Jimmy Maguire had spent his formative years impassioned by football. Nothing ever came close to this passion, his vice, his one true love. His old man however was every inch a vinyl junkie. Every day until the day he caught his very last breath he'd woken up wishing that today was going to be the day that his only son was going to catch the music bug. The closest he had come to having that dream fulfilled was in the late 80s when he'd asked for a copy of Banarama's Greatest Hits on vinyl. Not that his old man considered the female trio worthy of the title of singers let alone musicians or true artists. In reality he'd not have allowed the vinyl in his house let alone be placed beneath the needle of his equally prized turntable. The purchase he hoped would become like a gateway drug into the really good stuff, well it didn't work and as soon as the phase had passed the record had gone in the bin. His old man wasn't having that shit sat amongst his collection.
Every spare inch of their living room had been given over to vinyl. It hadn't always been that way but as the years had passed his never ending obsession had first seen his wife's books vanish to be replaced by vinyl. The same happened with her treasured ornaments, then the TV went, the coffee table and by the time the sofa went his wife had gone too unable to put up with the obsession anymore and constantly playing second fiddle to a 12" piece of plastic wrapped in a cardboard sleeve. She'd started with a 7" of a different sort to satisfy one part of her own desires which eventually led to her satisfactions being met bent over her bosses desk. The first couple of times she'd been petrified her husband would find out and that he'd ask why she was late and she knew she was a terrible liar. The sad truth was he didn't even notice the first time or the second time that she was late home. He never missed her at all and that was the ultimate signature on the death warrant for their marriage. Jimmy had decided to stay with his old man despite refusing to sanction him getting blonde highlights in his hair like his hero Frank McAvennie which had seen Jimmy refuse to talk to his old man for a month but he finally gave in when he realised that his old man hadn't even noticed.
His mum's new fella wasn't a bad bloke he was just a bit… beige. Beige and well … wooden. To be fair it was him being wooden with his mum that had seen her leave his old man but it wasn't that type of wooden he was referring to. Perhaps he'd undergone a personality transplant only they'd forgotten to put one back in him. When they'd had sex education at school all the boys being… well just that - boys, had made funny faces and retching noises after one had brought up the subject of having to think about any of their parents ever having had sex to make them. Could there be anything worse? Well hearing your mum and her new fella at it in the room next door to the room you were occupying and supposed to be sound asleep in was definitely worse and the fear of walking in on them accidentally at it was so horrifying that he never stayed there again. Instead he gamed the system like the country's youngest benefits cheat. His mum would feed him and keep his clothes cleaned whilst his old man provided the roof over his head every night and was too wrapped up in his music to even notice the time of an evening or during the weekends and whether his son was in his room or out getting up to all sorts of mischief. The answer was it was usually the latter though to be fair most of the time was spent kicking a ball about pretending to be McAvennie minus the blonde highlights he'd so cruelly been denied. Well it was him or Tony Cottee when one of the older kids would declare he was being Frank which is to say in the McAvennie way rather than the open and honest way, although to be fair the two probably mixed in as far as he honestly had no chance of persuading the bigger kids otherwise. Some days when all the bigger kids were out and would commandeer your ball your choice of players got slimmer and slimmer as you fell further down the pecking order. You'd lost Devonshire, Ward, Parris, Goddard, Potts, Gale… Some days you knew what was coming - fucking Phil Parkes which meant standing in between two jumpers for goalposts and having the big kids twat balls at you as hard as they could until they got bored and if you were lucky left you still in possession of your ball and stinging hands.
