‘My fond memories of Banks Musicshop in York’ – letter

I WAS very taken by the Nostalgia double-spread (pages 18 and 19) in The Press, August 6 on the beloved Banks Music shop(s), now the ‘Giggling Squid’, a first for York.

The change in business title stopped me in my tracks.

Not so much from the sublime to the ridiculous as the sublime to the bizarre. Nevertheless, good luck to them and their cephalopods. I hope they’ll prosper and be ‘squids in’.

I’m not a musician but am a music lover and like so many, miss Banks. (Miss Banks was one of the great characters of the York retail scene!)

Those senior team members, some of whom appeared in your article, were experts, gurus; serving as priests in the Banks temple. Revered, reliable, respected. They were walking, talking catalogues. They had ‘the knowledge’. Colloquially, they knew their stuff!

I started my record-buying ‘career’ at Banks though I did also patronise other establishments during my ‘pop’ years’.

Many of my classical and jazz CDs proudly bear Banks stickers. I recall that crossing the threshold into the premises affected my demeanour, as it might on entering church or chapel!

Even a distant trombone trial didn’t disrupt the reverie and browsing. The truism ‘they don’t make them like that anymore’ certainly applies here.

Derek Reed,

Middlethorpe Drive,

York

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Anarchy at the check-out

AS more and more stores turn to self-service tills and with less staff servicing the stores’ tills, retailers only open a second or third till as and when required.

The rush to any newly opened till becomes a free-for-all and taking the spirit out of the queueing system that we are renowned for all over the world.

The spirit of fair play is being lost to anarchy.

D M Deamer,

Penleys Grove Street,

Monkgate,

York

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RIP James Whale

MAYBE I’ve missed something or maybe I’m just not up to speed with the current news programmes.

What happened to the TV reporting of the sad death of radio DJ and chat show host, TV chat show host, and newspaper columnist James Whale?

I haven’t seen or heard a single word on this.

Is this retribution because they didn’t always see eye to eye and he always said it like it is.

He was a very popular presenter in the 1980s on TV: The James Whale radio show. A contradiction there but that was the title of the show and very popular it certainly was.

M Horsman.

Moorland Road,

York

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Stella, the unsung hero keeping us all safe

THEY are our unknown and unsung heroes that have kept us safe.

Sadly, on August 4, Stella Rimington aged 90 slipped away from us.

Who you may ask?

She was our own Director General of MI5 and in her own short time on earth she steered us from a disastrous future of many things which we know very little of.

We live blissfully in ignorance of their duties to protect us, but this is a wake-up call.

Our future – read recent events in our papers – must surely awaken us all to be alert to the things to come.

We are British and have that Churchill spirit to survive.

See it, report it, and hopefully sort it.

Phil Shepherdson,

Woodthorpe,

York