The last time I owned a record player was in the 80s, when it graced the top of one of those midi system things. Since then, I have accumulated records from the following sources: from people who (correctly) presume that I'm a Serious Music Fan and therefore (incorrectly) must own one; from various record fairs, while in search of rare singles that I will probably never play; and, of course, from dead relatives. My records have sat in my attic, in my garage and in a storage facility in Finchley, but they haven't actually been played in about twenty years. I always figured that I would get something on which to play them one day, but that day hasn't arrived.

I found a Springsteen tape the other day, made by my late mother in the early days of her obsession with all things Bruce. The songs weren't the most moving thing on it: I can hear them any time I want to. What really took me back was the sound of the stylus that her old crappy record player used to make. Despite my conversion to all things digital, and my embracing of a culture that produces smaller and smaller things, I wish I had a record player.

And I was first, right?

I'd like the record player because I have a face like a snout and havn't any friends.

Good day to you.

to play an ex-collection of vinyl that I recently found dumped in my neigbour's wheeliebin. From Bowie's 'Low' to 'Teaser and the Firecat' by Cat Stevens. Seriously, Mark there was even a copy of 'Reflection' by the mighty 'Tangle. Now are you telling me I should have let such a horde go to Gravesend Council Recycling Station instead of giving it sanctuary in my dry, snug, recently-lagged loft? No of course not, but now I need something to play it all on. I have friends who have never heard mid-seventies Bowie let alone Bert Jansch. You would be doing the world a humanitarian service. I'll even post a pic of it playing 'Will the Circle be Unboken?' on the Facebook page.

Autumn 1968. Started at university. Bought my first record player and it looked like that. Played my first record bought as a student on it to the lady who is now my wife. So what could be a better way to celebrate 40 years than to play my Richard Harris LP again on the appropriate kit?

...I've already got one.

So can I have the Chris Rea stuff to play on it? No-one else seems to want it.

Anyone heard the blues collection CR did, from Africa to the present day over 12 CDs or something?

...which will one day be looked back on with fond nostalgia.

So I can dig out the original singles of Cathy's Clown by The Everly Brothers (c/w Bird Dog) and Yeah, Yeah by Georgie Fame that I used to play over and over while sitting alone and in my tattered clothes on the rough and splintered floorboards of the orphanage. Well, at home with my parents, actually. Better come clean as it turns out that the Belgian woman wasn't really raised by wolves after all.
Later, when I moved out, the powerful effect of these simple gramophone records meant that I had but one thought in my teenage head, "Right, I'm having these away."
My shot at redemption is this. If I could play these same records to my 2-year-old granddaughter who, unlike the orphanage really does exist, it would give her the chance to enjoy them as much as I did. However many times I have to play them. I have to report that the omens are good, not 3 months ago we confounded the 'straights' by gliding around the kitchen to Rory Gallagher's Calling Card.

Like Paul Waring above, I don't want to win a record player as I've already got one that I only use very rarely. Another one would just be plain silly. However, an ordinary "ghetto-blaster" (*) style CD player would be lovely, as my mum needs one because her 20 year-old Phillips has just given up the ghost. So if you'd like to make me and my mum happy you know what to do...

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(*) Can't help thinking that that particular phrase is no longer PC... Sorry.

I just bought a lovely new record player a few weeks ago, but I would like a copy of the album for my brother in law's forthcoming Birthday. Rea's new record is a lovely piece of art and a big two fingers to the record industry.Good on him I say.
On the subject of record players, a former work colleague gave me her father's massive record player a few years ago,shortly after he passed away. It was to be honest, an ugly brute of a thing, as long as a long coffin and very very heavy. The sort that used to look like a long table with four legs and a big reception dial, which lit up the station numbers in flickering green. My brother and myself nearly had double heart attacks, carrying into the car (with the back seats down) and lifting it up the stairs into my father's train room, where it sat collecting dust for two years. It had no stylus either.
Last year we had the drive done and my mother demanded we chucked it into the skip which the builder was using. My parents were sick of the bloody sight of it.
Yet again, we carried this seventies monster back down the stairs and threw it into the skip! I didn't feel good about this, but my mother was pleased.
Imagine, my horror last night when I received news that my former colleague would like the record player back. Apparently the player was lent on loan, although this was never the arrangement when she "gave" it to me;although she was in mourning at the time and just wanted rid of the thing. Thankfully, she doesn't have my telephone number or address. Well not yet, but I could be in big trouble.
It just proves, you should never chuck away your records or record players, they'll always come back and haunt you in the end.

