Up Church Street on the edge of Alfreton’s town centre buzz sits a den of records, tattoos and downright mellow.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Answer to life. Happiness, enjoying yourself, don't take it too seriously. That was just,
00:29 don't be afraid to make mistakes. Do what you want to do. If you've got a passion, do
00:37 it before it can be too late. That's what I'd always say to anybody. Do what you want.
00:43 Have fun. Hello, my name's Adam. I'm the owner of Retro Ink in Alfredton in Derbyshire. Retro
00:51 Ink was set up in February of last year. It consists of a record store, band merchandise
01:00 and a tattoo studio. I've always collected records for a number of years. A real passion
01:07 for them. I was working for a large PLC company. I was getting a bit tired of that so I went
01:17 away on holiday. Decided to follow a dream and set Retro Ink up. I'm Carly, I'm one of
01:24 the tattooists at Retro Ink. I've always enjoyed art. The art of tattoos, I've always liked
01:32 that. I've always wanted tattoos myself. But growing up and stuff, it's always been something
01:37 I've been interested in. But to begin with, I dropped out of uni and it was just something
01:43 I thought I'd try. Didn't know if anything would come from it but it did. It was the
01:49 first day I was like, yeah, I'm going to do it. I ended up tattooing my dad and my brother.
01:55 And then the week after that I tattooed my sister-in-law. And then I think it might have
02:01 been my mum. The vibe of the shop, we're very relaxed. We have a customer first approach.
02:10 We're a team. We communicate. We respect one another. We love what we do. We've become
02:17 a real part of the community. People just pop in, they want to talk. You might be the
02:22 only person that they speak to that day. So come in, sit down, we have a cup of coffee,
02:29 we put the world to rights and off they go again. So it's nice. It's nice to feel part
02:36 of the community and it's nice to know that we're doing something within the community
02:40 as well, whether it's just a conversation over a cup of coffee.
02:46 I'm Georgia. I've just started at the shop about three months ago. I'm training with
02:51 Carly at the moment. It's something that I've always been interested in. I've always enjoyed
02:57 getting tattooed and enjoyed the artwork. I mostly started out sketching, painting,
03:05 then wood burning. I've wanted to build up my confidence doing that before, but I might
03:11 work onto people forever.
03:14 So basically in here is where I keep all your records. So you'll find anything from new
03:20 releases to first pressings, anything from the 1950s up until modern day releases.
03:29 So in this room here, we've got our Koi footwear. It's really cool stuff. So it's different,
03:37 it's alternative, it's 100% vegan and they're really good priced as well. They do bags,
03:45 again, 100% vegan. And then we have some accessories. So anything from oil burning wax melts, key
03:56 rings, travel mugs, tattoo merchandise, candles, incense, greetings cards, necklaces, coasters,
04:11 umbrellas. So it's all a little bit different.
04:15 When I started doing that, it was something that I was always interested in. This is one
04:20 of my favourite pieces that I've done. I guess before I managed to find a studio to start
04:27 training in, it felt like I was just tattooing wood. Yeah, I've got a range in the shop as
04:33 well. A bit of everything from little bookmarks to bigger pieces like that.
04:40 Something else that I've been doing is putting portraits on records, so old vinyl records,
04:45 and then the artist or anything related to the song on it, and then sketch it and paint
04:50 it on.
04:51 I really like fine lines, like doing fine lines, dark stuff, quite gothic. Something
04:58 I've really got to, like you've always got to concentrate anyway, but something I've
05:01 really got to think about. When I used to get tattoos myself, I enjoyed watching it
05:05 and that's one thing that did get me into it. Because obviously there's different skin
05:09 types and stuff like that, so each day you're learning something new about it.
05:12 Afton, it's a very close community. People want businesses to succeed, people want to
05:19 see change within the area, people support independent businesses. Great people. Before
05:29 I had this shop here, I didn't know much about Afton at all, so I really do feel like
05:34 it's a community.
05:37 It's different. There's a lot of different people and there's always somebody new that
05:41 you meet. We've got people who walk past every day, and even if they don't come into
05:44 the shop, you just know them.
05:46 I only really started coming here once I was working in the shop, because I'm from Clay
05:50 Cross. And the thing with Clay Cross is they've got a big independent business scene, and
05:57 I've noticed that here as well. It's nice, friendly businesses and friendly people.
06:04 Definitely goes without saying, Nirvana MTV unplugged. Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon,
06:13 because everybody should have that in their record collection. Pink Floyd, wish you were
06:19 here. One of the most iconic albums ever.
06:22 [Music]