Tuesday 3rd September

I have a confession to make.  I am seriously ill.  I have a desperate compulsion.  It is called buying records.  I have suffered for many many years, mostly in silence but I feel that now is the time I should come forward and speak, if only to save others from a similar fate.

As far as I can remember this disease first struck in my early twenties; I did have some early symptoms which I stupidly ignored – as a child I would assiduously record on a second-hand reel to reel tape recorder each weeks Top of the Pops, as I only had two reels I re-recorded over and over, and would listen in wonder in my bedroom till long past my bedtime.  Sadly at the time nobody warned me of the seriousness of my condition (if only health warnings were printed on records as they are on cigarettes) and I joyfully overindulged.  Each week I would manage despite a degree of financial hardship to purchase a new LP, I followed the advice of Noel Edmunds, then a radio1 dj on Sunday mornings and bought all of the new singer-songwriters as well as the back catalogues of Beatles and Dylan.

By my thirties and with the advent of cassette tapes I became seriously ill.  I tried to hide my addiction by buying secondhand records and recording them onto tape, then sneaking back and reselling them, only to spend any returns on even more records.

I was not however fatally diagnosed until the advent of CDs.  I spent far too many lunchbreaks and Saturday afternoons in second-hand record basements sorting through box after box of CDs and CD singles, mumbling..Got it, Rubbish, Interesting, Nice Cover, or Must Have.    I built CD shelf after shelf, and filled empty wine boxes with CD singles.

At one time I was delusional enough to hope I might one day own every record ever made.  But as the disease progressed and I became weaker I have resorted to an even stupider phase.  I now devote at least half my purchases to buying CD copies of records I once owned on vinyl, and taped.  Please don’t even mention the words ‘Boxsets’ to me, it brings on palpitations.  Even in my financially reduced state I still cannot resist buying, mostly from Amazon or ebay, more and more CDs.  I have a tall rack full of stuff I haven’t even listened to yet.  But of course as those familiar with my condition will know this doesn’t stop or even slow me down, neither does buying duplicates.  Well, you never know…

I know that I will die miserable and alone, huddled in a corner, crying out for my records.  And worse still when I am gone my family will break open the hoard and ignore all the gems, the rarities, the now deleted and unavailable and take them all to the Cat Rescue Shop where hopefully some fellow addict may find some consolation.    I am 62 years old and am a record addict.  Please help me.