Virgin Records Plymouth

My first 12" record was "Down In The Park" by Tubeway Army in 1979. At the time i was 12 yrs old & my weekly forays to Plymouth's Virgin Records (One of the first 4 in the country & still a small independent one window shop) had caught the eye of local music promoter & Virgin shop assistant Andy Howard. I liked Andy & my obvious enthusiasm for new music & lack of money (paper-round only) led him to employ me on Saturdays to shrink-wrap the weeks record delivery ready for sale in the shop. For this 3 hr job i would receive an LP of my choice each & every week. I can clearly remember getting this as well as my LP one week as i had worked a longer day and was fascinated by the cover so i gave it a listen. The following week i went in as usual for my shrink-wrapping session and walked out with the "Replica's" LP for my trouble. I still have the same battered copy of "Replica's" but had to replace "Down In The park" many years ago. I still love the 12", and today having written this love the memory of how it came to be mine. My shrink-wrapping career only lasted about 12 months until the shop redeveloped into one of the first Virgin Megastores, but in that time i managed to score some amazing LP's i still cherish to this day. I still speak to Andy Howard whenever i get back to Plymouth & grew up to be a promoter in the city myself in the 90's, he was and is a wonderful guy who helped me onto a wonderful path !

Name Glyn Bryant
Comment:  Sorry, but Andy was never in a position to employ anybody as I was the manager and I employed Andy, I also sacked him as he used the shop as a personal fan club. No ofence Andy. (Sept 7, 2016) 

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