Liverpool shop that's the oldest of its kind in England

Diane Cain from The Musical Box.(Pic Andrew Teebay).
-Credit:Photo by Andrew Teebay


A Liverpool family-run shop which are now in their fourth generation is celebrating a new accolade. For over 70 years, The Musical Box on West Derby Road in Tuebrook have welcomed thousands of customers from the city and beyond - as well as a number of famous faces.

Dating back to 1947, the Liverpool institution first sold toys and LPs to customers before becoming a much-loved record shop. Diane Cain, 87, grew up in the Lake District until she was 12, as her dad worked at the Sunderland Flying Boat factory. The shop was originally owned by Diane Cain's uncle Jack Lewis, but when the family returned to Liverpool, Diane's mother, Dorothy, later bought the Tuebrook shop.

Today, the business is run by Diane's son Tony Quinn and his wife Paula, with her grandsons also helping and running the social media accounts. And The Musical Box has become so much more than a record shop, the ECHO previously reported.

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Now in its 78th year in business, the family have been told that The Musical Box is the oldest record shop in England. Paula told the ECHO: "After decades the family are feeling ecstatic to have received the provenance, they are England’s oldest independent record shop.

"We were aware that we were Liverpool’s oldest record shop, but with so many customers constantly saying we must be the oldest in the country, we decided to enquire.

Tony Quinn's nan Dorothy next to two-year-old Tony in the arms of his mum, Diane
Tony Quinn's nan Dorothy next to two-year-old Tony in the arms of his mum, Diane -Credit: The Musical Box Record Shop

"We thought it would be fitting for Diane, who is second generation, to be able to know, with her being 87-years-old. Our customers are so happy for us, to know their local record shop is the oldest.

"We do pride ourselves on preserving the family and the shop’s history. The shop is decorated with some of the shops historical documentation/artefacts, so to be recognised for being England’s oldest record shop in one of the most musical cities in the world, it has made the family feel immensely proud."

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The Musical Box has been visited by generations of customers, as well as famous face including John Lennon, Pete Best, Elvis Costello. For almost 80 years, it has operated from the same building.

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Diane told the ECHO: "It's absolutely wonderful for our family to have been told this, it’s an accolade for the shop due to our families love of music. My mother loved all types of music, and she always wanted a record shop, she would be so happy to know she founded England’s oldest record shop."

As part of our Liverpool ECHO How It Used To Be series, we previously spoke to Dianne about her childhood growing up in the shop and life inside the family business. To celebrate The Musical Box as England's oldest record shop, we've taken another look back at their history in the city.

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Dianne, previously told the ECHO: "The shop was always classed as fancy goods, it wasn't a record shop completely. My uncle Jack, my mother’s brother, bought it in about 1947 when he came out of the RAF. He had also another one on Muirhead Avenue, a modern one. My mother was the record enthusiasts, she loved music and he said I'll sell you the one in Tuebrook, the shabbiest one, the oldest one, the building went back to 1879."

The Musical Box Record Shop on West Derby Road in Tuebrook is about to reach a milestone birthday. Thought to be the oldest surviving record store in Liverpool, it's run by owners Tony Quinn and his wife Paula.
The shop has been run by the same family for nearly 80 years -Credit:The Musical Box Record Shop

The family of four - including Diane, her parents and her younger brother - later moved into the shop, living above it. Diane said her mother Dorothy lived there until she died in the 1990s.

Diane said: "Living on top of the shop was fine, only our kitchen was downstairs and our sitting room and dining room was upstairs. It was very old but it was nice being in the heart of a busy area, because West Derby Road was quite busy.

"Tuebrook was full of shops. There were butchers, grocers, there two shops in Tuebrook, two cinemas, it was lovely. We could go to the pictures whenever we fancied and everything was so different, now it's all supermarkets and that kind of thing.

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"Everything was round about us and when I got married we had a shop in Old Swan as well and I lived over that." Dianne said she sold her first record working in the shop around the age of 13 and whilst she disliked selling spare parts for Meccano toys, it "never felt like work" when she was selling records.