I am a handful of LP's and singles away from a complete set of UK vinyl released on the Apple label. This a work in progress first begun in early 1976 when I bought 'Abbey Road' - who knew that punk was on the way - and continued sporadically since. What could be more fitting than to play it from start to finish on your charming, period record machine? I realise that this will involve sitting through the entirety of 'Two Virgins' which I believe may well be a feat never before attempted, even by John & Yoko, but I'm prepared to suffer for their art. Unlike Sissy Spacek ...

P.S. Anyone happen to have a copy of 'The Wedding Album' or Derek & Lon Van Eaton's 1973 single 'Warm Woman' going cheap?

because I've got an iPod to listen to my digital music on the go and I'd like a portable record player to listen to my vinyl on the go as well! (I'm assuming it's got a headphone socket because I wouldn't want to annoy anyone on the tube.)

...as the 1960s drew to a close I sat, the youngest of five siblings, and the frequent recipient of the traditional "hand-me-down". Fortunately with three older brothers and only one older sister the "I'm a boy, I'm a boy and my Mom won't admit it" scenario never seemed likely to come into play. But not only did clothes get the treatment but also musical tastes... as a five year old I had inherited from my eldest sister an appreciation of the finer points of the Motown girl groups, Dusty, Sandy and other quality '60s pop. From my two eldest brothers it was the Beatles and later the Carpenters, James Taylor and Elton John. But it was perhaps Brian, the next brother up from me who had the most formative influence on my already developing taste. In 1969 he was already 14 years of age and getting into all the types of music that a 14 year old in 1969 ought to have been getting into. Through Brian I was introduced to the Rolling Stones, to Jimi Hendrix, to Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles and the Doobies and an impressionable 5 year-old's listening tastes were already becoming formed.

And before you accuse me of claiming overweaning musical tutelage from my parents I would point out that their record collections comprised the likes of Charlie Pride, The Inkspots, Jim Reeves, Josef Locke, Mario Lanza... My siblings' taste was clearly a fluke of genetics or timing. Either way, it was my gain.

Anyway, 1969 also formed another formative moment in my young life. My sister and second eldest brother moved out and my eldest brother became the proud owner of a brand new Grundig record player. This meant that the strange stereo record player which he owned (it had stereo speakers which clipped over the top when not in use to form a lid) passed on to Brian and I suddenly became the proud owner of a Dansette record player - flip up vinyl covered lid and screw in legs included!! Records ranging from the Beatles' Yellow Submarine (c/w Eleanor Rigby if memory serves) single to "The Mike Sammes Singers present the Jungle Book and other Disney Favourites" follow quickly. My record collecting days had begun!

Some years later the strange clip-top speaker player came to me and the Dansette took up residence in the loft. Later still, in the same year that Brian moved out and got married, I became the proud (if misguided) owner of a shiny new silver plastic Sharp music-centre direct from Timothy Whites! My parents, seeing an opportunity to clear space in the loft sent off the spare record players along with my brother. The Sharp music centre is now also consigned to not-so-treasured memory!

Still, I always fondly remembered that old Dansette and those early days discovering the joys of music. A small part of me perhaps wondered whether that self same record player might, one day, be hand-me-downed one final time. An idle dream that I've harboured still over all those intervening years. Maybe one day my very own vinyl collection would be rescued from the cupboard under the stairs and given a spin after all this time.

