GIVE US THE BACKGROUND - WHEN AND WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO OPEN A RECORD SHOP?

I've always had the dream of wanting my own record shop ever since I started dealing in records which was around the early 80's. Back then there were loads of shops everywhere so the chances of actually finding a suitable location without any competition was pretty remote. I started buying from boot sales and other dealers in about 1985 and got myself a stall at Greenwich market to sell the records I'd found. Even on the market there were lots of other dealers so you had to learn fast! Myself and a mate stuck at it and eventually we became the biggest stall there. By the mid 90's I was trying to move up to the next level and got an inside unit in Greenwich and then by 2000 we even tried a mobile shop in an old converted bus which we drove around to all the festivals. For various reasons none of these projects really worked out and by 2005 with the decline in cd and music sales we started to struggle. However, by a stroke of luck a few years later a friend of ours owned the lease to a shop in Greenwich and decided to move out and let us move in, by now I was being helped out by my brother Tony.We took over 320-322 Creek road in 2008 and haven't looked back since. The upsurge of interest in vinyl has been the key factor to our success and profits are increasing year on year.The best thing about owning your own shop is the independence it gives you. You are master of your own destiny so to speak and it's always exciting to think of new ideas and schemes to help promote the shop. You never know what's going to come through the door on any given day, an amazing record collection, a film crew, a famous band. I always look forward to getting all the new releases in on Friday and presenting them to the public in a hopefully tempting manor. I also love the feedback from our customers, especially the younger ones who seem really grateful they have somewhere near them to buy the latest releases.