By Ian Baker and Nigel Brown
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| © Google Maps. The final sections of the route |
The last four stops on this epic 5-part series recalling cycle-rides around Portsmouth in the early 1970s are all second-hand shops that figured large in our travels. They were further north on Portsea Island from Southsea, but that was nothing to teenage lads with Carlton Corsa racing bikes and school haversacks ready to carry the goods.
We take up our journey traveling north from Arundel Street (see previous episode) towards Buckland......
Stop #25 - Second-hand Shop just inside Church Rd, off St.John’s Road
Even St.John’s Road in that part of Portsmouth hasn’t survived the residential redevelopment since the 1970s. I think it was somewhere around where Glidden Close is today, just south of St.John’s Cathedral Catholic Primary School.
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| © Google. Area highlighted is where shop was located. |
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| © DC. The actual GL/GA #76 |
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| ©DC. Forever People #1 |
“It was a dreadful dump, mentioned in that article ‘Memories Are Made Of This’ by Dave Jackson in Comics Unlimited # 33. Demolished since then. That whole area’s been redeveloped a long time now, but in those days there were rows of terraced houses, and a small parade of shops. That was where I got a Forever People # 1, and a GL/GA #76 for 1p each. A few years later I showed the GL/GA to my friend Neil when he came round one day to see my comic collection. I offered it to him for £5. He really wanted it, but his mum wouldn’t pay out!” – Nigel
Stop #26 - Second-hand Shop at the end of Lake Road, part of a small row, close to the corner opposite Constad Jewellers, near to St.Mary’s Church in Fratton
The route of Lake Road was re-aligned in the late 1970s, but in our comic collecting days it joined Kingston Road at the Tramway Arms. The second-hand shop was on the south side of the road, across Kingston Rd from Hampshire Street.
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| ©DC. Flash #113 - a opportunity passed up |
“I remember they had junk furniture sticking out into the street. The place never looked very promising but once – significantly – they had a small collection of very early 1960s Flash comics for sale that I hadn’t seen elsewhere (and not again until at the London comic marts). Issues like Flash # 113.” – Nigel
Stop #27 - Gibbs – New Road, Fratton/Copnor boundary, between Burleigh Road and Langford Road
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| ©Google. Row of shops where Gibbs used to be |
“Another second-hand shop Geoff introduced us to. My memory is that it was run by a Mrs. Gibbs (“Ma Gibbs” as she was known locally in Copnor) who had books and magazines and comics in piles around the shop, frequently with one or more of her many cats sitting on the papers. The place smelled of cat, or cat food.
The shop had a yellow front with one of those dog mannequins outside with a slot for donations for animal welfare. It has been said that once her bills were paid, Mrs Gibbs gave all the remainder to the RSPCA.
It did turn out to be a good place to get old Bantam Doc Savage paperbacks. I picked up copies of both Doc Savage paperbacks #14 and #22 there in April 1976.” – Ian
“This was an old favourite, and often reliable, run by an older lady, a slightly less caustic version of Ena Sharples, I always thought. The shop had a striking yellow frontage.” – Nigel
Stop #28 - Second-hand Shop on corner of Knox Rd and Stamshaw Road, close to Angerstein Road
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| ©Google. Location of 2nd hand shop corner of Knox Rd and Stamshaw Rd. Another residential conversion |
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| ©DC. Ian picked up a very scruffy version of Batman #213 - I think it was coverless. |
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| ©Marvel. Another gem picked up at Knox Rd - Ian's earliest Conan (at that time). |
“We have Geoff (Cousins) to thank for identifying this shop. They had a pile of very early 60s comics, rough condition. Plus Doc Savage paperbacks. I remember getting an early Conan here (Conan #5). Also a very tatty copy of Batman Giant #213. My overriding memory is that the place had a stale odour.” – Ian
“This shop was a bit of a cycle ride, up in North End. Perhaps it was the first time I went there, but I remember there were a particularly nice pile of American comics for sale. After that, I always anticipated a good haul of comics and most visits didn’t disappoint. The comics pile was along the side of the shop, close to the window. I recall the owner was a little dumpy lady, with short black hair.
“Once I passed on a Teen Titans comic because there was no number on the cover. It was Teen Titans #1.” – Nigel
“I remember going to a shop on the corner of Knox Rd & Stamshaw Rd, buying D C & Marvel comics, return when read take back & swop with a penny to get another. Being a geek. Great .” Wayne Johnson from FB “Memories of Bygone Portsmouth”
Our knowledge of the North-East area of Portsmouth was mostly due to the familiarity our pal Geoff Cousins had of the area, having grown up in Copnor. And so our final stop - Stop #29 , if Geoff was accompanying us on our travels, was a corner newsagent in Tangier Rd, close to Geoff's Nan's house where a glass of orange squash might be waiting.
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Nigel Brown writes:
About ten years after those halcyon days, my research for our fanzine SuperStuff No.11 (Aug.1984) took me back around the streets of Portsmouth and Southsea. I reported:
‘Of the second-hand shops we haunted, on a recent trip I was only able to find two that possibly had some comics for sale. In one, a shop, in Angerstein Road where they always had sixty to seventy comics in a pile in the corner, I was told, “I can’t get them for love nor money.” In the other, Gibb’s in New Road, I was shown a mangy pile of Charltons and a few badly damaged Marvels (last months, I think!). Oh yes, and a copy of Detective Comics No.426 (1972) that wasn’t even in good enough condition to buy at 6 pence. These were the only two second-hand shops, of the ones we used to visit that I could find at all! Some, like the old Book Exchange have been knocked down to make way for a rubbish tip, and some, like a smelly old place in Arundel street that was always good for 1960 to 1964 DCs have been boarded up and lie derelict.’
By now, in 2022, charity shops have replaced those private enterprises in the ecosystem of the high street. In some cases, a second-hand shop’s position in a residential area has encouraged a re-conversion back into a residential dwelling (eg. The Book Exchange in Devonshire Avenue).
I think, too, that the move of American comics from the easily available newsstands into specialist direct-sale shops has cut off the supply of old comics to charity/second-hand shops. That, together with the now-common perception amongst the public that old comics are ‘worth money’, leading to preferred sales through eBay, or to comic dealers, means that even the charity shops are unlikely to stock old comics.
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Well, that about wraps up our memories of newsagents and second-hand shops in Portsmouth in the early to mid 1970s. Interestingly, in all of our travels on the Comic Hunt I do not recall ever crossing paths with other collectors, which in retrospect seems strange on an island city of a quarter of a million people. Certainly there was enough comic content available to satisfy the demands of scores of teenage schoolboys. The letters pages of fanzine Fantasy Unlimited (later Comics Unlimited) revealed the names Dave Jackson and Bernard Smith as avid Portsmouth-based fans in those mid-70s days, who frequented the very same haunts, but we have yet to meet them. Hopefully some of them will see this blog entry and raise their heads above the parapet in the comments section below.
Of course, collecting comics in Portsmouth didn’t end then! Look out for the next in this series:
‘Beyond the Bronze Age (early 1980s to the present day)’