An idle dream until last summer, that is... Why? Well, Brian and his wife moved house again, from one side of the country to the other. So, what's the problem? Well, off they set for the new house, having packed all their worldly goods and chattles into the removals van. So they arrive at the new place and wait... and wait... and wait... Until suddenly the mobile rings and they hear the dread words, "Erm... there's been a bit of an accident..." What? Well, half way up the M5 the removals van caught fire. Up it went! The whole lot! The bed, the sofa, the clothes, the PC, the 1960s vintage Are You Experienced, the first pressing Sgt Pepper mono version, the original Sticky Fingers complete with zip, the Led Zep IV, the Deep Purple In Rock with gatefold sleeve, the Some Girls, the Exile on Main Street... and the beloved old Dansette.

Farewell. Farewell my mentor, my teacher, my friend! R.I.P.

Dream no more.

I dumped my old stack system (that's "dumped", not just "lofted") in favour of one of those Bose jobs (surely the most widely advertised product in the print medium other than the Stannah stairlift and the walk-in bath) before it dawned on me that the music I love the most - scratchy old Northern Soul records on the whole - is either unavailable on CD or doesn't sound half as good when it is.
But I'm just glad of the opportunity to air my favourite sum: if you were born in '45 you turned 33 in '78.
I have a lovely 7 inch of this, my favourite record, but the only place I can play it is on the computer.

As a matter of interest, do "they" still make record players like this? If so, what‘s a good one to get?

...for my 9 year old son who has never seen a record player. He would of course get the old man's extensive vinyl collection and a priceless introduction into music.

You need to screw those screws down, with them up the turntable housing is held in place for transport. Any knock and the stylus will skip across the record and ruin it.

I would like the record player to play my records on.
Thankyou.

I am a keen collector of vinyl released on the English Channel record label; initially a one-man operation run by Ernest Carney, who never set foot outside of the United States and never in his life laid eyes on the real English Channel. Carney owned a record pressing plant in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. To this he later added a small studio where he would record local acts who had responded to advertisements in newspapers and magazines.

The contracts these bands were required to sign as part of a deal for studio use effectively handed over publishing rights to Carney and would eventually make him a wealthy man. However, in the early days, financial hardship forced him to act as a distributor for the label. At weekends he would drive across the state border into New York, where he would attempt to sell his vinyl in bulk to record shops.

In 1965 one of the singles on English Channel - Pound For Pound by Betty Fletcher - became a surprise hit on the east coast. Carney subsequently entered into partnership with financier Simon Burrell. The label was rechristened Top Channel and thereafter enjoyed nationwide distribution.

These days mentioning Top Channel in informed circles will generally result in a discussion of their most influential signing - the proto punk act The Strange Reactions. More recently another song from the label - I'm Getting Kind Of Low, originally recorded by the NASA astronaut turned club singer, Dick Arcturus (née Wright), has appeared in TV advertisements and on various television shows (most prominently in the third UK series of The Apprentice). This has rekindled a degree of interest in other artists on the label. An anthology complied by Bob Stanley and a selective re-issue programme are now reportedly in the works.

The main reason that sides released on English Channel/Top Channel continue to remain collectable and hold their value in the digital age lies in their unique feature:

Carney held a financial stake in a company that manufactured a cheap, disposable record player stylus known as ‘The Horsehair'. Also nicknamed ‘eyelashes', horsehairs were fine wiry threads, about an inch and a quarter long. They were produced using a manmade fibre known as Folyne. Although they are now discontinued, at one time it was possible to buy fifty in a white paper envelope, along with a small pill magnet that was supposed to assist you in picking them up. In fact Folyne is only weakly magnetic and the magnet did little to help matters.

