On the balcony of Cardiff Central Market a group of teenage girls excitably pose for pictures with friends.
They’re gathered outside one of the market’s longest-running stalls and haven for music lovers – Kelly Records.
One of the youngsters has a camera trained on her subject, while others capture images on their mobiles no doubt destined for social media.
On closer inspection several of the girls having their picture taken are all wearing the same uniform – white t-shirt and blue jeans.
It transpires that the pictures being taken are for a photoshoot for an aspiring band hoping to get some eye-catching publicity shots.
“It happens all the time,” laughs Allan Parkins, the owner of the shop that has become a secondhand paradise for music lovers in the city and beyond during the last half century. “People love to have their photo taken with the records. It’s a great backdrop for pictures to put up on Instagram and Facebook.”
And what better background than amongst the colourful racks and hidden treasures of the secondhand record shop that is a famous and enduring presence in the indoor market.
This month Kellys celebrates its 50th birthday. It’s a landmark moment for the business, a testament to having weathered countless changes in retail which has seen many of its larger firms go under.
For Kellys' owner it’s an opportunity to look back on five decades of satisfying crate diggers, vinyl junkies and music afficianados at the shop launched by his aunty and uncle Phyllis and Eddie Kelly in 1969.
“Eddie was obsessed by music," he says. "He loved all sorts of music, especially folk. He would sing with people like (singer songwriter) Frank Hennessey around the folk clubs. He was very well known on that circuit.
“He also loved buying music. He’d buy record after record and that’s where he came up with the idea of selling secondhand records. Back then nobody else had that idea. So he’d go around the local area putting posters on telephone posts ‘wanted – vinyl records’. He started doing that. It went so well and he had so much stuff that he thought what can I do next?
“So he took the smallest stall upstairs in the market in the opposite corner to where we are now and started selling records out of there.”
The advent of the LP album in the late ‘50s and the phasing out of 78s heralded a boom in vinyl during the ‘60s and Kelly’s benefited from this music revolution.
“Three or four years later he moved to where we are now,” says Allan. “That was a signifier of how well it was going.”
Kellys quickly became a renowned fixture among Cardiff Central market’s stalls, with Eddie and Phyllis in particular, much loved by the loyal customers who flocked there.
“Eddie would love to sing and he would love to embarrass my aunty,” he laughs. “Eddie was the frontman. All of a sudden he would burst into song, a little folk ditty, or an operatic song that was his character.
“Phyllis was the brains behind the business. She was such a cool cookie. I adored the pair of them. They were such a lovely couple. They were on honeymoon the whole of their marriage. It was beautiful.”
Kellys' famous Elvis statue
Standing at the top of the stairs to the balcony in the market you’re greeted by the sight of Kellys famous Elvis statue, which has stood there since the 1990s.
“He is one of three models that I purchased from a vinyl collector in Blackwood,” says Parkins. “I went to buy some records from him. It was a great collection, all Welsh rock – Man, Sassafras, Budgie that sort of thing. He had this figure that was covered over in a conservatory. I asked him what it was and he said it was an Elvis figure. He told me he had gone to an auction and bought five of them, although his wife was going potty because she wanted them out of the house and he didn’t know what to do with them.
“I bought one for £250, and then went back for another two an d sold them on. I got them because I had been to Florida the pervious year and had seen one there for a grand, so I thought I can do something with these!
“But I kept that first one and he such a recognisable part of Kellys, I’d never let him go.”
However, there came a time when the pair's retirement loomed - something Allan believed must have been hard for his aunt and uncle.
“It was their baby,” he adds. “It was hard for them to let it go. They had a caravan down in Tenby that they loved. They were pretty much semi-retired, but they didn’t really want to give it up. It was a quandry for them. It was their life.”
Allan, a former trainee at Cardiff City Football Club and a high flyer at Cardiff council, took over the business in 1991 - the year when Nirvana's released their seminal album Nevermind.
But when he took the reigns, little did he know of the sweeping changes in the music industry ahead as music formats flew in and out of fashion - from CDs to the ill-fated MiniDisc to MP3s and streamed music - before the good old fashioned LP made a comeback.