Diane said: "All of my friends came into the shop and you knew everybody, it was so personal. Your customers were friends and we sold cigarettes, birthday cards, toys like Dinky's, Hornby, Meccano, Bayko building sets.

"People would come in to buy loose cigarettes." Diane has fond memories of her early days in the shop, such as staying open over Christmas time to make sure all the toys were sold.

The Musical Box Record Shop on West Derby Road in Tuebrook is about to reach a milestone birthday. Thought to be the oldest surviving record store in Liverpool, it's run by owners Tony Quinn and his wife Paula.
Inside the shop decades ago -Credit:The Musical Box Record Shop

As her mother's passion for music grew, the business became solely a record shop. Diane said: "I loved the era of the 45,I loved choosing hits and advising the disc jockeys what I thought would be a hit.

"It was such good fun and I never thought of it as work, it was where I spent my life. Every month you'd get an advance list of what was being released on record and then you'd do you order.

"You'd decide what you thought would sell. You would be picking hits and asking can we have so much of this, will this sell and taking risks."

Dianne remembers American soldiers coming into the shop asking for Hank Williams records and later Elvis Presley, who the family had never heard of and initially Dianne's mother thought "would never sell" - but it did.

Dianne said: "We thought what sort of a name is Elvis Presley, but one month on the advanced list from HMV, there was the name. It came in eventually a few weeks later in a big box packed with straw so they wouldn't get broken and we played it.

"It was heartbreak hotel. It was so unlike anything you'd ever heard before.

The Musical Box Record Shop on West Derby Road in Tuebrook is about to reach a milestone birthday. Thought to be the oldest surviving record store in Liverpool, it's run by owners Tony Quinn and his wife Paula.
The Musical Box Record Shop has welcomed generations -Credit:The Musical Box Record Shop

"In our life, originally all the music came from the USA, you didn't have local music. Our local records tended to be cover versions.

"Then The Beatles became so would famous, because they write the songs. My heroes have always been the songwriters."

Throughout its history, the shop has counted the likes of Bill Shankly and The Beatles before they hit the big time. But last week, another famous family also popped in to The Musical Box.

Diane said: "We had lots of guests and people turning up and last Saturday we got Elvis Costello. He just turned up with his family, with his gorgeous wife, Diana Crall, she is a famous jazz piano player and singer.

"It was absolutely amazing and they were so lovely, they were just like our friends. We just talked about everything.

"We had his father’s LP because his dad used to sing with the Joe Loss band, Ross McManus, so we gave him that to take home. It was a wonderful day, I was very tearful about it, it was a joy."

Tony and Paula Quinn at the newly opened Musical Box Record Archive-Museum
Tony and Paula Quinn at the Musical Box Record Archive-Museum in Tuebrook -Credit:Photo by Andrew Teebay

Today, the business is run by Diane's son Tony and his wife Paula, with her grandsons also helping and running the social media accounts. Through the decades, the family has kept and preserved many items from the past surrounding the shop's history and Liverpool's music heritage.

In 2022, ahead of their appearance on BBC's Antiques Roadshow, specialist Wayne Colquhoun visited The Musical Box, which inspired them to transform Dorothy's former upstairs living room, which for years had been a stockroom, into a second shop floor and museum to display some of their history. Taking 14 months to complete, The Musical Box never shut during the upstairs renovations and on December 9 2023, they officially opened their new heritage museum to the public, with Wayne Colquhoun attending to cut the ribbon.

More treasures have since been found - one which has led to a family mystery being solved. Rare record sale logbooks, now displayed in The Beatles Museum, of the Beatles records that were sold in the shop on the day of their release were found and The Beatles Museum were able to help solve a 60-year-old mystery by Pete Best, that both he and John Lennon were customers.

Dianne added: "We get grandchildren of people who bought their first record from us and remember what it was. It’s like having a place in history, people do say that about our shop. I just love it."