Horsehairs were promoted as a solution to the problem of popping and crackling records. The claim was that the special static electricity generated by their contact with a piece of vinyl would miraculously hold them in place. In reality horsehairs were prone to creating vivid electrical sparks which, while spectacular, would often leave visible burn marks on a disc. It's one of the things to watch out for when purchasing second-hand vinyl, particularly in the US.

Besides being a potential fire hazard the other problem with horsehairs was that after a few uses they would lose their straightness. This bowing would result in the tip of the stylus failing to connect properly with the grooves, which would in turn lead to intermittent, or poor quality sound.

Carney must have been aware of the bending problem and evidently decided to take advantage of it. He discovered that if a piece of vinyl was sufficiently thick* and the spiral cut sufficiently deep, he was able to introduce a finer secondary groove onto the sloping side of the main groove, thereby allowing two functional tracks to inhabit the same space on a record. Prematurely curling a horsehair stylus would cause it to connect with this secondary track and static electricity would hold it in place.

Instead of harnessing his discovery to some commercial venture, Carney used it to engage the puckish and sentimental sides of his character. On Mother Of Pearl by Guy Cousins (which sold a couple of million in 1966) you will find, hidden in the valley groove, a song that he wrote and performed for his daughter's tenth birthday.

Isabelle Mullins' emotional A Million Magic Crystals is arguably diminished once you become aware that it shares space with The Pennsylvania Cow Choir mooing a bovine version of Oh Sweet Land of Liberty.

The appallingly saccharine Little Jack Horner by The Barretts conceals what is without doubt a far superior track - Don't Ever Come Down by The Vision Dreams.

Beyond a simple text advertisement on the record sleeves, stating that Top Channel releases were "best listened to using the patented horsehair stylus system", Carney never listed the hidden songs or even acknowledged their existence. In fact most were discovered by accident: Records on the label were prone to a condition known as silting, in which the deep grooves became clogged with dust and muck. In such circumstances a conventional stylus would sometimes fail to connect with the main groove and would instead play against the secondary groove, revealing a distorted, muffled version of the hidden track.

Over the years there have been many incomplete attempts by enthusiasts to catalogue the music concealed on English Channel/Top Channel releases. You can find my own patchy discography online at Epithytes.co.uk (the site is down at the moment - I am having server issues.)

What is required is a concerted effort to get this material indexed and transferred to a digital format so that it can be properly archived. One thing that I am very keen to lay my hands on is a Sci-fi serial penned by Simon Spencer, titled The Robots' Revolt. It appears in the valley grooves of Top Channel releases TC188-TC221. I am still hunting TC191, TC194, TC206-TC2011 and TC219. The A-side to TC2008 is All The While I Think Of You by the girl group Sugar Kane, which I want anyway. If anyone has copies of the above then please get in touch.

I am further hampered by the fact that many modern record players do not accommodate horsehair styluses. As a result I have found myself unable to properly investigate much of the vinyl that I have in my possession. I see from your video that the record player on offer would be adaptable to horsehairs and would therefore be of great assistance to me as I trawl English Channel records for more sunken treasure.

* English Channel/Top Channel produced the heaviest vinyl I have ever come across in my years as a collector.