“I took over before CDs had come in and then, bang, a couple of years later vinyl is out CDs are in," says Allan. "From having no CDs in the shop we were getting next to no vinyl apart from the stocks we had accrued, it was all CDs.
“It was a case of having to get on board with CDs, unless you were a muso or a vinyl junkie most average people in the street went straight to CDs. We got into that market, but we kept the stocks of vinyl we had and we maintained a customer base of people who wanted vinyl, but CDs took over.
“When I said I’ll buy the business off you, they didn’t want to. They said: ‘We wouldn’t want you to buy it and fail because we love you and we don’t want that to happen’.
"But I was a shrewd businessman and I could see what I could do with it. I bought it on the condition I would come in for three months to learn the business. I came in first for all five days, then four days, then three days, two days and in the space of six weeks I knew what needed to be done. And they respected that and were happy for me to take it on."
Despite seeing the likes of Our Price and Virgin Megastore disappear from the high street, Cardiff excels when it comes to quirky record shops brimming with character.
Not only does the city house the world’s oldest record store in Spillers – 125 years and counting, but Allan believes Kellys now holds the title of the longest-running secondhand record shop in the UK.
“When Eddie was setting up the secondhand business he was very friendly with with a musician called David Lashmar who set up a famous secondhand record shop around the same in Croydon called Beanos,” he says.
“They were the very first secondhand record shops we think in the whole of the UK. Beanos sadly closed a few years ago, so we believe Kellys is the longest-running in the UK.”
Allan reckons that keeping Kellys buoyant has all been about adaptability and being able to read the signs.
"We‘ve just gone with the flow," he adds. "Something new comes along – sometimes it works and gets in the popular consciousness and are a commercial success like CDs, but then you have other formats like Betamax and Minidiscs, they never worked. We took a punt on whether we thought we could sell them on. You quickly learn what the demand is.
“We opened a video shop and we did really well with that, but then DVDs arrived and that hit the buffers. In a year the writing was on the wall.
“I said okay forget that and we shut the shop. You can’t give videos away now and charity shops refuse to take them. CDs are getting like that now. Vinyl sales have rocketed and our CD sales have plummeted. When we could charge five, six, seven quid for a CD now we’re knocking them out for a pound, two pound now.”
The Kellys owner states that the vinyl revival has been nothing short of remarkable – so much so that he believes it’s secured the future of his shop.
“I’d say it was five years ago when I realised something special was happening,” he says. “It was all part of the retro culture. Kids getting into secondhand clothing, retro clothing. Then the hipster thing happened. These were kids who grew up in the downloads and streaming culture who had never owned physical music. They wanted something that wasn’t downloads or streaming. They wanted something cool and retro and that was vinyl.
“The record companies said let’s give it whirl and then – boom.
“Our average customer for vinyl used to be 45 to 50-year-old blokes, now it’s 17 and 18-year-olds coming in to buy classic albums by the Smiths, Led Zeppelin and Blondie.
“They love the artwork, reading the sleeve notes, it’s a cool thing to do. There’s an authenticity to it. Vinyl is here to stay, unquestionably, no doubt at all. CDs are up in the air.
"In the industry they’re talking about they’ll only be around for a couple more years. I can’t see a CD revival ever. Lots of new cars now haven’t got a CD player now. To me that’s sounding the death knell.”
And while 69-year-old Allan admits he may be nearing retirement age, he has no plans of packing it all in just yet.
“I’ve never planned anything in my life,” he says. “This is not a proper job. I’ve got fantastic staff. They’d rather I not be here to be honest. We’re all mates. We all get on. It’s a fantastic atmosphere and I trust them implicitly.
“The shop is safe. I’ve had a bit of interest from people wanting to buy it off me but it’s been a family business since 1969.
“I’ve got grandkids and they can come and help me run it if they want. We’re going nowhere.”
Kellys 50th celebrations
On Saturday, June 29, Kellys celebrates its 50th anniversary with a day long celebration. Special guest DJs - such as Radio Wales' Bethan Elfyn - will be playing at the store and there will also be giveaways of t-shirts and cakes.
"It’s not a commercial selling occasion," says Allan. "It’s a chance for people to come in have bit of cake, have a cup of tea, have a glass of prosecco, tells us their stories and celebrate with us."
To find out more about Kellys, visit www.kellysrecords.com
