Not only was I born in this year but I lived around the corner from some of the big electronics component shops in London's Edgware Road (i.e. Smiths and Henry's). Smiths has been demolished to make way for a new development but Henry's still appears to be going strong if the current Google street view can be believed. I remember being fascinated by these places even before i developed a serious interest in hifi in my early teens. Yes, there was always a crowd of odd looking men gathered outside these two stores peering in lasciviously at the freshly installed valves, oscilloscopes, and various items of military surplus electronics. I remember that Henry's used to have a lot of kit designs such as hifi amplifiers. I also remember seeing the early Sinclair products given pride of place in the windows of these two shops.

Neither of these stores sold much upmarket hifi gear but they were surrounded by a number of regular hif stores, not least a branch of Laskys.

I wonder now what creations emerged from the components purchased in these two iconic stores?

Geoff