Clive Sinclair died

[Bob Eager]

I worked for a company in Brighton, in the 1960s, that did that with valves. The valves were mostly secondhand, so they were cleaned and reprinted.

[Andrew]

Well I tripped over the speaker leads on my 1978 Aiwa AX7400 tuner/amp and yanked one of them out and not long after it blew an internal fuse which turned out to be because one of the mains diode rectifiers had blown. Not sure if this was coincidence.

[Andrew]

There used to be an electrical emporium in Worthing where they bought ex-mod stuff and mostly salvaged the backplane connectors for the gold, but some MOD stuff had gold-plated transistors and other goodies. Wonderful place for old electronic bits and bobs.

[Jeff Layman]

In Portland Street, IIRC. I spent many an hour browsing there; it was a useful substitute after the Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street shops in London disappeared. I've just come across this, but it isn't really the same thing:

Perhaps in the UK only J.Birkett in Lincoln is left as the sole supplier of government/military surplus electronic gear.

[jkn]

Interesting - I walk down Portland Road (not Street) in Worthing fairly regularly. There's a tiny parade of shops in the middle, I assume it was one of those.

Growing up in Preston, Lancs in the '70s, my electronics Emporium of choice was 'Jumbo's Korner', a wonderful place for an electronics-mad young teenager to work out what to spend his pocket money on.

[Andrew]

Was it made in the Timex factory up near Glasgow ?

[Andrew]

Where the emporium used to be has been redeveloped and is now a Polish delicatessan or similar food outlet. 'Yogi' and one of the other guys set up their own place on the one-way street that leads to Worthing station, buying and selling electronic stuff and repairing anything that was pre-'microprocessor inside'. This closed over a decade ago.

[Bob Eager]

I remember that; I lived in Brighton and used to get the Southdown bus over there. Can't remember the name; began with a G?

Anyone remember Arthur Sallis in North Road, in Brighton?

[Bob Eager]

No; it was quite near the southern end. It was atatty building and it looks to have been redeveloped. Somewhere near the Greek taverna.

[Bob Eager]

I remember now. It was called: G.W.M. Radio

[Jeff Layman]

That's it. It was a few shops north of the Scholl shop.

It was pretty tight inside ("social distancing" would be an impossibility there!), and there was an annexe out back, with rather too much exposure to the elements.

[Bob Eager]

I remember all of that! I used to get the bus because (a) it was cheaper and (b) it was along walk from the station.

The only place in Brighton was Arthur Sallis, and he was a real rogue. Although for components you could go to Technical Trading (where I had a part time job for a while).

[Theo]

Possibly a later era but there was Bull Electrical somewhere in Brighton - all sorts of surplus stuff of various provenance. It appears they still have a website listing their 'stock', not that it has any contact details to order anything:

Their 'computer controlled warehouse' pictures look to be a cross between a storage unit and a hurricane disaster zone.

Ah, some 'recent' pictures:

apparently it's in Henfield)

Theo

[Chris J Dixon]

I never really did component stuff, but Shudehill in Manchester, where Proops and other emporia were to be found, was the area to browse when I lived in the area in the early 70s.

Chris

[Bob Eager]

Yes, I was about to say it wasn't that near to Brighton! Never got to go there.

[Theo]

It seems they had a shop in Hove (J. Bull Electrical Ltd), and later moved. Went under in 2006 and the Henfield landfill site is their reincarnation.

Theo

[jkn]

I ordered some stuff from J. Bull Electrical when I was a kid - and it was one of those formative experiences where you realise how the description was written to sucker you in, and that the world might have people in it who just want to part you from your money.

When I much later moved to Brighton they had a shop on Portland Road (again!) in Hove; but I suspect that wasn't their original address. They were selling a lot of, ahem, 'hydroponics' gear. I think I remember going in and realising I didn't want to be dealing with the sort of people who seemed to be running it. Of course it helped that I had a bit more loose change by then.

Still missing H. Gee in Cambridge...

[Steve Walker]

What was the one near the Daily Mail printworks? Newcross supplies? Newcross electronics? Something like that.

[Jeff Layman]

I wonder if that was the same Proops who had a shop in Tottenham Court Road in London for many years in the 50s and 60s? Anyone remember Z & I Aero (also in TCR, almost opposite Heals IIRC).

I just found this:

I never knew they had a shop in Westbourne Grove.

It seems they might still be around:

[Andy Burns]

Vacuumtubesuperstore just seems to be an "aggregator" of eBay listings