W R Stone
W R Stone, Radio & Electrical Engineers, Radio/Records, 64 High Street, Hoddesdon, Herts.
Open from late 1940s until probably early 1970s. Also sold radios (and maybe televisions), had two or three listening booths and a record counter from what I recall.
My grandfather worked there as an electrical engineer doing repairs after leaving Edison & Swan Electrical Light Co. (Ediswans) in Ponders End sometime after the end of the war. The terrible dentist we went to as kids was in the building next door and I can remember going in the record shop before appointments - one particular visit especially sticks in my mind, must have been sometime in 1969, as I remember looking at the sleeves of John Mayall’s ‘Blues From Laurel Canyon’ and ‘Bare Wires’ (neither of which lived up to the promise of the sleeves when I finally heard them); Martha Velez’ ‘Fiends and Angels’; 'Touch' on Deram and The Fugs ‘It Crawled into My Hand, Honest’ and thinking that this was a world I needed to know about and be involved in (I would have been 14)!
After Stone’s closed another record shop - ‘Tracks’ - opened in the shopping precinct in the centre of the town. I still have Matching Mole’s ‘Little Red Record’ and Led Zeppelin III which I bought there. Also bought a copy of Comus ‘ First Utterance’ as a special order from them after seeing them at Turnford College - unfortunately sold that in a hugely misguided Stalinist record purge at some point!
regards
Neil
Open from late 1940s until probably early 1970s. Also sold radios (and maybe televisions), had two or three listening booths and a record counter from what I recall.
My grandfather worked there as an electrical engineer doing repairs after leaving Edison & Swan Electrical Light Co. (Ediswans) in Ponders End sometime after the end of the war. The terrible dentist we went to as kids was in the building next door and I can remember going in the record shop before appointments - one particular visit especially sticks in my mind, must have been sometime in 1969, as I remember looking at the sleeves of John Mayall’s ‘Blues From Laurel Canyon’ and ‘Bare Wires’ (neither of which lived up to the promise of the sleeves when I finally heard them); Martha Velez’ ‘Fiends and Angels’; 'Touch' on Deram and The Fugs ‘It Crawled into My Hand, Honest’ and thinking that this was a world I needed to know about and be involved in (I would have been 14)!
After Stone’s closed another record shop - ‘Tracks’ - opened in the shopping precinct in the centre of the town. I still have Matching Mole’s ‘Little Red Record’ and Led Zeppelin III which I bought there. Also bought a copy of Comus ‘ First Utterance’ as a special order from them after seeing them at Turnford College - unfortunately sold that in a hugely misguided Stalinist record purge at some point!
regards
Neil