Post by tomuk on Mar 31, 2011 16:00:26 GMT -1
MAZEL RADIO - AN ALADDIN’S CAVE . . . .
A series of letters to the Manchester Evening News ‘Memories’ page mentioned Mazel Radio of London Road, situated between Fairfield Street and the Mancunian Way. I’m sure many Mancunians will have browsed around this veritable Aladdin’s cave in it’s heyday
As a teenager in the 1950s I regularly cycled from home in Wythenshawe on a Saturday afternoon to check out their latest bargains. At that time they had about three shops on the row, with others occupied by a scooter spares shop (JAKs), a sweet shop and a restaurant supplies shop (Forsters). However, as other shops on the row closed down, Mazel’s moved in and they ended up occupying the whole row.
The main shop had shelves from floor to ceiling, full of radios of every shape and size, as well as record players, tape recorders, TV’s and domestic items such as kettles, toasters and irons to name just a few. There were also lots of items stored on the floor and you had to tread carefully as you walked around. Most were second hand items at bargain prices. These were the days when many people still had radios which required glass valves (before transistors) and they had hundreds of types of every shape and size in boxes laid out along the pavement.
The record shop next door stocked ‘deleted’ records which were basically the records that the high street shops had disposed of to make way for new releases or those which hadn’t made the charts. So if you didn’t mind the fact that they weren’t the very latest ones you could buy four for the price of one new one on the high street.
These were originally the very breakable 78s, but as the 1950s progressed, the more durable 45 and 33rpm discs were stocked. I still have some 78s lurking at the back of the wardrobe, many in Mazel’s own personally printed sleeves with the price 2/6d. printed on them.
When I left school I started a printing apprenticeship in 1958 at Warburton’s in Echo Street off Granby Row behind the Fred Dawes shop on London Road, and this was perfect because it was situated just round the corner from Mazel’s, so now I could browse to my heart’s content at lunch time. I also had the job of going to Andrew’s sandwich shop for the ‘butties’, and was surprised to see it still there recently (2010), nestling in the shadow of the railway bridge carrying the line between Oxford Road and Piccadilly (Mayfield) stations.
I remember buying a stylish white plastic art deco styled radio for a couple of pounds from Mazel when I married in 1963 and it served us well for many years. I also remember buying a portable radio in a leatherette carrying case for use at work that required PP9 (9v) batteries. These soon ran down and weren’t cheap to replace, but Mazel’s had the answer. They used to stock a lot of ex-War Department items, including 9-volt batteries which were much cheaper than branded ones and lasted longer - the only trouble was that they were almost the size of a house brick and their cases were thick greaseproof paper! They had to be connected to the radio via a couple of leads because they wouldn’t fit inside the cabinet, but they did the job.
Next to the radio shop, Mazel opened a second-hand bike shop, selling decent bikes for a few pounds. When the Beatles burst upon the scene and we all tried to emulate them and bought electric guitars on hire purchase, they converted the record shop and bought those guitars off disillusioned youngsters who needed to raise cash to pay off their HP balances as their dreams faded. Mazel’s then resold them at bargain prices.
The proprietor whom I think was called David, was a gruff, no nonsense Jewish man, but as a regular visitor I always got on with him well. If someone tried to haggle over a price, he gave them short shrift. I once heard that the name of the shop was based on Mazel Tov, which among other things means “good luck” in Hebrew.
The store lingered on at London Road whilst all around it was being demolished to make way for the UMIST extensions and I think it finally succumbed in the 1980’s.
On the excellent Manchester Libraries website (www.images.manchester.gov.uk) there are a number of pictures of the Mazel stores. Just enter ‘London Road’ in the search box and scroll through to see how it looked in the 50’s and early 60s. Note the many advertising hoardings above the shops. They must have earned a reasonable rental. The photos are between page numbers 281 to 320 in the London Road section of the libraries website.
A series of letters to the Manchester Evening News ‘Memories’ page mentioned Mazel Radio of London Road, situated between Fairfield Street and the Mancunian Way. I’m sure many Mancunians will have browsed around this veritable Aladdin’s cave in it’s heyday
As a teenager in the 1950s I regularly cycled from home in Wythenshawe on a Saturday afternoon to check out their latest bargains. At that time they had about three shops on the row, with others occupied by a scooter spares shop (JAKs), a sweet shop and a restaurant supplies shop (Forsters). However, as other shops on the row closed down, Mazel’s moved in and they ended up occupying the whole row.
The main shop had shelves from floor to ceiling, full of radios of every shape and size, as well as record players, tape recorders, TV’s and domestic items such as kettles, toasters and irons to name just a few. There were also lots of items stored on the floor and you had to tread carefully as you walked around. Most were second hand items at bargain prices. These were the days when many people still had radios which required glass valves (before transistors) and they had hundreds of types of every shape and size in boxes laid out along the pavement.
The record shop next door stocked ‘deleted’ records which were basically the records that the high street shops had disposed of to make way for new releases or those which hadn’t made the charts. So if you didn’t mind the fact that they weren’t the very latest ones you could buy four for the price of one new one on the high street.
These were originally the very breakable 78s, but as the 1950s progressed, the more durable 45 and 33rpm discs were stocked. I still have some 78s lurking at the back of the wardrobe, many in Mazel’s own personally printed sleeves with the price 2/6d. printed on them.
When I left school I started a printing apprenticeship in 1958 at Warburton’s in Echo Street off Granby Row behind the Fred Dawes shop on London Road, and this was perfect because it was situated just round the corner from Mazel’s, so now I could browse to my heart’s content at lunch time. I also had the job of going to Andrew’s sandwich shop for the ‘butties’, and was surprised to see it still there recently (2010), nestling in the shadow of the railway bridge carrying the line between Oxford Road and Piccadilly (Mayfield) stations.
I remember buying a stylish white plastic art deco styled radio for a couple of pounds from Mazel when I married in 1963 and it served us well for many years. I also remember buying a portable radio in a leatherette carrying case for use at work that required PP9 (9v) batteries. These soon ran down and weren’t cheap to replace, but Mazel’s had the answer. They used to stock a lot of ex-War Department items, including 9-volt batteries which were much cheaper than branded ones and lasted longer - the only trouble was that they were almost the size of a house brick and their cases were thick greaseproof paper! They had to be connected to the radio via a couple of leads because they wouldn’t fit inside the cabinet, but they did the job.
Next to the radio shop, Mazel opened a second-hand bike shop, selling decent bikes for a few pounds. When the Beatles burst upon the scene and we all tried to emulate them and bought electric guitars on hire purchase, they converted the record shop and bought those guitars off disillusioned youngsters who needed to raise cash to pay off their HP balances as their dreams faded. Mazel’s then resold them at bargain prices.
The proprietor whom I think was called David, was a gruff, no nonsense Jewish man, but as a regular visitor I always got on with him well. If someone tried to haggle over a price, he gave them short shrift. I once heard that the name of the shop was based on Mazel Tov, which among other things means “good luck” in Hebrew.
The store lingered on at London Road whilst all around it was being demolished to make way for the UMIST extensions and I think it finally succumbed in the 1980’s.
On the excellent Manchester Libraries website (www.images.manchester.gov.uk) there are a number of pictures of the Mazel stores. Just enter ‘London Road’ in the search box and scroll through to see how it looked in the 50’s and early 60s. Note the many advertising hoardings above the shops. They must have earned a reasonable rental. The photos are between page numbers 281 to 320 in the London Road section of the libraries website.
The street down the right hand side was Upper Vauxhall st, you can see 'our' house in this picture on the local images website