Second-Hand Bookshops.

[skippiebg]

Originally Posted by MrInBetween

I remember spending a lot of time in various Plus Books shops around London. I can't recall their exact locations, as they gradually closed, but I think the last to go must have been the one near South Wimbledon Tube.

You'r entirely right. Norwood went in the mid-80s, Thornton Heath in the late 90s, and the biker geezer in Merton lasted a year or so more. I recall a particularly bad Blue Balls occasion when I drove there in early 2000 or more likely 2001 and found the whole arcade of shops gutted to revamp them into a Ford dealers. So Fiestas, at least, continued to be sold there

Originally Posted by MrInBetween

It does seem strange now to look back on the lengths you had to go to, years ago, to get anything like the kind of images you wanted, when today you just turn on your computer. VEF is like one of those shops in a way, where you spend hours searching for what you want and get shouted at if you put things in the wrong place. All it needs to make it complete is one of those Calor gas heaters and a musty smell of damp

Hear, hear... Still nothing beats the quiet blokey atmos and the sense of bursting impatience to get home we enjoyed way back then. Plus, we were young!

[broxyman]

Thanks for some wonderfully reminiscent descriptions of the London magazine shops - really takes you back.

There was a downside to the 'half-back' exchange policy, though - invariably pages would have been surreptitiously removed, making the magazines rather thinner than when they were originally published. Some peculiar stains, too!

There was a similar shop on Wandsworth Road, near the junction with Lambourn Road - Excel Books, I think it was called. Much the same as all the others, except that it had a pretty graphic window display. Long since disappeared, sadly.

[Jazz Man]

Great thread. For me the 1980's revolved around getting a fix of porn from a "secondhand bookshop". My introduction was Bonus Books in Plymouth. No sign of porn till you asked "any Rustler?" and a pile was pulled from literally under the counter for your inspection. By the way this was the UK softcore Rustler - I never asked about hardcore.

That was to be found in Birmingham where at least two shops had a decent collection of Rod*x and realated titles, plus Private and Pleasure. These were golden years - I can't describe the excitement of choosing a title (the mags were always sealed) and getting it home to see what was inside.

In later years a move to London resulted in trips to the shops near Kings Cross (videos too!). I seem to remember mags were £10 and videos £20 with half back on exchange. Getting sneak peeks of the content of the mags on the train home was all part of the thrill.

And then the internet happened.

[old alal]

Originally Posted by b1gt1t

Happened upon this place the other day;
http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz_photos/Gu0...t_4vYQ7wTU0_tw
Picked up a Whitehouse 77 and Parade 118 in "as new" condition for £5 and £3 respectively

Alas this is now a wine bar attached to the Lower Turks Head next door which re-opened at the end of last year, after "opening soon" for the last 25 or so years. bye the way the beer and atmosphere is good as it is in most of the Northern Quarter. Worth a visit IMHO.

[AdamApple]

Birmingham Rag Market and the Outdoor Market next door. Quite a little gold mine.

Mid teens and milling through the outdoor market one Saturday morning - a busy place - when I spied a box of 70s mags (Playbirds, Rustler etc) on a stall full of bric-a-brac and dived in. Picked out four or five and asked the woman "how much?" She looks at me blankly and then turns to her side and in a VERY loud yells out "Oi, Rene! How much are the pornos?"

[blackzorro007]

Tuf Tuf in Antwerp (closed now, a pitty !!!)
the had a big room staked with vintage porn magazines.
It was like a candy store for adults.

[Schwenck]

I used to buy most of my porn in shops like these. There was one in Nottingham I used to pop into when passing up or down the M1, as it always had a good selection of spanking mags. There were wrapped, of course, so you had to study the covers to see which looked to be the best purchase. It is a shame that they have nearly all disappeared.

[forfucksake]

I used to visit the local bookshop about once a month for my reading fix. Now I have an E-reader and over 10,000 books in my library I no longer need to. This is fortunate because they all seem to have disappeared in my area. Probably due to E-readers.