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root salad f22 Hobgoblin Music
Forty years of Britain’s folk instrument specialists. Steve Hunt hears founder Pete McClelland’s tale.
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eing a callow youth of just 54 summers, I’ve never known a UK folk scene without Hobgoblin Music. Back in 1976 I was following signposts set by those magi of the airwaves John Peel and Alexis Korner toward a Damascus Road still unknown. Meanwhile, Mannie McClelland knew exactly what she was looking for. What she most desired was a decent, affordable Anglo concertina. Mannie and her husband Pete went in search of a shop that sold folk instruments and quickly discovered that there wasn’t one. Together, they envisioned what an ideal folk music instrument shop might look like and, from humble beginnings, turned their ideas into reality. Pete McClelland tells their 40th anniversary story.
“We came down from the Wirral to Crawley because I got a job there at a time when people were being encouraged to move away from Merseyside to develop- ment areas, and Crawley was one of those. So we got 500 quid from the government to move to Crawley, and then our next stroke of good luck was to get a flat within a house on a farm that belonged to Martyn Wynd- ham Read’s parents. I was talking to Martyn there about my enthusiasm for buying and selling stuff and he said ‘Why don’t you go and do a market stall?’ It was good advice
Hobgoblin Bristol. It’s on a hill…
and we settled eventually in the market at Burgess Hill. We went to the folk clubs too and we’d meet musicians who had instru- ments to sell and others who were looking to buy them, so we were able to fill a need.”
Word about the new traders spread quickly via the DIY folk press, something that the company continues to support. “I’ve got this view that we should keep advertising in all the little folk music maga- zines that you might find on a table in a folk club,” confirms Pete. “Things like Tykes’ News are so important to the scene and I’m pretty sure the internet isn’t ever going to completely wipe that out.”
Recognising the importance of the rapidly-growing festivals, the McClellands hit the road.
“We went first to the Lacock Folk Festi- val [now Chippenham] and had a pitch in the street fair, next to Free Reed records, who showed us the ropes. We did Bracknell – which was easy as we already had a con- tact there, and then just rolled up at Cam- bridge and blagged our way in. Then we just got into the habit of doing that and kept adding a few more until we were doing 20 or 30 festivals a year. Our daugh- ters came with us and they’d sell the tin whistles and morris bells, while Mannie and
I sold the concertinas and melodeons and guitars and such. We’d spend the whole summer all travelling together – we did that for a long time!
The first bricks-and-mortar Hobgoblin shop opened in Crawley in 1977.
“We took over a 20-year lease after only three years, without really realising what a big deal that was!” laughs Pete. “We were just too gung-ho to worry about stuff like that, then. My sister lent me a couple of thousand pounds to pay the premium, which luckily we were able to pay back fairly soon.”
he London shop came next, initial- ly located in Cecil Sharp House. “The EFDSS called me up in 1992 and asked if I’d take over the Folk Shop and run it for them. By then I was getting fairly ambitious, so we took it over and paid for some internal redevelopment and those stairs that now go directly to the basement, which back then all came to £17,000. God knows how I had that sort of money! Our relationship with EFDSS was mixed, so when the agreement was up for renewal we searched for somewhere else and ended up in Rathbone Place.”
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There are now Hobgoblin shops in Lon- don, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Wadebridge, Birmingham, Canterbury, Brighton and Southampton and Pete is quick to praise the staff who run them.
“I don’t think there’s really a direct competitor to Hobgoblin as we’re a bit different to everybody else. We’re one of the largest music chains in the country, yet we don’t sell everything. We’re still folk specialists and the people who work for us just love the music. I got very jeal- ous of them all in the 1980s as they were out gigging, whereas Mannie and I were so tied up with the business, we never got out. I changed my life massively for the better in 1995 when I started to play five-a-side football again and we formed the Blackthorn Band and have been gigging most week- ends since then. I’m much happier now I’m getting out and playing, even though it makes me tired, it’s such a great pleasure!”