Must Vist Record Shops - Holt Vinyl Vault in Holt
Holt Vinyl Vault *It may
not be a post office any more, but it still delivers*
1 Cromer Road, Holt, Norfolk, NR25 6AA
01263
713225
Monday-Saturday 10am-5pm (Sundays in school summer
holidays)
Established 2010
Stock: Vinyl, Pre-owned
Situated in an area sometimes
dubbed the North Norfolk Rivieria, Holt Vinyl Vault began life as a record shop
based inside a working post office, where customers could browse the LPs while
sub-postmaster and proprietor Andrew Worsdale served the queue of customers
posting parcels or wanting their passport applications checked.
Queuing in most post offices is a chore. You’re bombarded with adverts from a TV screen while
waiting for a booming voice to direct you to “Cashier number 12, please”. It was a lot more relaxed at the Vault, where Andrew
played classic rock or reggae while you waited to tax your car or buy your
stamps. Soon, following rave reviews in Record
Collector and The Guardian,
customers more interested in Graham Bond than premium bonds began travelling
from all over the country to visit this unlikely emporium.
After leaving university, Andrew
worked in London in the civil service while his wife Jane was a teacher. The
couple would spend weekends exploring the beaches of England’s east coast, and
eventually took the life-changing decision to relocate to the seaside town of
Sheringham. Jane remained in teaching and the couple bought a post office in
the town for Andrew to manage. The building had plenty of spare space and,
inspired by the record fairs he frequented, Andrew
filled it with
pre-owned records. This proved extremely popular and soon attracted plenty of
local publicity.
After he had been trading from the
premises in Sheringham for three years, Post Office Limited decided to close
Andrew’s branch. Undeterred, Andrew moved his vinyl operation and his
postmaster’s datestamp to a post office in the nearby market town of Holt where
in 2010 he opened Holt Vinyl Vault. The shop is much larger than the Sheringham
branch, and he filled the extra space with lots of new as well as vintage
vinyl.
The Vault became famous worldwide after it was featured in the
Tim Burgess book Vinyl Adventures from
Istanbul to San Francisco (a bit more glamorous than Vinyl Adventures from Istanbul to Holt, Norfolk, I presume). The
book is the story of how Tim, the
Charlatans
singer, goes on a journey to track down vinyl recommendations suggested by his
famous friends such as Johnny Marr, Paul Weller and Iggy Pop. Andrew is proud
to have had in stock three of the albums Tim’s friends had asked him to obtain.
Tim Burgess had been living in Holt for a while before
writing the book. He would pop in to the shop to collect record-shaped packages
sent to him in the post and often came up to the counter with a selection of
vinyl from the racks under his arm. Andrew was keen to engage Tim in
conversation but, being so busy with post office duties, it was months before
he had the chance to introduce himself. From then on whenever Tim paid the shop
a visit the two of them would discuss music and vinyl. Tim featured one such
chat - about Dexys Midnight Runners - in his book to illustrate the way
old-school record shops bring people together to share their love of music in
all its variety.
Another of Andrew’s less famous customers was a shy young man known as
Bobble Hat, since you could always rely on him to have his woolly hat on
whether it was sunny, rainy or snowy on the North Norfolk Riviera. He came in
several times a week, investing most of the wages he’d earned as a kitchen porter on mountains of vinyl,
which he’d carry home
in various teetering boxes to his bedroom in his father’s house down the road.
It took Andrew a while to become
attuned to this customer’s needs. It was clear that Bobble Hat did not have much
money, so Andrew was keen to help his limited funds go as far as they could in
building a credible, and reliably curated, record collection. Naturally shy,
Bobble Hat would creep up to the post office counter and whisper a band or
artist’s name, such as Simple Minds. This was Andrew’s cue to explain that he was once a big fan
of Jim Kerr’s band, and that although he had
albums from throughout their career in the Vault, Bobble Hat might consider not
carrying forward his stake in the band beyond 1982’s New Gold Dream LP, after which, in his considered opinion, their cold wave deftness and
wistful angularity of sound gave way to stadium rock bombast.
“Trust me,” implored Andrew,
seeking to build a solid bond in the record-buying heart of Bobble Hat, as he
recalled witnessing the first flush of the band’s painful, though undeniably
lucrative, decline “from ballet to ballast”, while hanging dejectedly from the balustrade at
Hammersmith Odeon in 1983. That said, the indicators had already been there in
the shape of their release Sparkle in the
Rain, which in his view was the worst-produced album ever released in the
UK.
Alas, Andrew’s impassioned advice went unheeded. Bobble Hat was revealed as a Simple Mind-ed
completist and continued to assemble his Kerr and co. vinyl collection before moving on,
with unerring alphabetical logic, to Simply Red where the same scenario
unfolded. Before long, he was targeting Rod Stewart, at which point the public
servant ethos of the self-styled spinning subpostmaster compelled Andrew to
offer Bobble Hat the view that after some classic early albums, Rod’s Smiler album was the dividing line
between “divine rock god Rod” and “dreadful, dad-dancing, disco lothario Rod”. Again, Andrew’s advice fell
on deaf ears as Bobble Hat wanted, quite simply, to own every Rod album in the
known world.
Next, breaking the alphabetical
sequence it was Everly - Don and Phil, in every known singularity or
combination, then Everett. Which Everett, though? It turned out that it didn’t
matter: Betty, Roy, Vince, even Kenny - Bobble Hat bought every record he could
find in the Vault with Everett on the label or sleeve. Next, he moved on to artists
featuring the word “everything”. He quickly purchased all the Everything But
The Girl records, before making a request that was
somewhat premature: he wanted everything by media darlings Everything
Everything, who hadn’t actually released anything on vinyl at the time.
