Hi Newbie,
Very interested in your comment about supplying weekly singles charts for the Mail. Can you tell us more about that.
Incidentally, I first knew Hobdays shop in Poplar Road as a child in the early 1950s. In the 1970s/80s I used to buy guitar strings from the Music Centre at Oak Tree Lane.
Recently I came across a 78 rpm record in a charity shop which was in a cardboard sleeve carrying the name Alfred Hobday with two addresses: High Street, Kings Heath and Woodbridge Road, Moseley. A bit of research confirmed that Alfred Hobday 'piano dealer' was at 20 High Street in the 1932 Kelly's Directory, prior to their Poplar Road location.
Brian