The day McAvennie departed for Scotland was the first time he'd had his heart broken. He'd come back a couple of years later but Jimmy wouldn't be stupid enough to give his heart to him a second time given the fact he'd never really gotten over it when he'd moved on in 1987. Not that he'd ever openly admit anything of the sorts to his mates. You didn't cry over a footballer leaving when your bedroom door was shut. Mind you it's not as if anyone else would have known when the only other person in the house wouldn't have heard you crying anyway over the music coming from downstairs. The boys would have resorted to one word had they known, three letters beginning with g and ending in y. The 1980s were very different times and kids truly didn't know any better. Instead of playing 'it' at the height of the aids epidemic one of you would touch another and go 'you've got aids' and then they'd chase the others trying to touch the next person and get rid of it. Still if that seems cruel it's nothing compared to the shit the media and adults would have put someone through who was suffering with HIV or full blown aids. As I say, different times.
Having no real parental structure and an old man who spent every spare penny on music meant Jimmy was free to try to graft a few quid for himself wherever possible. He took on a morning paper round and kept that up until he realised getting up early was more hassle than it was worth and it was fucking freezing and dark and no amount of recompense was worth that hassle especially when by the time you'd finished you'd be off to school on an empty stomach and feel a clip around the back of the head if you were falling asleep in class. So instead he got himself a job on the market on a Saturday morning which still meant getting up at the crack of dawn to help setup but he'd get a tenner, bacon roll and a can of coke for doing it and could go back to a nice warm bed afterwards. He was reliable and cheap and that meant that after a while it was like being a footballer of sorts in as much as that everyone wanted your services so all the traders were trying to get him to come work for them for a few pennies more. Whilst he couldn't tell you one arse end of an algebraic equation from the other he was at least smart enough to know that a few bunches of flowers weighed a lot less than lumping bags of spuds and other fruit and veg about and so he stayed where he was. That decision to remain loyal would prove of huge benefit come the 1990s when his old man dropped down dead of a heart attack. Having your old man no longer about wasn't as much the issue given he'd only been about in as much as he'd occupied a space in what used to be their living room. No, the real issue was what to do with all the vinyl that he'd left behind and his boss on the market had suggested getting a pitch and flogging it that way. Getting a pitch usually wasn't easy but he had a word in the ear of the market inspector and a space magically opened up and that was how Trading Records had started.
All his life whilst alive the old man had wanted Jimmy to follow his passion of music and now he'd be busy turning in his grave whilst his son was busy selling off his collection it had taken him his short lifetime to collect. There's an Irony for you if ever you wanted one and just one letter away from Jimmy's beloved football team's nickname. No, clearly not the Hammers before you sit there all confused, the real fans only referred to them as the Irons, a shortened version of the founding clubs name Thames Ironworks before they reformed in 1900 under their current moniker.
What started as means to an end eventually became his livelihood and would take over his life. His old man would have stopped rolling in his grave having learned his son had finally opened his ears and embraced the same passion, though unlike him he didn't form an attachment to what he was selling. The name of the game was always to sell it as fast as you'd put your hands on it. He'd progressed from selling only vinyl to adding cassettes. When CDs looked like they'd killed off both those formats he'd adapted again and to be fair cassettes and vinyl took up less room and were easier to lug about. He'd taken the plunge when business was good enough and opened up his own shop which had continued to grow in popularity. He'd survived the rise of Napster between 1999 and 2002 because his clientele weren't tech savvy. He'd survived the first iteration of the iPod in 2001 because again the stream of faces coming through his doors still weren't tech savvy. As long as you had purists who liked to get their hands on tactile objects then you had no issues. When the iPhone came along in 2007 it was like Steve Jobs had basically turned up at the Trading Records premises with a few boards, a bag of nails and a hammer and got to work securing the place up and that was the death of that. He'd relied on his customers not being tech savvy back in 1999 but had he himself been that way inclined he might have been alright with the rise of eBay but just as a kid he'd not known one arse end of an algebraic equation from the other he hadn't known one arse end of a computer from another. So that was the death of that then and he found himself back at square one only instead of a living room full of vinyl he'd got a premises full of second hand CDs that no one wanted to buy. Unlike the 1995 hit single by Alanis Morisette which he'd fucking hated here was a reality that truly was fucking ironic as far as Jimmy was concerned.
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