Why an idiot? - part one.In about 1992 I was finally persuaded that cd's were the only way to go.I duly got rid of about 500 albums for not much more than £200 to a guy who would have been better selling used cars.I then proceeded to buy cd's with wanton abandon and now they are everywhere.About 3 years ago the good lady wife and I decided to buy a converted barn. It has a loft type room perfect as a music room and my wife said 'there is ample space there for your cd's'.3 years later they are now in the kitchen, one bedroom and the living room too.Winning this prestigious prize will give my wife further opportunity to complain about my relentless attempts to foist my occasionally dubious music taste on the rest of the family.
Why an idiot? - part two.I am not sure that cd's have a better sound than vinyl and certainly they dont have a better sensory experience - gatefold sleeves? you can't beat them. More importantly shedding my album collection got rid of many musical experiences from my youth and I would quite like to get them back. First memories? Coming home from school around the age of 9 to find my mum had bought a radiogram which she proudly showed off. She also gave me my first record - Beatles songs played by Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots - a whole album of them!! First christmas post Radiogram and I had 2 shiny eps in my Santa Stocking - a 4 track Beatles ep with Cant buy me love (original) and a much more cherished Val Doonican ep with Paddy McGintys goat and Delaney's donkey. Oh what fun. My first purchases of my own were Spencer Davis group - keep on running and Yardbirds Shapes of things which I still love today.
Later I bought my first Dansette and recall playing Steppenwolf,Led Zeppelin,Deep Purple and Sabbath but having to tape a tanner to the arm to stop the bloody thing racing across the records. I recall the moans from the old man about 'that bloody racket coming out of your den of iniquity(bedroom)'. Further on from this I bought some separates which I think included wharfedale speakers. I encountered a problem with them that really required the work of a qualified electrician. Rather than waiting to afford such a luxury I got to work with some diy soldering and completely blew one speaker. I recall the impatience of teenage years and not wanting to wait for it to be properly fixed I played my brand new Suicide by Stray album and thinking it was brilliant even though one speaker channel didnt work at all.
My earliest ever vinyl moments were inheriting a collection of old 78's from a neighbour about to embark on a new life in Australia - most of it was garbage to my young ears but I recall playing over and over The Desert Patrol Song and In an English country garden.
These were truly fond memories of a bygone age - one that I am sure Chris Rea obviously still yearns after. Winning this prize would also give me the opportunity to show my 8 year old daughter what her dad did when he was a boy.

I bought my first (& only) record player in 1979, when I was 14, using some of the money paid to me by the Criminal Compensation Board. I'd been jumped from behind on my way home from school by a couple of skinheads (mistaken identity) who had been kind enough to use my head as football & had fractured my skull. It is an ill wind etc...and one good thing that came out of the experience was that I received an unexpected cheque through the post some months later which meant I could afford my own record player.

I bought the record player from Boots & I remember it cost £50. This was a sizeable purchase for me, probably my biggest outlay to that point. My dad came with me to the shop to oversee the transaction & insisted that he (rather than I) carry such an expensive item to the car himself. Inevitably he tripped, on a level crossing en route back to the car, and the box containing the record player spun through the air in slow motion before bouncing to a standstill. The look on my Dad's face was priceless & I got to carry the box the rest of the way to the car. My dad, who had clearly hurt his foot in the process, struggled to say nothing on the drive home.

Boots record players were made of stern stuff, however, and we soon got it set up in my room. Then came an almost religious moment.....the choice of the first record to grace the new player which would of course set the tone for all the great music to follow it onto the turntable. My elder sister had chosen Led Zep IV as her first record on her new player some years earlier & had then got extremely embarrassed as my father made deprecating comments about the lyrical content of "Black Dog" & the musical abilities of the Led Zep combo whilst he busied himself attaching a two pence piece to the the stylus using sellotape.

I had about twelve LP's at that point and about the same number of singles - which I was allowed to play occassionally on the family music centre in the living room (if my mother wasn't around). Half of the records I had were by the Beatles & my collection also included, if I remember correctly, both Great War Themes & Great Western Themes by the Geoff Love Orchestra, a Gary Glitter single, Live at Treorchy by Max Boyce, Dancing Queen by Abba and the theme from Van Der Valk.

But these records (apart from the Beatles) were soon to be consigned to childhood as I was to build up a collection of cool discs that I could play In My Room With The Door Closed. I sensed that my choice of first record played on the new player was important for setting a pattern for the future.

After some, but evidently not much, thought my choice of first record to mark out this point of liberation and musical independence came down to the two "grown up" records I had bought on holiday that year & hadn't had the chance to play much yet. Mum didnt like Genesis "And then there were three" or Meatloaf "Bat Out Of Hell". I hang my head in shame now but I must be truthful to reveal that Meatloaf won.

