Rhythm

Name: Wendy Carter
Comment: I worked in the Reigate branch from 1967 to probably 1968, we had fab record rooms (not booths) as we also sold stereo/hifi equipment. I used to spend many a happy lunchtime listening to The Doors and such like, although at the time I was also collecting Tamla

My boss was a Mr Jones and there was also a lady (name will not come to me at the moment) who worked with us all in one department. If we needed to put a phone call through to the hifi department upstairs we had a doll's eye switchboard! I bought my first stereo here, it was a Hacker Grenadier GP45 Record Player with SA45 stereo amplifier!
(23 June 2016)

Name: Graham Cross
Comment: I used to work in the record shop 'Rhythym Agencies' of Redhill (1961- 68, I started at 16 years old) as a musical instrument repairer and l also served in the radio & TV department whilst helping out in the downstairs Record part, more towards the end of the decade.

I was the tall one, dark brown hair - towards the end I had a gingery beard - and sometimes played the Hammond Organ in the window of TVs and guitars. I had a friend who worked round the corner in Currys who was an organist/keyboard player... Roy Lynes who went on to be the keyboards in The Status Quo!

I used to go to the Market Hall every Saturday to see bands... The Who... Hollies... Herman's Hermits and Twinkle!

I now live in Scotland and am just coming up to 62!!...Is there anyone there?!
(4 September 2021)

Name: Jan Canacott
Comment: This is a real trip down memory lane. My first job after leaving school was in the Art Shop at the top of Reigate High Steeet, I then left and worked in Rhythm record shop in Church Street, Reigate. An amazing job with Eric Jones as my boss and I remember a Dorothy Talman who taught me the job. I think it was around 1964/1965, we used to have deliveries of Beatles LPs, we never had time to put them away as everybody wanted a Beatles LP!

Next door was an amazing coffee shop that roasted coffee beans - probably why I now love coffee. Eric Hurst was the overall boss and I seem to remember that upstairs was where record players etc were sold and repairs carried out by somebody called Jim. I am now 72 but remember as if it was yesterday!
(25 October 2020)

Name: Marc Harding
Comment: I grew up in Reigate and worked at Rhythm on weekends - aged 16-18, in the early 1970s - I'm 63 now. My mum worked at the Reigate Galleries - and via the shops community found out that Eric Hurst needed a Saturday kid for the upstairs area... and I knew about hifi etc.

I would have chewed my arm off to do that, couldn't sing or play a note but loved rock music - Bowie, Zep, Genesis etc. I worked with David Acres, who was like a fun older brother to me, and a few times sold Pablo Jazz cassettes to a scruffy-looking André Previn. And I got all the latest LPs on release at a discount! Probably still the best job I ever had.

Name: ceejay7777
Comment: Well, well, well. I used to go into Rhythms regularly to play the Hammond organ in the upstairs showroom in the early 1960s. I remember on one occasion the organ I was playing picked up RF from a taxi outside in the street and blasted it through the speaker! I now live in Australia and the last time I was in Redhill was on a visit to the old home with my Australian wife in 1996.
(17 March 2015)

Name: David Acres
Comment: I worked at Rhythm Reigate in the HiFi department on the first floor, where we also sold prerecorded cassette tapes. Jim Rice was the repair man, and he also delivered most of the televisions. I occasionally delivered some of the hi-fi equipment. We sold Bang and Olufsen, Dynatron, Technics, Sonab speakers and Roberts Radios. Dynatron were all about the cabinets and Sonab and B&O were quality-end equipment. I worked with Marc Harding and also David Roe. They were fun times with little or no pressure on the selling side. I sold to Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Max and the Meteors from Australia - who had come over to England to 'make it big!' I also dealt with Bernie Winters, Max Bygraves, André Previn, Mia Farrow, Tommy Cooper and Freddie Jones, to name but a few. I now live in America and direct choirs.
Happy Days!
​(2022)