queens road

A great video from Andrew Clifton.

Alan Esdaile…..I can remember buying my first album from Jack. It was the ‘Bee Gees First’ and I paid 6d a week and he wrote the amount on the back of the sleeve until it was paid in full. I’ve still got it. As a kid ,I used to love looking in the window  at all the record sleeves.

Jim Breeds….Lovely memories of the man. And I think the video I saw before didn’t have the memorial tribute tagged onto the end, though I had heard that elsewhere. Nice to see it again.

Graham Burfield….first album I got there was Cockney Rebel

Pete Fairless….I used to love the story of how he tracked down the album and went to collect it for you!

Chris Meachen…..Dear old Jack, He would occasionally come out with peculiar questions, like ‘Were you breast-fed?’ he was such a character

Jim Breeds….I mostly used record vouchers and birthday/christmas money when I was a kid and then when I was working from age 17 onwards I used to save up in my post office book 🙂 I particularly remember on one occasion I pre-ordered (as we now call it – I don’t remember that term being used in the ’70s?) a copy of the upcoming limited edition release of The Free Story LP, a best of compilation. I went to the shop on release day and you would have thought his Mum had just died. He was emotionally upset that he had been unable to source a copy due to overwhelming demand. He said he had tried everything, including phoning around to other record shops. He was still apologising for that some weeks late. What a character.

Mick O’Dowd….Jack &Sonia were one of life’s best. He actually sold me my first Dansette record player and knocked 2/6 off the price for my Mum ( God bless Her) as he suddenley found that a bit of the leather cloth was loose! it was precisely 1/8th inches wide. Great couple. He would always call me “Chiefy”. Did he call anyone else this?

Andrew Clifton…..Hello Jim, I’m Andrew’s brother, Steve. We knew Jack and Sonia for many years. We’d go to the Record Shop searching for nostalgic recordings. Unfortunately we missed his retirement in December 2006 and then of course his sad demise in June 2007. I took the video camera to the funeral to chronicle the event as he, Sonia, and The Record Shop became a significant part of Hastings social history. Fortunately the proceedings were light-hearted and sprinkled with anecdotes, so it became a ‘watchable’ record…so much that Sonia asked for several copies for friends and family.

Chris Russel…..Great to see this film of Jack and Son, but so sad to hear that they are both gone. When I worked at Swift in Bexhill in the 80’s and 90’s Jack would come in every Wednesday and buy stock. At first he used to arrive in an orange Morris Marina that was 90% rust but later would get the train over. As far as I know they never had any children but had several cats that Jack would refer to as ‘the kids’, the most famous of which was Monty. Occasionally I would pop into the shop on a Saturday and knew I would be in there at least an hour as Son would insist that I had at least one cup of tea and usually at least one cheese sandwich.

Lauren Gower….The best kind of record shop,along with Alans of course!just before they close they got me a copy of ‘songs for drella’-Lou reed,John cale…when i tried to order it in Hmv(of maybe it was virgin at the time),they asked me who Lou reed was!!! There are no words for that!

Andrew Clifton… Unfortunately Jack and Sonia. Didn’t have any children as for the railway films Jack took. I think a family friend has got them. We got a lot of records through Jack. Also from The Disc Jockey. Both Jack and Al were great people to know.

Sid Saunders… I got all my music from Jack, a true gentleman sadly missed.