WRITTEN BY ALAN STANDING
It is time to move on. We are now at the end of the Bishopric. Crossing the road to West Street, the town’s main shopping street, we find ourselves immediately in Tansley & Cooke. This was another dual purpose store. Electrical goods downstairs. Upstairs to the record department with racks of albums, singles by the counter and listening booths. We must have gone through a timeshift to 1973 because the walls are festooned with the sleeves and posters for the Beatles 1962 – 66 and 1967 – 70 (Red & Blue) compilations and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I think I mostly bought singles in Tansley & Cooke, one of which I believe was Champs Boys disco version of Tubular Bells (blue plastic embossed Philips label) in 1976, which shrunk Mike Oldfield’s album length masterpiece to about 4 minutes and married it to the bassline from Donna Summer’s Love To Love You Baby.
MARTIN SMITH
Thanks so much Alan. Tansley & Cooke! Sounds Groovy! Music Lovers! All formative influences in my own record collection. I can confirm the shop opposite Woollies was Martins (I would remember that). Before Swan Walk when Boots was opposite Timothy Whites at th top of West Street it had a couple of record carousels I used to browse. The market stall furnished me with several alleged bootlegs, mostly completely unlistenable! Good memorie
