V is for Vinyl - Walworth A to Z

V is for Vinyl

For the young people reading this, a vinyl record is a bunch of downloads glued onto a circular piece of 7 inch or 12 inch plastic, and your parents once grooved to the sounds they made. Popular local record shops were at opposite ends of East Lane: Dee Jays (formerly May Smith’s) on the corner of the Old Kent Road and the A1 Stores in Walworth Road. The latter of which was run by the Levy family for just shy of a century. Records could also be purchased locally at WH Smith at the Elephant & Castle and from Woolworth’s, and later at Sundown Discount. In the 1960s some of these stores possessed listening booths allowing you to hear the latest single before deciding to purchase it or not.

A group of young mods near to a former premises of the A1 Stores in East Street in 1964.