adams bought his first guitar there his Dad was stationed some where near there and they lived in the Tilehurst area a bit of Trivia Regards G
I remember Hickies very well - I used to buy my piano music there when I was a girl ( I donโt play piano now 
). I walked in there recently - still smells the same 
!!
“HICKIE & HICKIE Ltd. 153, FRIAR STREET, READING. Telephone 1148. Entertainers, Player-Pianos, Pianos, Organs and all Musical Instruments, Sheet and Book Music. New February H.M.V. Zonophone and Cinch Records from 1/1 (double sided) to £1 each.”
then with Managing Director
James Mellor (J.M.) Elphick to
Boscombe Branch of Hickies. In
Boscombe Leonard met his future
wife Peggy and then returned to
Reading: at one stage Peggy was
County Librarian for Berkshire.
Always ready to serve, a lovely
moment on the shop floor was
when a customer asked for a
recording with too high an Opus
number. "Sir, that is not his
unfinished symphony, it is his
unstarted!".
stage James Elphick became Managing Director along with fellow
Director, his cousin John (Michael) Elphick who sadly passed away this year and supported Robert Elphick, James' father. By this stage Hickies Record Department formed an 'L' with the current main body (153 Friar Street) part of the trading premises. Leonard Heeks began to work part time with Kenneth Wyld and Betty Brown. Hickies Piano Workshop was in the old Courage Brewery Livery Stables in Livery Close (now flats) behind 21 South Street. Workshop Foreman was Malcolm Stowell with Barry Humphrys (French Polisher), Mark Werner (Technician). Former apprentices to Hickies who became self employed piano tuners included Andrew Sutton, Alan Score, Albert (Al) Curry.
Being in the Piano Van which was a Leyland Luton Daf at that stage you were christened "A Dumbo on the Van". But the conversation was not moronic, all topics from world peace, gynaecology to politics were discussed: putting the world to rights was the order of the day.
One piano collection which stands out, so to speak, was down a lovely long tree-lined lane in the Berkshire countryside.
We came to a gated community enjoying the June sunshine met by a gatekeeper bronzed under his 'T'-shirt and shorts.
A relative easy job of collecting an upright piano from a mobile home for sale with a very polite couple. Malcolm Stowell the workshop Foreman waited for the gate to open and then said in steady, ponderous tones: "Jonathan, there's a man in my exterior mirror, watering his flowers and all he is wearing is a pair of trainers and a cap".
In the distance we could see people playing tennis, but the sun was very bright.
Malcolm: "There's another one, he is only wearing a cap!", as he drew the van towards the gate.
The reason, we had just picked up a piano from a nudist colony!