Serving The Trade Back In The Day

[ChristianFletcher]

I remember going to Manchester first with my grandfather and then the adventure of going on my own on the bus to Shude Hill. There use to be an electronics shop there stacked high with mainly old junk and it smelt strongly of cigarettes and horse liniment . I think I bought my first transistor from there to make a little FM bug and also my first germanium diode to build a crystal set. I doubt they exist but I would love to see some pictures of those old electronic shops.

Actually almost brings a tear to my eye - grandads are amazing!

[ChristianFletcher]

delete posted in error sorry - dont know how to delete this post

[ms660]

Originally Posted by ms660

Got to reminiscing with the family the other day about the firms I worked for in the trade, I tried to find some old photos of the various premises but there's not a lot available, however a lot of the buildings etc have survived in one form or another.

Fred Dawes, Manchester, this was the 1st place I worked at in the trade, the HQ, main workshops, stores, offices etc was on Granby Row, just round the corner was the main shop on London Road and more or less opposite the HQ was the garage for servicing the fleet of vehicles, the only old photo so far is in the link below, the HQ/workshops building is on the left, the view is looking along South Pump Street towards Fairfield Street showing part of the Fire Station (no comments on the bike please):

https://www.***********/photos/mrpb27...n/photostream/

Today the same site is occupied by a more recent building, Fairfield House, this shot is from 2008 if you rotate the view you can still see the single story garage building (now gone) and opposite that is a three storey building which was the the rear of the London Road shop premises, it was comprised of more offices, new stock control, new stock servicing and new stock deliveries:

https://goo.gl/maps/EaGmLuKM4woUfxBz7

The London Road shop building in 2021, it was a large shop:

https://goo.gl/maps/q8bNXwdXzKKPmKnU7

Later I managed to get a transfer to another Fred Dawes workshop which was a bit closer to home.

Lawrence.

Just found two more old photos pertaining to the Fred Dawes Granby Row building, the first was taken in 1955, the building had six floors including the ground floor plus a basement, I worked on the 3rd floor, the fire escape shown that served the 3rd floor was where I used to blow out the dust from the TV cabinets and chassis, the first time I did that I didn't remove the valves first....whoops, road litter. :

https://images.manchester.gov.uk/web...e&refirn=28713

The link below shows a shot of the building from further along Granby Row, it was taken in 1963, the year before I started work there, Piccadilly Station (London Road) can be seen in the distance in both photos:

https://images.manchester.gov.uk/web...ue&refirn=1402

Originally the Granby Row building was a clothing factory.

Below is a link to the Manchester photo archives search page if anyone wants it:

https://images.manchester.gov.uk/

Lawrence.

[Richard_FM]

Originally Posted by dave walsh

A couple of decades later there was another specialist 78 shop in Stockport Shopping Centre.
Dave W

My Dad used to occasionally drop in (I think it was called the 78 Exchange) as they also had second hand LPs & 7" singles. It closed about 20 years ago when the owners retired & couldn't find anyone else to take on the business.

[Mike Phelan]

Any remember Warrington Electric in Bridge Street, Warrington? I worked there when I came from when I worked in Foyles in Bath, in the sixties.

They didn't trust me to work in radio and TV at first, so I was repairing appliancies for a short while!

[Hybrid tellies]

If we had not moved away from Cornwall after I left school I would most certainly have worked as a trainee or apprentice television/radio engineer either at ETS or Hydrovolts both in Helston.

With our move to Bath my first job was a trainee engineer at a family owned company called Bristol Wireless training mostly on television repairs in the workshop and customers homes as well as gaining my City and Guilds with day release at the local colleges.
Overall Bristol Wireless was a happy ship. The family that owned the business sold it to Radio Rentals where I also had a good couple of years.

[ms660]

I remember Hydrovolt some of the engineers that worked there came to work for ETS.

Lawrence.

[ms660]

Ref. Post#13:

When I worked for Radio Engineering Services on Arwenack Street a R & TV tech. joined us who had worked for Gears in Falmouth (Tony Ellis) anyone remember Gears?

They were down near the bottom end of Killigrew Street opposite The Moor.

I've just found an old film taken of that area back in the 1970's, at 38 seconds in you can see one of Gears vans being driven and pulling in by or close by to Gears shop (no comments please about the make/model of van etc)

https://falmouth.nub.news/n/falmouth...r-in-the-1970s

Lawrence.