The shop also had its own JR
Hartley moment. Anybody who watched TV in the 1980s will immediately recall the
fictional character who appeared in an advertising campaign for Yellow Pages.
The advert showed an elderly gentleman asking in several pre-owned bookshops
for Fly Fishing by JR Hartley. No
bookshop had it in stock, and the old man goes home dejected. His daughter,
sympathising, hands him the Yellow Pages, a pre-Google phone book publication, listing all the different businesses in the area.
After phoning numerous shops without success, he finally locates a copy. He is
delighted. The shopkeeper asks for his name, and he responds “My name? Oh, yes,
it's JR Hartley.” The advert was voted one of the best of all time.
Fast forward nearly 30 years and
one Ian David, a charismatic gentleman who had
enjoyed a short-lived pop career, had been searching the UK’s record shops for a copy of his 1989 single "I
Must Just Leave A Kiss". His search had been fruitless, but he was
determined to obtain a copy to prove to his daughter that he once had a pop
career. One day he called in to Vinyl Vault and asked Andrew if by any chance,
he had a copy of his record. To his amazement, Andrew replied he might. A few
days earlier a man had come in wanting to sell a vinyl collection that had
belonged to a recently deceased BBC producer. Among the records in that
collection Andrew remembered seeing a sleeve image that could have passed for
the face of the man now standing before him, 28 years after the picture on the
sleeve had been taken. I have a theory that record shop owners would make great
detectives, because they are so good at tracking things down. This was a great
example. Sure enough it was the long-forgotten single that his customer was
looking for. Everybody won. Ian David was over the moon. His daughter was
delighted to receive a record sung by her dad and Andrew was chuffed to dispose
of a record he thought he was unlikely to sell.
In addition to some singular
customers, Holt Vinyl Vault has many unique features, one of which is the shop’s mascot, Jonny Record created by Andy
Ward, who adorns a plethora of postcards, badges and flyers. Andrew still uses the original
wooden counters from the post office, and the back room has a two-way mirror,
originally used so the postmaster could keep his eye on his staff. The shop
also has two large safes, so Andrew has no problem storing the day’s takings -
although on a dark, cold, winter’s day in Holt, a piggy bank might suffice.
Sadly, for post office fans, Andrew
was forced by yet another reorganisation of the post office network to
relinquish that side of the business at the end of 2016, and to concentrate on
being a stand-alone record shop. At least this means he is no longer plagued by
jokers asking for post-office related records, such as “Return to Sender”
(Elvis); “Please Mr. Postman” (Marvelettes, Beatles or Carpenters); “Signed, Sealed,
Delivered I’m Yours”
(Stevie Wonder); and “Telegram
Sam” (T. Rex).
The shop still looks like a post office from the
exterior. However, the original, lit-up Radio 1 ON AIR
sign and various Jonny
Record-related posters in the window give the game away. Inside, it looks as if
a designer with a penchant for bees has been let loose. The long-suffering post
office carpet has been ripped up and everything - floors, walls, even chairs -
is painted black and yellow.
In 2009, Andrew published a novel FM247: This Is Radio Binfield! written
with his best friend Rob Spooner. It is the sort of book most music fans will
enjoy (myself included). It tells the story of The Emperor, a DJ from the
community radio station, Radio Binfield, who experiences a mental breakdown
during the search for his childhood friend, The Captain, whom he betrayed. The
Emperor presents his all-time favourite 100-song countdown. The songs are
presented as vignettes in the style of his favourite DJs from his youth, who
used to broadcast on the fictional Radio Fun from the 1960s to the 1980s: Tony
Sideburns, Simon Mates, Johnnie Talker, Steve Trite, Mike Lead and the
legendary John Zeal. The songs eventually come together to tell the whole
story. Buy a copy from the shop and help Andrew reduce his stockpile. You won’t
regret it.
One of the most rewarding responses to my own book, Last Shop Standing,
was that of the many vinyl fans who
subsequently kept in touch by informing me of how many of the 50 record shops
featured in the book they had visited - rather like soccer fans attempting to visit all the football
grounds in the country. Some asked the shop owners to sign my book. Anybody trying to do something
similar with this book will find that Holt Vinyl Vault is located many miles
away from any other record shop. My tip would be to visit the area on a sunny
weekend. Look through the shop’s
wares and buy one
of its iconic Punk Office T-shirts, along with a
copy of Andrew’s book. Spend the rest of the day on the beach and return for
one of the regular Saturday-evening events, when the shop is transformed into a
nightclub with Norfolk legend DJ Trevor Half Nelson behind the decks playing
reggae and Northern Soul. Later in the evening Andrew, in the guise of Postmaster Flash, magically takes over playing music by anyone from Sun
Ra to his personal hero Prince. You may be lucky enough to catch a set by one
of the guest DJs such as funkmeister Sugar Beat, disco don Hitman Hawkins or
indie expert Shelia Take A Bow.
These are nights when cheap booze
and classic music combine to heady effect, and are popular with visitors and
locals alike. North Norfolk has golden beaches and a classic record shop, so it
is a trip you won’t regret.
Over 220 independent record shops featured in The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen
The latest book The Vinyl Revival and the Shops
That Made it Happen' has been turned in to a film.
www.thevinylrevivalfilm.com
It is available on DVD and can also be
watched on Vimeo
@Revival_Vinyl
For film screenings and talks contact Graham
at graham@lastshopstanding.co.uk
Over 100 record shop articles
on this blog - Check them out
The stories of record shops can be heard each week in The
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Also
available on Spotify.
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