The record player stayed with me for years, in fact decades. I can remember key songs played on it down the years:

First record played at University (with the room door left open deliberately so people on the floor of my new Hall of Residence could hear how cool I was): Depeche Mode - Everything Counts

First record played when I moved into a shared house in London after college: Hipsway - The Honeythief (I was now seriously cool!)

First record I played when my later to be wife first came back to my place (not a personal favourite, but thinking strategically; lets get her in the mood...): Van Morrison - Greatest Hits

By the time the first child had arrived we'd moved squarely to CD's & the record player had been dispatched to the loft along with boxes (& boxes) of vinyl.

Then in 2005 tragedy struck. My wife burned our house down (see my blog for fuller details) & with it went the record player & all the vinyl.

We've recently moved house & have just done up the kitchen. I have had shelves built to put in my new hifi separates & speakers and I had an extra slot built with the idea that at some point I might just add in a record player once again. I think the Hepworth/Ellen/Rogers conversations on the podcast have started this itch.

My brother having read my recent blog admitted that he actually had half-inched a couple of my records &, as his record player was now bust, would I like them back. He dropped them round on Saturday.

The Associates - Party Fears Two "I took a shower & then phoned my brother up..." which meant a lot to us at the time.

& "Hand In Glove" by The Smiths. My favourite band of all time.

I absolutely can't wait to hear them - at the very least to see if the scratch on Hand In Glove is where I remember it.

I think this might be the start of a new Vinyl collection. I've had a shelf in the kitchen made at 12" height....

I just need to get myself a record player

I haven't got a record player.
Could I have this one, please?

My first record player was actually my parents' sewing machine sized portable job which played LPs and singles and allowed 6 to be stacked at a time which I'm sure added the high fidelity experience and helped to protect the precious vinyl. It had, as I recall, a single speaker on the front and was in all honesty pretty crap.

I had to lie to friends that it was a proper stereo so I could borrow their LPs - but at least I never stacked them!

As a teenager I never progressed beyond that but had many happy hours with a tinny portable cassette player making up mix tapes.

Fast forward to early married my life and my wife allowed me to shell out the enormous sum of £360 for a Technics stereo stack comprising turntable, tuner, amplifier, cassette deck and speakers. Plus genuine laminate cabinet. But hey I thought it was fantastic. To preserve my vinyl I earnestly taped the lot and never listed to them on the deck, only on cassette.

Like most others I was seduced by the advent of CD and the glories promised therein. Imagine my surprise several years later to find the record player had died so I consigned it to the dump and didn't look back.

Until 2 years ago when I realised that either the vinyl had to go or I bought a new turntable so I could play it again. So I did. I invested in a new Pro-ject turntable and it is fantastic! Records come to life in a way that there CD replacements never did.

And do you know the best thing? 20 minutes (ie roughly one size of an LP) is just perfect. You don't get bored with the music and if you want to listen to more you turn it over. Don't get me started on the excessive length of some CDs........

Shame about the scratches though.

So I don't need it but trust that a deserving home will be found.

...if only to stop Dave Hepworth from oozing any more bodily fluids of love over it and rendering it unuseable.

And is it just me or is the above video further proof that Dave is morphing facially into Anthony H Wilson ?

...and with it the little blind orphans record player. Now they haven't got anything to play their Beatles, Band, Stones, Van Morrison, Smiths and Shelby Lynne elpees on.
Spare a thought for the blind orphans, not only are they without a record player they support Middlesborough Town FC and won't be going to Wembley this year.
The poor, poor mites.

Over the past couple of days I have been desperately scrambling for ideas and inspiration so that I can get my hands on this prize so that I can play all my lovely LP's again. Depressingly, my efforts have been second rate: many sentimental pleas have been discarded as coming across as lame and pathetic as the pleas for money that you see in the Classified section of Private Eye; multiple attempts at wit have been disregarded because I am neither Dorothy Parker, nor Oscar Wilde. Therefore, I have decided to plump for plain, dull truth.

