Rock fan Mark Goodman is determined to buck the national trend of record shops closing down as he opens up his own store in Chippenham.

Mr Goodman, from Katherine Park, Corsham, opened the shop above his wife Gill’s antique and vintage store Magpie in the Market Place on Saturday and hopes it will become an instant hit.

The store will also sell CDs and DVDs, and the opening has been endorsed by Graham Jones, a Chippenham author, whose recently published book Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops, has attracted plenty of media attention.

Mr Goodman, 48, who was recently made redundant from his job as a design engineer with Jaguar in Gaydon, Warwickshire, thinks vinyls are what the town is missing.

The father-of-four said: “The feedback I have had is that people want to hear that crackly sound of a record over the pure sound of a CD.

“We get a large number of people coming into Magpie and asking about vinyls and I think it is the next logical step.

“I grew up in the Seventies with Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and these are the sounds captured on vinyls that people want to hear.

“I think that, with more and more people downloading their music from the Internet, the value of vinyls and, to a certain extent, CDs, is on the up.

“I just hope people in Chippenham are open to the store and want to hear some classic tunes played the way they were supposed to be.”

Author and former music manager Mr Jones visited Mr Goodman’s shop on Saturday, taking with him a copy of his book for the store owner, and words of encouragement.

Mr Jones said: “If someone would have said to me 18 months ago that someone was thinking about setting up a record store I would have said they were mad.

“But since then we have lost 900 Woolworths shops and 100-odd Zavi stores so there really is nowhere on the high street for people to buy records any more.

“Young people also seem to be getting really into vinyl at the moment so that pushes up interest even more.”

The record store, which will be part of the Magpie name, also boasts a turntable for customers to try records before they buy them.

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