PETE PAPHIDES
It was Friday, the day before pocket money day. My mum collected me from school and we boarded the number 11 bus to the big scary roundabout, only this time we stayed on and overshot the rounda bout, alighting at a row of shops, each of which existed to service a different essential everyday requirement.
A greengrocer. A butcher. A baker. A hardware store. And also – because this was 1978, the year in which physical record sales reached an unsurpassable 2,750 million worldwide – a record shop. This being early December, it was already dark. From across the road, I saw the low- lit browsers behind the window display of new releases and a wall on which were stuck posters and artfully stapled, overlapping record sleeves, some of which curved outwards. The shop was called Discus. I must have stared at it a bit longer than usual because my mum clocked me and asked me if I’d like to go in and have a look.