My first record collection.

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I started my record collection one weekend I came home from sea to a good wage after only one weeks fishing. There was a shop in my home town of Ayr called Fairbairn that dealt with all things musical from instruments to radios, radiograms, record players etc. to a great selection of records old and new. The upstairs department sold the records while downstairs sold all the other things.
Before buying my first records I had to find a suitable machine to play them on and after consulting the assistant I settled for a Dansett which had a medium grey coloured lid with the base being light grey with darker flecks through it. It was the best one in the shop to suit my purpose and price range, costing sixteen pounds seventeen and six (£16.65. roughly.) It had the usual controls inside with L.P. 45 and 78 speeds to adjust to the three different types of records that were on the go at the time, a full center piece that could hold ten 45 singles and drop them down automatically, each one in turn to play in the order they were placed while on the outside it had two control knobs, one to adjust the volume and the other to adjust the tone. The assistant was quite surprised when I told him I was paying cash as most items at that price were bought on hire purchase so I ended up getting a ten percent discount for cash. As simple as that, now upstairs to chose some records from the massive array of old singles to the top twenty displayed on the chart at the counter or the various L.Ps. old and new that were all around.
I picked out an L.P. of Jim Reeves first and after studying the top ten chart I bought five of them, from Roy Orbison to Cliff Richard among others then I went home in the taxi I had ordered beforehand knowing I would need it to get my purchases home with the least hassle.
After playing them continuously for hours I was becoming bored with them so, having time before the shop closed I phoned a taxi to take me back to Fairbairns where I purchased the rest of the top ten and an L.P. Dean Martin. That was the beginning of my record collection and on my return from trips at sea after that I would add to it although not as many at a time as the first day.
Many of them were lost or broken over the years between moving home or just drunken parties but I still have the majority of them in my loft and a more modern player to play them on if I feel the need, although most of my favorites have been transferred onto tapes which are now becoming obsolete also, so if I want to keep up with progress they will need to be put onto C.Ds until the next modern invention comes along.

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