Kevin Turner, 66, from Wolverhampton, found his love for music listening to his mum and dad's precious Elvis and Beatles records when he was a kid. Then, in junior school a friend of his brought in a 7-inch vinyl to use as a Frisbee, which Kevin could not let happen, and eventually convinced his pal to swap it for a bag of marbles. After getting his first one when he was a nipper, his passion for music grew and grew until he was forced to sell his LP collection because there was no space in his house for them. But never losing his love for the valuable wax, he continued collecting 7-inch singles and now has a collection worth more than a house deposit - but admitted he would never sell them.
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00:00Well, I can't stop buying records. There's just something about, you know, it's in your blood.
00:06You know, like women buy shoes or handbags or whatever. They've got to go and buy more dresses,
00:11you know. Well, I'm the same with the vinyl. Kevin's got a friend and they used to do the
00:16northern, all the record fairs and the records. They used to meet a couple of times a week and
00:20play the music. And his friend said, if anything happened to him, he would have Kevin's record.
00:25And I've told him straight, no way. I've had to put up with him for 23 years and his collection,
00:29they're mine. Oh, thanks. Thanks for that.
00:34My name is Kevin Turner. I'm from Wolverhampton and my age is 66. My journey started when I was
00:45at junior school. A friend of mine bought a seven inch vinyl recording to use as a frisbee.
00:53And I thought, well, no, you can't do that. So what I suggested was I'll swap a bag of marbles
01:01for this seven inch vinyl record. And we did. And for me, that was the first vinyl that I had
01:10for me personally. Obviously, when I was younger, you had pocket money. So the pocket money I was
01:18getting was 10 shillings a week, which we thought was phenomenal because you always got change out
01:23to the 10 shillings. But because I started getting interested in music, I thought, well,
01:31I'll start saving the music and then start buying seven inch vinyl records. I think now,
01:38off the top of my head, there's got to be well over a thousand and that's just seven inch singles.
01:47I did sell my LP collection, which was a big one, because purely and simply, I couldn't get it in
01:54where I was living at the time. It was too big. So we used to start doing record fairs on a regular
02:01basis, a friend, myself. And then in the end, we ended up doing the record fairs ourselves and
02:08hiring the table, selling off what we didn't want. So we could then go and buy what we did want.
02:16As regards value on some of the records, some are quite valuable. I've been putting my collection,
02:25I can tell you now, I've been registering in my collection, like indexing it, if you like,
02:31or trying to index it. I've been trying to index the collection on Discogs. So what you do,
02:38it comes up, you put in whatever you bought or purchased or what you've got and it gives you
02:46a bottom figure, a middle figure and a top figure. I've got three cases of about
02:56100 in each case and the high figure is coming out at 20,000. I met my partner 22 years ago.
03:08I think it was 22 years ago. Anyway, and it was at the time, it was a singles club.
03:15Well, the thing that I use to try and keep it sweet is I say, right, because we do,
03:22we're both Northern Soul fans. Well, I'm a big Northern Soul fan and we do go to Northern Soul
03:28venues. And I'll say, when they're obviously playing the track and I'll say to Joe,
03:34oh, that's in the box. That single is in the box. And she'll go, yes, but which box is it in?
03:43And I'll say, well, it doesn't really matter because you're going to end up with all the
03:47collection anyway. My name's Janet. I'm 71 and I live in Bushbury. We met at the singles club
03:54and I think what it was, it was so laid back. It was horizontal. It was so carefree and everything
04:00and we just clicked. And now sometimes I'll say, oh, I've got another one, but it's his collection.
04:06It's not mine. You know, it's his hobby and I would never, ever dream of taking it away from
04:12him. When we go to Goodyears, and that's where we use to go for our Northern Soul,
04:16that they get together and the lads get together and it's music, music, music, because once you
04:22start Kevin, you cannot stop him. He needs to tell you everything he knows about that single
04:28or that artist. And it just goes on. So me and the girls just ignore him and think,
04:32hell yeah, I'm dancing. I do say to him, where the hell is he going to go?
04:38And I have said to him in the past, you know, if you're partners and you have a rep,
04:42I would say to him, your final is going to go out the window with your clothes.
04:48But I know I wouldn't do it because I know they mean that much to him. I'd probably chuck all
04:51his clothes out, but not his final.