I bought my first record player about a decade ago. It was a budget-priced job which I reckoned I would get two or three years of good service from. Amazingly, it has lasted me as long as the Labour Party has been in power. In that time I have purchased hundreds of albums; new releases from soulless corporate chains, forgotten gems from smelly charity shops and expensive reissues from snobbish independent record stores. I have spent more on replacing needles than I actually paid for the thing. Unfortunately, it finally gave up on me this year and I need to replace it.

That is why I would be eternally grateful if Word could give me my second record player. I would once again be able to get a cheap, childish chuckle by playing Leonard Cohen album tracks at 45 rpm and pogo madly to one of The Pogues more frenetic, ramshackle songs after one or five cans of Guinness too many.

Is it just me or has the lovely dusty, slightly damp smell of old record shops disappeared completely now (surely HMV could invest in an aromatherapy version of that old record shop smell?).

I only say this as I flicked back through my old vinyl collection (carefully stored and boxed away) rather nostalgically remembering where i bought them (my favorite was Amazing Records in Leeds, spent every Saturday afternoon after my paper round there!) and - rather perversely - still being able to smell said shop when sticking your nose into the sleeve!

So please please please let me get what i want (this time) and help me get over a burgeoning addiction to smelling record covers, by being able to actually play them again on a lovely retro portable player... let it be mine, you know it makes sense!

If you are a collector of Vinyl and don't have a decent record player then my friend you should leave the room because you are an investor and not a lover, in my eyes anyway.

Chris Rea is my real deal and was a soundtrack to my late teens and twenties. Maybe not THE Soundtrack but certainly a constant musical string. Sure he's been in and out of fashion critically, who hasn't but I love him because he is a grafter and unlike a few you could mention, a decent old soul.

I remember the year I finished school. " I Can Hear Your Heartbeat" always brings me back to 1983, that and slowdancing Hip to Hip to "Love's Strange Ways". Hearing the DJ on the radio saying he had a hit before you know, Fool (if You Think It's Over) and me thinking no that was Elkie Brooks. Know your subject you stupid DJ I thought. It was years later that I bought Whatever Happened to Benny Santini?

When you Britishers bought into him in 1985 with Shamrock Diaries
he was already a fixture in my live calender. I remember seeing him in 1985 and thinking sod you Eric Clapton. I'll stick with my man of the people for my guitat solo's.

I remember hearing The Road to Hell with my best mate at the time pissed and having a laugh in my flat in Wembley.
"Tell Me There's a Heaven" indeed. The best years of my life.

"Driving Home For Christmas" every year for 9 years and putting that tune on as we raced for the Ferry. It was like living in a Guinness Advert. When that tune started we knew we were off to Party Town.

Getting the heebeegeebees when I first heard "Girl in a Sports Car" the year I met my missus and the fact that she loved it too. And we still do.

Feeling so sad for him when I heard about his illness and how he was cash strapped and buying Blue Guitars in support at HMV Manchester when we were away for a weekend.

Finally seeing him again a couple of years ago on the Road to Hell and Back Tour and getting a lump in my throat when he sang this,

and if you don't get misty eyed too you'd have to have a heart of stone. (Or a Rolling Stone).

Check out the version on the live DVD of that tour. Just Superb.

I see that lid has the logo of The Return Of The Fabulous Hofner Blue Notes. Now thats special.

I'm not a Vinyl Collector anymore although I do own Vinyl and do buy it occasionally. I would like the player because of the things it reminds me of, basically life and the fact that seeing Chris Rea out there is life affirming in a way. I didn't think he'd be around my way again and I'm glad to see I was wrong.

FIN

Why?...This is a longish story, but please bear with me. Two or three years ago, I was assigned by a music magazine to go to Chris Rea's home studio and take some promo shots of him to go with their interview. Chris makes a mean bacon sandwich, and was fairly easy to photograph. Job done. I then sent the contact sheets (yes, I'm still clinging onto film!) to his people to see if they/he wanted to use them for anything. I heard back from them fairly quickly - apparently Chris loved the shots, definitely wanted to use one, but couldn't decide which one, therefore needed a few more days with my (only) contact sheet. A couple of weeks passed before I got frustrated and called them back to see what was going on. They'd changed their minds, which is fair enough I suppose. Oh well. Then a couple of months later, I'm flicking through the Time Out music section, to see if anyone good is playing in our fair town, when I stumble across an ad for Chris Rea's latest tour. The picture of him looks very familiar. Too familiar. I swore it was mine, yet they had said they weren't planning on using one. I was obviously angry and preparing myself to phone them up and have a rant. I then realised the picture was in colour. Seeing as I was originally shooting for a black & white publication, I only shot on black & white film that day, so it couldn't be mine. What it appeared they had done was to pay another photographer to directly copy one of my photographs, I mean virtually identical as if they had my contact sheet there to match it, but in colour. If they had wanted the same shot but in colour, would it not have been fair, polite, professional, normal behaviour to pay me to rip off my own photo, rather than someone else?! I think so. So that is why, as far as I'm concerned, Chris Rea owes me a record player! I won't lie to you, I have a record player, quite a good one, and lots of records. I am a musician, and adore the sound of vinyl. So do lots of people. But Chris Rea's people did wrong by me, and I have always felt that they/he owed me one. And now this... I knew the day would come. Now please hand it over. I'd also like to add that if you do decide to give it to me, I will do the right thing and give it to my brother Luke (Lucas), the first to post his right to the player. He doesn't have one, and should. Plus it would put me in an ideal position to re-negotiate the possession of some of our late mother's records! And, I can't read a copy of the magazine these days without seeing a contribution by him, so I think he deserves it. I would still be able to sleep at night knowing that Chris Rea's debt had been paid.

...and he bought me that record player for christmas. He has now taken it to give to you to give away as a competition prize. It's just not fair.

Regards
Mr dREAyton,
Jnr.

There's a new record shop opened up in our town. It's a beautiful sight; rows and rows of vinyl. I'm coming over all unnecessary just thinking about it, to be perfectly honest. It'd be nice to have something like the Steepletone to listen to these beauties, along with the other stuff I've managed to accumulate over the years (without the means to play the. I know; sad, isn't it?)

The thing is, I'm a bit of an evangelist when it comes to music, and there's a goodly amount of people of my acquaintance who need to know just what the experience is all about.
I have to admit, I won't be playing my wife's Bucks Fizz collection any time in the near - or far - future, though...

give/send it to me, you lovely word magazine lot.

i already own four record players (1 x technics 1210 - sold the other 2 a few months ago -, 1 x rega planar, 2 x disco tech), but they are in storage in europe... and i'm in thailand... i need one here, or i'll possibly die... i'll even schlepp it all the way to the mekong river next time i go to laos & take a pic so you can post it on the site, in the mag, and on the facebook group page. deal? awwwwright... :-)

May the best man win. Sorry, that's not very PC, is it? Best wishes to the most fortunate individual.

My new boyfriend, (or ageing pop star) claims to have had several records released in the 70's. I've managed to find 2 of them on Ebay for the heady collector's price of £1 each + £1.50 for the postage. They look like the real thing, but I have no way of listening to them.
I remember when I used to go babysitting, that I didn't know how to work their stereo unit, but used to play The Beatle's White Album by turning the turntable by hand, (not exactly 33 and a third!) I'm sure their record collection wasn't too collectable afterwards either.
I would love to listen to the satisfying hiss of vinyl as it skims around the deck and be able to whisper sweet nothings in my boyfriend's ear (though too much rock and roll means I'd have to shout...)
If he really was out there, perhaps I'll share his comeback with you...!

to backwards7. Richly deserved.